Sep. 2--NORFOLK -- Nearly a year after work halted on Granby Tower, the city is finally moving to clean up the construction site, which some officials describe as an eyesore.

Surrounded by chain-link fence, the corner of Granby Street and Brambleton Avenue is stark. There are deep holes filled with water, piles of discarded wood and steel and weeds growing 6 feet high amid rubble.

Cement pilings meant as the foundation for the 34-story, $180 million condominium project lay discarded. An earth mover and mobile crane rust in the sun. Nearby Bute and York streets have been torn up and closed.

The man behind the project, developer Buddy Gadams, lost his financing last September amid the meltdown of the credit markets, and has been pursuing new investors ever since. City officials have been steadfastly supportive.

However, Mayor Paul Fraim took the first step toward cleaning up the site earlier this summer when he insisted that Gadams' Marathon Development move barriers blocking 14 spaces along Granby Street in front of the federal courthouse. Gadams complied. By the middle of the summer, city officials began telling Gadams to do more.

"The time is growing closer where the city will have to take some affirmative steps to reclaim the street, if Buddy hasn't made real progress," Fraim said.

Assistant City Manager Stanley A. Stein said Marathon has agreed to reopen one lane of traffic on Bute Street. The chain-link fence there will be replaced with a wooden fence. Stein said local artists, perhaps schoolchildren, will be asked to decorate the fence.

Gadams said Marathon, and not the city, will pay for the repairs.

City officials may also soon decide to repair sidewalks demolished along Granby Street and Brambleton Avenue.

City officials say that cleaning up the site is necessary for the survival of businesses operating in the area.

Keith Large and Richard Grether, owners of the Oasis restaurant at York and Boush streets, say their business has dropped 40 percent since construction for Granby Tower blocked York Street. Large said a plea he made to Fraim that a walkway be constructed along the closed section of York Street has gone unanswered.

Officials also want the site cleaned for aesthetic reasons -- they say it is a blot in a portion of downtown that is booming. "We need to figure out a way to make it less objectionable looking and more functional," Councilman Barclay C. Winn said.

Nearby, cranes are working on the Wachovia Center office tower, Residence Inn by Marriott Hotel and Belmont at Freemason apartment complex.