NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Not even a year after Norfolk City Council signed off for the development of apartments at a longtime former hospital, a new plan has emerged that would clear the site for a non-profit whose goal is to combat generational poverty.
Friday, the Norfolk-based “Next Step to Success” program revealed that they would be purchasing the former DePaul Hospital property that sits off Kingsley Avenue in the Riverpoint area of the city and turning it into the “St. Vincent de Paul House.”
“The Hospital of St. Vincent dePaul,” was the name when the first medical facility opened up on the site in 1856.
The new development will include “learning houses,” a gymnasium, a dining hall, gardens and a regulation-size soccer field, all to serve 300 students as part of Next Step’s afterschool and summer “experiential learning” programs, according to a release.
Program leadership said they hope to have the campus up and running in two years as their goal is lofty: cut the poverty rate in Norfolk by one-half within a generation.
“It’s a major investment we are making because we believe strongly that someone has to take the lead and doing something about this chronic intergenerational, seemingly attractable, high rate of poverty in Norfolk where over 25% of children are in poverty,” Chuck McPhillips, founder and chairman of Next Step to Success, said.
Founded in in 2021 by the James Barry Robinson Institute, Next Step to Success currently holds its programing at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, adjacent to the DePaul property.
Students living in some of Norfolk’s most underserved communities between the ages of 13-18 are picked up from school and go to the church, where they participate in everything from boat-building and learning to sail to visual and performing art.
The hope is that through those activities the students will “develop the character strengths and higher self-expectations necessary to achieve their full God-given potential.”
While McPhillips wouldn’t initially disclose the purchase price, he said the non-profit purchased nearly 16 acres on the north side of Kingsley Lane.
Valued by the city at, $31 million, the Norfolk Real Estate Assessor confirmed the purchase price for the land was $5.7 million.
McPhillips said they have a long way to-go to make their vision a reality. He doesn’t have the total cost yet, but they will include the cost to demolish of the 617,000 square foot 1944-era hospital.
“The old hospital is not in good shape,” McPhillips said. “We want our project to be a jewel.”
Next Step for Success will have to go in front of City Council for a rezoning request.
Bon Secours closed the hospital in March 2021, consolidating acute care and emergency services to Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth.
In March, City Council approved a plan put forward by developer Buddy Gadams and Marathon Development Group that would have brought nearly 500 apartments to the former hospital.
However Rob Wright, with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer commercial real estate, confirmed the deal fell through several months ago.
Calls to Marathon Development Group were not immediately returned.
McPhillips, a longtime attorney who was born and raised in Norfolk, wants to make clear that nobody will be living on the property under their plan.
Renderings prepared by Norfolk-based Work Program Architects, evoke college campus like brick structures.
However McPhillips wanted to make clear that nobody would be living on site.
“We just using the word ‘house’ in the figurative sense to signify how homey or at home we want the young folks to be … we don’t want them to feel like they are going from one home to another,” McPhillips said.
He said the program is supported in part by an endowment from the The Barry-Robinson Trust, an organization founded by late Norfolk businessman Frederick J. Robinson that’s driven by its Catholic heritage and mission to improve the lives of children and their families.
However Next Step to Success also runs on donations.
“We’re going to need help, we can’t do it on our own,” McPhillips said.
CEO Rob McCartney said in its third year, Next Step To Success has outgrown its current capacity. He applauded the move to acquire “Virginia’s oldest Catholic hospital property,” to be repurposed.
“The team at The James Barry-Robinson Institute is honored to continue its service to the Norfolk and greater Hampton Roads community with programs that lead with compassion and hope while giving great consideration to the memory of DePaul Hospital and the countless families impacted by their unwavering commitment to care,” McCartney said.