Effort underway to save historic telephone company building at Virginia Beach Oceanfront

VIRGINIA BEACH — Local history proponents are ramping up efforts to save a city-owned resort area building to keep it from being razed to make room for redevelopment.

Councilman Worth Remick, who represents the district, said there’s a potential private development proposal in the works for the corner of 22nd Street and Pacific Avenue that would include creating a needed turn lane for drivers heading to I-264 West.

“The building may not be able to be worked into the development that’s contemplated,” Remick said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The proposal could put the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company building in the crosshairs.

The building is not up for sale at this point, but members of the Virginia Beach Historic Preservation Commission are asking city officials to figure out a way to preserve it. They would like it repurposed into a museum or maybe a restaurant.

“It has a great history, and we’d hate to see it torn down for development,” said commission Chair Sharon Prescott.

The red brick building was constructed in 1927 as part of an investment in the regional expansion of the telephone system, which included an extension of a long distance cable from Norfolk to what was then the tiny coastal town of Virginia Beach.

When the telephone building opened, it was described in a newspaper article as modern with the appearance of a “well kept residence.”

Prior to its construction, the city’s telephone system operated out of a room in a private beach cottage. The new office housed an updated switchboard, which had the capacity of 4,000 phone lines.

The building served as the company’s administrative offices at least through 1939 and home to its switchboard operations into the 1950s when the utility converted to the dial system and relocated employees to Norfolk.

It was a place where “a battery of girls in headsets sat plugging away before vast button-studded boards,” according to an article in 1958 about the closing.

It reopened as the city’s public library in 1959, where staff improvised in the cramped space, displaying books on windowsills and in closets before moving to a new location in 1978.

The property was later used as a health clinic and storage space for Oceanfront events. It’s been unoccupied for the last several years.

In 2017, the commission tried to create a historic district around the building, but were unsuccessful when a former council member took it off of a list, said Bernice Pope, past commission chair and current member of the city’s Historic Review Board.

The building has notable architectural elements not often seen in Virginia Beach. The two-story, Classical Revival building features a gable front and sits on a raised podium. It has a pedimented front door surrounded by Roman Doric columns built into the wall. The windows on the first level feature cast-stone keystones.

The city recently began the process to determine if the building is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, said Mark Reed, city historic preservation planner. If the city were to sell it, such a designation would provide an owner with tax incentives to preserve it.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson, who is a liaison to the commission, asked City Manager Patrick Duhaney to consider a request for ideas for repurposing the building or relocating it.

“I know that there’s a lot of people who would like that parcel of land, but I don’t really want to tear it down because it’s one of our historic treasures,” Wilson said.

Duhaney said he’ll prepare a report soon for the council to consider next steps.

Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com