Plans are moving forward on a Virginia Beach shopping center built around historic home

Plans are moving forward on a Virginia Beach shopping center built around historic home

VIRGINIA BEACH

Development is moving forward on a shopping center planned around the preservation of a historic home, two years after it was approved.

Hickman Place, at the corner of General Booth Boulevard and Nimmo Parkway, will be anchored by a grocery store, according to paperwork field with the city’s planning department. The developer’s attorney declined to give the store’s name.

Once the rest of the development is ready to be constructed, the historic Hickman House can be moved to its new location on the 12-acre site.

Attorneys for developer Michael Sifen asked the planning commission Wednesday to make small changes to the development plan to give the anchor tenant more room.

The store will use 45,600 square feet of space instead of 32,000 square feet, according to paperwork filed with the city.

It won’t change the total amount of retail space, which will still be 93,351 square feet.

Progress on the overall development is a good thing, said historic preservation planner Mark Reed. In 2014, the city’s historic preservation commission had concerns about moving the home. Now, the group is just happy the home won’t be demolished, Reed said.

“Their main concern has been that’s nothing happening on the property,” he said.

The grocery store will be in the northeast corner of the development, across a parking lot from the relocated Hickman House. The home will be moved to the northwest corner of the development site once construction begins at the site, attorney Eddie Bourdon said.

The Hickman House was built around 1832 and was an inn for travelers with a tavern downstairs. Once Hickman Place is finished, the two-story building will have some sort of food business, like a coffee or sandwich shop, and office space, Bourdon said.

Sifen looked into getting the home on a state or federal historic register, but it probably wouldn’t have met the requirements, Reed said.

Article courtesy of The Virginian Pilot