Virginia Beach Boulevard
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Virginia Beach Boulevard (locally known as just "the Boulevard") was established in 1922 as a concrete roadway extending from the eastern outskirts of the City of Norfolk through Norfolk County and Princess Anne County to the Oceanfront area of the Town of Virginia Beach in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia.
The new roadway provided a major avenue of access by automobile, buses, and trucks to the resort strip which had initially depended upon railroad and electric trolley service.
Over the years, Virginia Beach Boulevard was extended further into Norfolk, and widened. Service roads were built along both sides. After World War II, huge shopping complexes, JANAF Shopping Center, and Military Circle Mall were established near the junction with Military Highway. Further east, Pembroke Mall was built. Gradually, the former farmlands of the two counties gave way to development, and eventually expansion of the independent cities brought the borders of the cities of Virginia Beach and Norfolk together on Virginia Beach Boulevard, near Newtown Road.
Along with a more circuitous along U.S. Route 60 which, as Ocean View Avenue and Shore Drive, looped along from Willoughby Spit along the south shore of the Chesapeake Bay past Cape Henry to reach the Oceanfront area, Virginia Beach Boulevard (designated as U.S. Route 58) served as the primary access route to the Oceanfront area until the largely parallel Virginia Beach Expressway (now I-264) was opened in 1967.
In modern times, Virginia Beach Boulevard remains one of the major traffic arteries and commercial corridors of the City of Virginia Beach, passing through the New Urbanist Town Center development in the Pembroke area at Independence Boulevard. Today, almost the entire length of the Boulevard is signed U.S. Route 58. The exception is its easternmost section, just east of Great Neck Road (State Route 279). Here, Laskin Road splits from the Boulevard and takes up the Route 58 designation while Virginia Beach Boulevard becomes Business U.S. Route 58, a designation it holds until it logically ends at Cypress Avenue. From there east to the physical terminus at Atlantic Avenue, the road continues as the oceanfront's 17th Street.
The flagship store of the 17th Street Surf Shop chain is located at the corner of 17th Street and Pacific Avenue, one block from the terminus.
