Jake’s Insider Neighborhood Guide: Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Author: Jake Maines | Virginia Beach Realtor | Updated October 2026
Lynnhaven is the middle of Virginia Beach: the streets around Lynnhaven Parkway between Virginia Beach Boulevard and I-264, with Lynnhaven Mall at the center and the Lynnhaven River a few miles north. The name gets used three ways (the old borough, the river, the mall area), so when a listing says Lynnhaven, check the map. The housing is a mix: 1960s and 70s ranches and colonials on the older streets, townhouse and condo sections closer to the parkway, and a few newer infill builds. Over the past year detached homes have mostly sold in the mid $400,000s, with townhouses and condos pulling the typical price for the whole area down to about $330,000. NAS Oceana is about 10 minutes, Dam Neck about 15, Little Creek and downtown Norfolk about 20. Below: the shopping, the restaurants, the schools and what to check before you buy.
- Life in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach: Community Overview
- Map of Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Jake’s Top Things to Do in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Jake’s Local Favorites & Best Restaurants in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Local Health Care
- Shopping Centers Near Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Parks and Recreation Around Lynnhaven
- Schools That Serve Lynnhaven Addresses
- View Properties In Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Top Reasons To Live In Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Ask Jake: Your Insider to Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Frequently Asked Questions About Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
- Virginia Beach Neighborhoods
- Contact Jake Maines Today!
Life in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach: Community Overview
The name is older than the city. Lynnhaven was one of the seven boroughs drawn when Princess Anne County and the old town of Virginia Beach merged in 1963, and before that the area went by Henry Towne, Lynn Haven and Bayville at different points. The borough ran from the river down past the Boulevard, which is why you still see Lynnhaven on a school, a parkway, a mall, a river and an inlet that are miles apart. On this page I mean the part most buyers mean: the neighborhoods off Lynnhaven Parkway, South Lynnhaven Road and Rosemont Road between the Boulevard and I-264.
What you get here is the center of the city without the resort traffic. The oceanfront is about 8 miles east on 264, Town Center about 15 minutes, and the Boulevard runs you to anything the interstate does not. The streets are a grid of 1960s and 70s subdivisions with mature trees, and the newer townhouse and condo sections near the mall fill in the gaps. It is one of the few places in Virginia Beach where you can buy a detached house, walk to a grocery store and be on the interstate in five minutes, and it stays on my list of the best Virginia Beach neighborhoods for exactly that reason.
Map of Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Jake’s Top Things to Do in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Most of what you will do in Lynnhaven happens within a mile of the mall, and that is the point of living here. The rec center is on Club House Road, the restaurants are on the parkway, and the river and the boat ramp are a short drive up Great Neck. Here is what I send people to first.
Swim and Lift at Bow Creek Recreation Center
Bow Creek Recreation Center sits at 3427 Club House Road, off Rosemont, and it is the one city rec center I would actually plan a house search around. The building is 67,743 square feet and LEED certified. Inside: an indoor pool with lap lanes, a slide, a diving board and a zero-depth end, plus an ADA lift and a ramp into the water; a double gym; a fitness floor with cardio, circuit and free weights; and a group studio that runs drop-in Zumba, Pilates, yoga and BODYPUMP. A city rec membership covers it.
Visit Ferry Plantation House
Ferry Plantation House is at 4136 Cheswick Lane, about 10 minutes north of the mall in the Old Donation Farm subdivision on the western branch of the Lynnhaven River. The site goes back to 1642, when a ferry started running across the river here, and it later held the third Princess Anne County courthouse (built 1735) and the Walke family’s plantation house, which burned in 1828. The brick house you tour today was built in 1830 from the manor’s leftover bricks. Volunteers run it as a museum, so check the Ferry Plantation House site for open days before you drive over.
Jake’s Local Favorites & Best Restaurants in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
The mall loop and the parkway are where the chains land first in Virginia Beach, so you will eat well here without trying hard, and a few locally owned places on the Boulevard and South Lynnhaven Road are worth knowing by name. Ratings are Google’s as of October 2026.
Cooper’s Hawk – Winery – 4.6 Stars - $$
Cooper’s Hawk is at 733 Lynnhaven Mall Loop, the standalone building on the mall ring road. It is a restaurant with a tasting bar at the front, and the tasting is the move: a flight of their own wines before you sit down. The menu is long and American, the pretzel bread shows up in every review, and it books out on Saturday nights, so reserve. Sunday brunch starts at 10.
Maggie McFly’s – American – 4.2 Stars - $$
Maggie McFly’s is in the mall’s outer ring at 701 Lynnhaven Parkway, a big Connecticut import with a menu that runs to several pages and a bar that stays busy. It is the place for a group that cannot agree: burgers, sushi, pasta, salads and a long gluten-free list all on one menu. Loud, roomy and open late.
Coastal Beach BBQ – Barbecue – 4.6 Stars - $
The barbecue spot at 455 South Lynnhaven Road changed hands this year. A Taste of Texas closed, and Coastal Beach BBQ took the building, running a smoker and a food truck out front while the dining room gets finished. Brisket platters, pulled pork on brioche and a baked mac and cheese that reviewers keep mentioning. Open Tuesday through Saturday 11 to 8 and Sunday afternoons; closed Monday.
