NORFOLK, Va. — It's been more than two years since big names like Pharrell Willaims and Emmit Smith presented ideas to transform Military Circle Mall and city leaders are putting those plans on hold for now.
During a city council retreat Monday afternoon, city leaders received an update on what is currently happening at the former Military Circle Mall site.
Director of Economic Development, Sean Washington, said three out of the four outparcels of the mall have been demolished with the last expected to come down in January.
The city expects to begin interior demolition of the mall this spring which could take up to 14 months.
While there was an updated timeline for demolition, the future of the site is still to be determined.
The city confirmed it's putting the three proposed plans on hold as it looks to see what can better serve the area.
"So what we want to do is kind of pull back a little bit," Washington said. "Look at the process we did back in late 2019 and 2020 when we released the first RFP and see how we can fill in the gap with information that we may have missed."
The city does want to revisit a health and wellness theme for the area and has had conversations with Sentara on possibly consolidating where it currently occupies on the property.
"We do know that they're not going to take down 600,000 square feet of office that's' unheard of but we wanted to make sure we presented the opportunity before we go out with another RFP for the site again," Washington said. "What are your [Sentara] needs and can we help incorporate that into the larger plan."
An update was also given by an architecture firm on the status of MacArthur Center.
Heading into the holidays the mall is about 53 percent occupied by tenants.
No future designs were shown at the meeting but an architecture firm did present findings on how the mall could be used as a mixed space.
Some of those ideas include a venue for entertainment, office space, a museum catered to Norfolk's Naval history, and possibly a convention center.
"There's a really interesting mix of new hotel keys plus the existing hotel rooms that exist within walkable downtown to support that medium-sized convention center," Mark Erdly, with Gensler an architecture consulting group, said.
Erdly said they have started a 10-week study on the feasibility of bringing a convention center to downtown Norfolk.
Those findings will be presented to the council sometime next year.
