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Norfolk — The culinary and visual arts center that Tidewater Community College proposed building in Norfolk’s NEON district was envisioned as an anchor, a new downtown destination.
But 2½ years since Mayor Kenny Alexander announced the plans, the Greyhound bus station that was to be demolished to make way for a gleaming new building still sits untouched. A summer 2020 opening date for the project was first pushed to January 2021 and then to fall of next year.
And now, college officials won’t say whether they intend to proceed with the plans at all.
“The college is evaluating all its facility needs,” TCC spokeswoman Naima Ford said this week in response to multiple questions about the status of the project. Many other specific questions went unanswered.
The original plan was to relocate and expand two existing programs — a culinary arts program now on Granby Street and a visual arts program in Portsmouth — and add a new restaurant management program. A student-run restaurant was to be a major feature of the proposed new two-story, 47,000-square-foot facility named for the project’s lead donors: the Patricia and Douglas Perry TCC Center for Visual & Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management.
[ Previous coverage: TCC reveals new details about its planned $20 million Norfolk arts center ]
The Perrys’ contribution, the total sum of which was never announced, was the primary donation to the fundraising campaign at one point called “The Campaign for a Competitive Workforce.” Sited at the entrance to the NEON District, the center was to be both anchor to the arts corridor and a complement to the St. Paul’s redevelopment happening a block to the east.
Other major donations included $1.1 million from restaurant franchise operator Hu Odom, $500,000 each from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation and TowneBank, and another undisclosed major gift from former Norfolk Southern executive and now restaurateur Jim Hixon.
The city of Norfolk, which owns the Greyhound station property on Brambleton Avenue, was set to donate the land to TCC’s real estate foundation, which is technically separate from the college but operates closely with it. The property was estimated to be worth about $1.6 million. But that donation never happened. The college hasn’t raised enough money to meet the threshold the city set to relinquish the property, Alexander said. He was not specific about what that fundraising threshold was.
Members of TCC’s College Board — the largely advisory body that helps hire the school’s president and oversees a small part of its budget — and the real estate foundation’s board said this week they’re not sure where the project stands, either. At the College Board’s meeting last week, one member raised questions about the project but TCC President Marcia Conston and staff gave little update, some of those there said.
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Questions about the lead donors’ continued support of the project have prompted the requests for updates. Several members of both boards said they’re aware of a letter from the Perrys to the college, but haven’t seen the letter themselves. The Virginian-Pilot asked for a copy of the letter six days ago, but the college had not provided one as of Thursday afternoon.
Delceno Miles, a member of the College Board, said she hadn’t seen the letter and didn’t want to speculate on its contents. She said her understanding was the letter went to TCC staff and hadn’t been shared with the board.
Jim Spore, a former longtime city manager in Virginia Beach and member of the Real Estate Foundation Board, also said he and his colleagues had not gotten copies of the Perrys’ letter.
“I have not seen the letter. I have heard about it as you have,” Spore told a reporter Tuesday.
TCC has yet to respond to a public records request made last week seeking a copy of the letter. To questions of whether the Perry Foundation had withdrawn its donation, Ford said only that the college “appreciates our relationship with the Perry Foundation.”
“TCC remains grateful to the Perry Foundation for their continued generosity and support of our students,” she said in a statement.
The Perrys could not be reached. Son Chris Perry, who sits on the family’s foundation, said in a text that it’s “incorrect” that the family has concerns about TCC leadership and the NEON district project but didn’t answer other questions or return calls for comment.
Other donors also did not return requests for comment on the state of the project. Nor did Cindy Free, who chairs the TCC College Board, or Burrell Saunders, who chairs the Real Estate Foundation’s board.
The TCC administrator overseeing the project, Matt Baumgarten, appears to no longer be with the college as of this week. A member of the president’s cabinet and the head of the college’s Real Estate Foundation, his name was taken off the college’s website Monday and his LinkedIn profile now says he works for the state community college system in its “Special Projects” department. TCC didn’t explain his departure, but officials with the state system confirmed that he is “either a member of the VCCS staff, or will be soon.”
Baumgarten also couldn’t be reached.
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Mayor Alexander insisted this week that all parties — TCC, the city and the Perrys — were still “committed” to the idea of the culinary institute, but some “rethinking could be required” given the pandemic.
Alexander said there is a great need for a workforce to fill jobs in the culinary and hospitality fields in Hampton Roads, and if TCC has a curriculum already designed, then the culinary program should continue, perhaps “in some existing building or existing infrastructure.”
And the project that he unveiled more than two years ago to replace the aging Greyhound station? Well, “something” will go there, he said. But he wouldn’t say what.
“The city is still committed to its vision and something will happen there. Maybe or maybe not in conjunction with the current plan,” Alexander said. “It is safe to say that Greyhound, that facility, that building, in the near future it’s coming down and something new is going on that corner. … It’s going to be market driven. The model we had before was predicated on fundraising.”
Staff writer Matt Jones contributed to this report.
Sara Gregory, 757-469-7484, sara.gregory@pilotonline.com
Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com