The Partnership had predicted the day would come when the proposed St. Paul’s Quadrant Plan would jump into first place over The Greater Wards Corner Comprehensive Plan which was approved by City Council on December 21, 2004. To date, there has been very little implementation of The Greater Wards Corner Comprehensive Plan. Pilot Online reports the unveiling of this huge new downtown project which will relocate as many as150 low income households in one fell swoop. To his credit Councilman Don Williams thinks Wards Corner should get funding before St’ Paul’s. Williams said,
We need to do things in a pecking order,
Mayor Fraim was quoted as saying,
We have several competing interests we’ll have to sort through.
But in a city as large as ours, we should be able to do several large projects.
We shall see if the Mayor puts as much effort in his support for Greater Wards Corner as he puts in Downtown.
Wards Corner Now - Wards Corner, Norfolk, Virginia 
This plan just adds to the decision to take light rail up Fenchurch to Church & Granby, through Wards Corner to Ocian View. Of course there would be a transfer station at Wards Corner (were Peoples was located) to take commuters to the Navy Base and the Penisula through the third crossing. A cross station could be built by the Zoo to feed ODU. Everyone wins!!!
I was watching the 2020 Plan for Norfolk the other night on TV 48 and the one thing that stuck out in my mind was the planner making a comment something like; there would be no reason for residents living downtown to leave downtown, that everything they would need (services, retail, entertaiment, etc) would be nearby downtown.
What about US in the burbs. It was like there will be two different cities when the 2020 plan is completed.
History will repeat itself again. If you look at the Design Book Norfolk put together 5 years ago they write about the different areas of Norfolk. When they write about our area the talk was about people NOT wanting to live so close to their neighbors in the row houses/apartments and the density of the population Downtown. So people moved out and built in the areas like around Wards Corner.
People wanted single family homes with yards and safe neighborhoods to raise their families in.
We have made that cycle in about 70-80 years. We need to be ready to give those young families 20 years from now a safe place to raise their children, with a yard.
Give us mass transit (Light Rail) in Wards Corner and the redevelopment needed and we will not see that young family flight out of Norfolk in 20 years like we have seen in the past.
Now that is called Planning and I did not charge the tax payers a dime (Wards Corner 2020 Plan).
I am glad Don Williams is also on board to support funding to revitalize Wards
Corner sooner than the St. Paul’s Quadrant. Let’s make sure this project comes
to fruition for the betterment of our area for the future. Thanks!
Will Hart
just another plan to put us out of touch of any thing being done to our neighbor hoods of wards corner.i am just glad that i will be leaving this city shortly with all it’s broken promises.there is just one thing the folks can do and that is to band together and vote out all of the city councilAND TRY TO START FRESH.
I don’t blame you one bit on that B Davis downtown specifically Tidewater Gardens and surrounding areas need a face lift I have been here 7 years and I have never seen such slow progress on making a community better. Crime, Eye Soars and all. Moving is a good answer
I am disheartened — but not really surprised — that the good will shown towards Wards Corner during the re-election campaign has been cast off. Mr. Williams, thank you for speaking up on our behalf! To the rest of council…what can I say? You’ve let us down, but we will not give up the fight for Wards Corner.
To all the people who read this information, take this opportunity to call and let your elected representative’s know what you want done in your city. Tell them loud an clear, if you do not speak up, they will not know how you feel about a subject. Thanks for listing to me. RJ Luce
Wards Corner MUST come first! I hope that the city council will get numerous public comments about the need to get Wards Corner up and running before they displace another couple thousand low income folks out of the city.
at least someone downtown is pulling for us. it is kind of sad that they keep increasing my assessment and now yet another section of the city is to be bulldozed. so anyone want to guess where all those people are going to wind up when they bulldoze the public housing downtown? i’ll give you a hint… wards corner. im a wage slave trapped in a shack that i cant sell because the city just keeps dumping more and more underprivileged and “entitled” people into the area that i live while raising real estate values in their neighborhoods. i voted for the incumbents this time around hoping these “politicians” would keep their word. next time they are up for election and they have jammed me one more time putting someone else “needs” ahead of mine while i pay the property taxes to support it then they will have to deal with a more politically active constituency.