Operation Smile moving from Norfolk to new Beach building

By Richard Quinn
The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH

City leaders will be grinning wide today as they announce that international children’s charity Operation Smile is moving from Norfolk to Virginia Beach.

The nonprofit agency, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, will erect a new building next to Tidewater Community College’s Princess Anne Road campus, said Lisa Jardanhazy, the charity’s vice president of marketing and communications.

The campus, along with the nearby Sentara Healthcare complex and other landmarks, is part of what Beach leaders call Princess Anne Commons, a corridor that stretches from TCC to the municipal complex.

“It’s going to bring international acclaim, medical and education opportunities,” said Virginia Beach City Councilman Ron Villanueva. “We’re just proud to have a high-profile

organization want to locate here in Virginia Beach.”

Officials from Virginia Beach and Operation Smile will hold a news conference this afternoon to officially announce the move, which has been under discussion for about a year.

Operation Smile was founded in 1982 by Dr. William Magee Jr. and his wife, Kathleen, a nurse and clinical social worker. The group has outgrown its main base on Tidewater Drive in Norfolk, Jardanhazy said.

The agency also has offices in Hong Kong, London and Dublin, Ireland, but the new Virginia Beach hub will be the group’s worldwide headquarters.

“Operation Smile is excited to have this opportunity to be part of Princess Anne Commons,” Jardanhazy said. “It’s an ideal location for us. It’s the synergy of the types of people out there.”

The charity’s new building is expected to be a roughly 65,000-square-foot headquarters at the intersection of Rosemont Road and Faculty Boulevard.

The offices would be next to a similar-sized building that TCC will build for its $31.5 million Regional Health Professions Center. Both buildings will sit on land owned by the city .

TCC’s building is set to open in late 2009, President Deborah DiCroce said.

Jardanhazy could not say when the charity’s new building will open.

Between the two buildings, the city will pay up to $5.5 million for site improvements, including landscaping, utility service and sidewalks.

Nearly $2 million of that was spent last year on TCC’s building, but the balance of the

money will help Operation Smile’s facility earn certification as environmentally friendly.

DiCroce said Operation Smile’s presence in Princess Anne Commons will be a boon for her school and the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center , which houses programs from Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University.

“Right next to us will be an international medical charity that’s treated more than 100,000 children with facial deformities,” DiCroce said, “… (and) that positions a partnership that will play off each other.”

There also could be programs with Sentara, which got preliminary approval this week to build a 120-bed hospital in southern Virginia Beach.

“Let’s touch base three years from from now, five years from now to see what’s developed that I can’t even imagine,” DiCroce said. “And I’ve got a fertile imagination.”

Warren Harris, the Beach’s economic development director, said Operation Smile also may attract other suitors to an area the Beach sees as an important economic corridor.

“It will verify the location as a strategic location that has importance,” Harris said. “It’s almost like having that Good Housekeeping seal.”

Richard Quinn, (757) 222-5119,