Norfolk eyes two former school sites for development

The Norfolk city government is soliciting help to figure out how to transform two former school sites into significant assets that generate tax revenue.

The city government has sent out two Requests for Information asking professional real estate development firms to provide insights on how it should develop the former Coronado School and former Madison School properties, which are now owned by the city.

The roughly 2.7-acre Coronado school property at 1025 Widgeon Road — recently appraised at $800,000 — is located in the Coronado neighborhood and is home to a 13,133-square-foot facility. The neighborhood is in the Sewells Point Corridor in central Norfolk and is a largely residential area of single-family homes.

Meanwhile, the 2.8-acre former Madison School site at 3700 Bowdens Ferry Road — appraised at $4.3 million — is located in the Lamberts Point Neighborhood on the Hampton Boulevard Corridor, in western Norfolk. The property houses a 14,069-square-foot facility, originally built in 1962. The RFI describes Lamberts Point as “a historically diverse area of Norfolk” featuring a blend of single-family homes, retail spaces and the Lambert’s Point coal-exporting facility. The site is about a mile from Old Dominion University, which enrolls around 23,000 students and is the fifth-largest employer in Norfolk.

Norfolk wants the firms to determine the best use of the properties, “maximizing legal, financial, and physical potential” and for the suggested uses to support the growth of the adjacent residential and commercial areas. The city asks the firms to clearly explain how they plan to develop the sites, devise a project timeline and explain how the city should fund the projects in their response.

The city wants the new uses of the properties to enhance the “social, economic, and cultural fabric” of the community. The RFIs also ask the firms to explain how the projects would benefit small, woman and minority-owned businesses. The city says the aim is to transform the properties into tax-producing assets. For the Coronado site, the city says it remains open to a wide range of residential uses, whereas for the Madison site, it says it is open to a wide range of both commercial and residential uses.

The city says the RFI process is for collecting information and gauging the interest of developers, with the insights gathered helping inform Norfolk’s strategies for developing the sites. Norfolk stresses the RFIs are not a competitive solicitation, and that the city will evaluate the responses solely for informational purposes and will not lead to the city awarding any contract.

However, the city says the information obtained in the process might inform the creation of a future competitive solicitation.

For both RFIs, the city says it must receive all responses no later than 4 p.m. Feb. 28.

City officials did not return requests for comment by press time.