After successful Better Block projects on 35th Street and in the Arts District in Norfolk, Virginia, Norview Five Points community members and business owners are leading a third Better Block on the 6100 block of Sewell’s Point Road.
The event was catalyzed by organizer Austin Loney’s attempt to relocate their pawn shop business to a building on the street. They found that strict zoning laws regulated, and often prohibited, certain viable businesses from operating on the block.
Therefore, with funding from the Hampton Roads REALTORS © Association, the City and the community are coming together on November 14th and 15th to install pop-up businesses of local Norview entrepreneurs in the vacant storefronts and program the street with activities, outdoor cafe seating, landscaping, live music and food trucks. This, Loney says, will hopefully spur economic development and zoning changes to allow for new businesses to move to the block, reducing crime and making it a more inviting place to live, work and play.
The event will take place from 5 to 11 p.m. on Friday, November 14th, and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, the 15th.
