Hampton City Council Work Session - September 10, 2025
Hampton City Council Work Session - September 10, 2025
The Hampton City Council held a work session on September 10, 2025, beginning at 6:00 PM. The meeting featured three major presentations: proposed streetscape improvements for Settlers Landing Road, an overview of Parks and Recreation goals including pursuit of national accreditation, and a request to use an alternative procurement method (CMAR) for five sanitary sewer force main replacement projects. Council also voted unanimously to convene a closed session for legal and real estate matters.
Discussion Items
- Settlers Landing Road Improvements – Michael Bowery, Interim Director of Public Works, presented a concept plan to enhance pedestrian safety and placemaking along Settlers Landing Road between Eton and King Streets. Key features include: removing on-street parking on the south side, adding a shared-use path, vegetative median, widened sidewalks, raised crosswalks (shortening pedestrian crossing from 70 feet to 50 feet), and a series of seven backlit archways to create a tunnel effect and slow traffic. The entire block between Wine and King will be raised to curb level. Design is in early stages; construction is anticipated to begin in 2026 and finish in 2027-2028, coinciding with the completion of the HRBT expansion. Council members expressed strong support. Vice Mayor Brown inquired about potential different inscriptions on each arch. Mayor Gray and Councilwoman Mugler asked about the existing large speed bump and confirmed the raised crosswalks will be uniform. Councilwoman Farabee asked about accelerating the timeline using alternative procurement, but noted the project is already designed.
- Parks and Recreation Department Overview and CAPRA Accreditation – New Parks and Recreation Director Darrell Crittenden presented his department's mission and goals after less than two months on the job. He outlined a plan to achieve national CAPRA accreditation over four years, which requires meeting 154 national standards. Key initiatives include: hiring a finance accreditation manager (starting September 29), certifying staff in playground safety, increasing maintenance standards (e.g., mowing every 12-14 business days), expanding programs (senior trips, holiday lighting), and implementing cost recovery (targeting 70% program cost recovery). He assessed current park conditions as a "C" grade, aiming for "A". Council members were supportive. Councilwoman Farabee and Councilwoman Mugler noted the need for budget prioritization and potential savings from efficiencies. Councilwoman Harper encouraged community involvement in recreation centers. Councilman Bowman praised the focus on lawn maintenance and holiday lighting. Vice Mayor Brown asked about equipment replacement and program expansion. The director noted that a parks master plan RFP will be finalized with input from the new senior management team by end of September.
- Alternative Procurement Method for Sewer Force Main Projects – Senior Civil Engineer David Powell requested council approval to use a Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) procurement method for five sanitary sewer force main replacement projects, which are needed to maintain consent order compliance. CMAR would bring the contractor into the design phase early, improving cost certainty and reducing public disruption. The projects include the complex Aberdeen Road force main (over 1 mile, serving three pump stations), Pump Station 5 (single road access), Pump Station 22 (Gilbert Street), Pump Station 26 (near buildings), and a crossing near NASA Langley utilities. Powell contrasted CMAR with traditional design-bid-build and design-build, noting that other Hampton Roads localities have used collaborative methods successfully. Council members did not ask questions; Mayor Gray thanked Powell for considering citizen convenience.
Key Outcomes
- Council unanimously voted (7-0) to convene a closed session at approximately 6:55 PM to discuss appointments, real estate in Thevis area, Peninsula Airport Commission investment, legal issues regarding a terminated federal grant and a proposed development, and pending litigation settlement. Council was to reconvene afterward to certify the closed session and adjourn.
- No binding decisions were made on the presentation items; they were informational. The approval for the CMAR procurement method was listed as a consent agenda item for the regular meeting later that evening (Item #2). Feedback from council will be incorporated into the design of Settlers Landing Road and the Parks Department's accreditation process.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon and uh welcome to the Hampton City Council work session. Uh I'd like to ask the clerk to call the role. Councilman Bowman, Vice Mayor Brown. Here. Councilwoman Campbell, present. Councilwoman Fairby. Present. Councilwoman Harper. Present. Councilwoman Muggler. Present Mayor Gray. Present. And Councilman Randon Bowman is now with us this afternoon. I think he may be joining us later. I know he had a medical uh matter to take care of. And then also uh city manager is out of town uh this week, and so filling in as a deputy city manager Brian DeProfio. So we are in good hands with uh Brian, and uh so I'm gonna ask him to uh introduce the first item for this happening. Thank you, Mayor. Um back in uh 2021, the downtown Hampton Development Partnership presented a plan for implementing various public infrastructure projects um downtown, and uh council has has funded um many of the projects that were presented as part of that that uh that proposal and the first of those projects was uh Queensway, which that project is wrapping up now. Um, the improvements that we've made in in front of uh the restaurants on Queensway. Um the next major project that is slated um to uh to move forward is the settlers landing road um renovation project. Um our interim director, Michael Bowery is here to present counsel um the concepts associated with uh with that project. So with that, I'll turn it over to Michael to take us through the presentation. Good afternoon, Mayor Gray, Vice Mayor Brown, members of the council, deputy city manager De Profio and City Attorney Sid Noorr. Uh as Brian said, I'll be giving a brief update on the Settlers Landing Roadway improvements. So in February of 2024, Public Works conducted a traffic study. We recommended from that study, uh, we got with the police department to enforce the 25 mile per hour speed limit. We added no turn on red signage throughout the corridor, and then we lengthened the pedestrian signal times, allowing pedestrians a longer time to cross the road. In addition to that, we've also incorporated one uh intersection where it's a complete dead red stop. That means all of the stop lights in that intersection turn red and allow the pedestrians to safely cross. Uh and to align specifically with council's strategic priority area of placemaking. So in this presentation, we're gonna be focused on the area highlighted in the red. Um you will see kind of images in the background, but they're incorporated into a a future project, which would be Carouso West uh and Carousel Park East project. So I just want to kind of put that disclaimer first. The area box off in the red is what we're gonna be talking about for this presentation. So here you'll see a view of the current conditions at Eton Street. We're at the base of the settler's landing bridge uh looking into downtown Hampton. Some key components I want you to look at from this and to the next slide is you see the parallel parking on both sides of the street. Uh you'll see the the crosswalk how it is now. The the median is that concrete median. In addition to that, you have um the the flat crosswalks. In this next proposed rendering right here, you see how we're incorporating some changes to improve pedestrian mobility, but also to incorporate uh placemaking features. So a big a big feature is that entryway arch uh going into downtown Hampton. You do eliminate the on-street parking on the south side of the street, as you can see in the image on the left. Uh you have that shared use path. We keep the parallel parking on the north side of the street. We add uh the instead of the concrete median as we saw in the picture before, how it is now, we have a vegetative buffer and that as a median. In addition to that, we've shortened the crosswalks. Uh they're called bump outs, but basically the distance currently is 70 foot for the pedestrian across the street. We're shortening that to 50 feet.
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