Jumping on this one now. In the Tidewater area, a huge outlet mall is going up close to my house. VB/Norfolk made some bastard deal to split property lines and such so that both may benefit. It's south of the airport and is going up on a nice golf course. The only tangible benefit I see is a small strip of people at the fringe of the airport crash zone are finally going to get city water and sewer- if they can stomach the prices.
I see more traffic, more congestion, more cars, more hyped advertising, more vehicles, more trucks, more minivans, more SUV's, more delivery trucks... More damn things on two wheels and four clogging up my roads. I firmly believe all those acres pavement and roof will affect my local microclimate for the worse as well. Just got my new assessment and I see land values are up 13K. It's also fishy land values are up when VB city council seems poised to fund some new mega-arena for a pie-in-the-sky sports team yet unannounced.
I've seen this NW corner of VB overturned for every damn high-density housing project they can possibly fit in in the past decade or so. Only the housing bubble crash slowed things down a bit; times seem to have improved by the look of things.
I feel your pain, brother- I really do.