 
Gulfport Development Commission, City Council to Visit VA
Property Monday Members of the recently formed Gulfport Development Commission will tour a portion of the VA property Monday afternoon with members of the City Council. The city is to eventually receive the property, some 93 acres, of the former hospital for development. According to Councilwoman Barbara Nalley, the group will meet at the entrance of the VA and then be shuttled to the property's northern section north of the CSX railroad tracks where the VA's former laundry facility is located. Nally says that the City Council received an invitation to join the members of the Development Commission by City Administrator Dr. John Kelly at a recent council meeting. The group is to see what will be done with that section of the property per the preliminary plans of urban architect Andres' Duany, who the city hired to outline what could be done with the site.
Veterans Administration officials have yet to turn over the property to the city, but city officials have met frequently with VA representatives on the outcome of the closed property. The site was scheduled to close over a period of time prior to hurricane Katrina in 2005, with the Biloxi VA and other regional VA centers taking over the workload. Katrina severely damaged most of the buildings on the site and it has been empty since. Some of the buildings have been removed, but many remain but are in poor condition. The VA has been authorized to spend nearly $35 million to clean up the city of the site and partially repair some of the buildings. The city has yet to identify what buildings it wants to keep.
"The property was owned by our nation for 86 years, and during those years its purpose was to serve the veterans of our country," Taylor said. "I want to ensure that this property continues to provide a public service in some capacity," said Taylor in an August interview with the Sun Herald newspaper. Mayor Brent Warr, and some Gulfport business leaders want to develop much of the property for commercial and residential uses. The entire VA property is surrounded by single family residential neighborhoods. Most of the residents in those neighborhoods oppose any high-density commercial or residential condos or apartments. Mayor Brent Warr announced over two years ago that the city would be getting the property. But to date, every public announcement he has made regarding when the transfer would occur has been met with silence by VA officials. Warr's father, Gene Warr, was a member of the VA Closure Committee that met well before the public knew that the property would be closed and turned over to the city. The senior Warr has long made a portion of his money from real estate development and ownership. At the time Gene Warr was on the VA Closure Committee, officials from Gulfport reportedly did not know about his participation. But clearly the Warrs had advanced and inside information regarding the future of the property. This was prior to the election of Brent Warr to mayor in the summer of 2005. Since then Warr and a majority of the City Council created the Gulfport Development Commission to oversee the development and leasing of the VA site and other city properties. The Gulfport Development Commission was created under state regulations that govern urban renewal agencies. However, state laws prohibit cities from creating development commissions. While the city calls its urban renewal agency a development commission, they insist that they are complying with the law. Nalley was among a minority of city councilmembers who did not vote to establish the development commission this past April. Nalley said she planned to be at the meeting Monday.
|
The tour
of the property is to begin at 1:00 p.m. at the gate. Nalley said the
whole council was invited but she is not certain if the whole board will
be able to attend. "If more than three of us are there, it would be
considered a public meeting," Nalley told GCN on Saturday. Attendance of
four of the seven councilmembers at any event constitutes a voting quorem.