Virginia Beach Town Center

In the 1990s when Andres Duany made double carousel slide presentations, he used to feature a slide of the Intersection of Virginia Beach and Independence boulevards in Virginia Beach. The suburban intersection boggled the mind with 20 or more lanes of traffic colliding amid a sea of asphalt parking and shopping malls. Today, Duany may be surprised to find a new urban town center rising on one of the corners of that traffic behemoth. Virginia Beach Town Center, designed by Burrell Saunders of CMSS Architects, is well under way with 300,000 square feet of office space, a comparable amount of retail, 342 apartment units, and a 176-room hotel, according to online columnist James Bacon. Under construction are another 42,000 square feet of retail, a 1,200-seat performing arts center, and a 37-story hotel/residential tower. The project is the first urban center between the beach and downtown Norfolk, 22 miles away. The town center is built right up to the sidewalk of Virginia Beach Boulevard, making its urban presence known.