Carrabba’s – Italian – 4.4 Stars - $$
Carrabba’s at 739 Lynnhaven Parkway is the dependable one: wood-grilled chicken and steaks, the Sicilian chicken soup, a patio that works from April to October and a happy hour that the parkway offices lean on. It takes reservations, which matters on a Friday here.
Mezeh – Mediterranean – 4.2 Stars - $
Mezeh at 701 Lynnhaven Parkway is the fast-casual option: pick a base, a protein and as many toppings as you like, and the line moves. Chicken shawarma bowls and the falafel plate are what people come back for, and it is open until 10 every night, which is late for this stretch.
Twisted Crab – Seafood – 4.4 Stars - $$$
The Twisted Crab at 2712 North Mall Drive does Cajun boil bags: pick your seafood, pick a sauce and a heat level, and it comes out in the bag. Snow crab and shrimp with sausage, corn and potatoes is the standard order, the catfish basket is the quiet favorite, and there is a full bar.
Virginia Beach Winery – Winery – 4.8 Stars - $$$
Virginia Beach Winery at 1064 Lynnhaven Parkway is a small, woman-owned tasting room known for fruit wines and wine slushies, with board games on the tables and a karaoke night. Tastings are free. Hours are 1 to 7 on the days it opens, and it closes midweek, so check before you go. Dogs are allowed inside.
Iggles – Cheesesteaks – 4.6 Stars - $
Iggles at 2678 Virginia Beach Boulevard is a counter-service cheesesteak shop with an Eagles theme and a line at lunch. The cheesesteak egg rolls are the thing people drive across the city for. Burgers, hoagies and quarter-pound dogs round it out. Lunch and early dinner only: it closes at 5 or 6 and is shut Sunday and Monday.
Local Health Care
Lynnhaven is between the two Sentara hospitals on this side of the city and 10 minutes from the third, which is as good as it gets in Virginia Beach. Here is where you would go for what.
Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital
Sentara Virginia Beach General at 1060 First Colonial Road is about 10 minutes east. It is a 273-bed acute care hospital, a Level III trauma center and an accredited Primary Stroke Center, with heart and vascular, cancer and neuroscience service lines on campus. For anything serious, this is where the ambulance goes.
Sentara Princess Anne Hospital
Sentara Princess Anne Hospital at 2025 Glenn Mitchell Drive is about 15 minutes south down Rosemont and Dam Neck. It is the newer of the two hospitals, with a full emergency department, a maternity unit and medical office buildings on the same campus.
Sentara Independence
Sentara Independence at 800 Independence Boulevard is the closest emergency room to the north side of Lynnhaven, about 10 minutes up Lynnhaven Parkway and Independence. It is a 24-hour, full-service ER with outpatient services on the same campus, and Sentara posts its current wait time online.
Acredale Animal Hospital
Acredale Animal Hospital has a Lynnhaven practice at 2706 Virginia Beach Boulevard, a few doors from Iggles. It is a full-service small animal practice, the local branch of a group that has run in Kempsville since 1986.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and ask a question
Shopping Centers Near Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Shopping is the reason most of Virginia Beach already knows where Lynnhaven is. The mall and the big-box ring around it sit at the 264 interchange, and the strip centers on the Boulevard and South Lynnhaven Road cover groceries and errands. Town Center is about 15 minutes north on Independence if you want the newer stores.
Lynnhaven Mall
Lynnhaven Mall opened in 1981 at Lynnhaven Parkway and I-264 and is still the largest enclosed mall in Hampton Roads, run today by Brookfield Properties. Two levels of national stores, an AMC theater, a food court and a ring of sit-down restaurants on the loop road. Store counts change every season, so use the mall’s own directory rather than any number on a real estate page, including this one.
Lynnhaven North and the Mall Ring
The ring around the mall is where the entertainment landed. Dave & Buster’s is at 701 Lynnhaven Parkway on the mall’s outer loop, and Surge, the trampoline and ninja-course park, is at 2720 North Mall Drive in Lynnhaven North, next door to the Twisted Crab. The rest of Lynnhaven North is big-box and resale: sporting goods, furniture and a couple of second-hand stores that turn over, so I will not list them here.
London Bridge Plaza
London Bridge Plaza is the strip at London Bridge Road and Virginia Beach Boulevard: a coffee shop, a cell store, nail and hair places, a pet groomer, a cleaner and a few counter-service restaurants. It is the errand stop for the streets north of the Boulevard.
Lynnhaven Shopping Center
Lynnhaven Shopping Center on South Lynnhaven Road is the older neighborhood strip: an international grocer, a dollar store, auto parts, a barber academy, pizza and Chinese takeout, with a Wawa and a Waffle House on the corner. Not pretty, very useful.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and ask a question
Parks and Recreation Around Lynnhaven
Lynnhaven’s parks are small neighborhood ones, a playground and a field tucked into a subdivision, and the big outdoor days happen at the rec center or on the water up at the inlet. Here is what is actually close.
Blackstone Neighborhood Park
Blackstone Neighborhood Park is a pocket park at Blackstone Trail and Blitz Court, about 5 minutes south of the mall. A playground, a patch of grass for a dog and street parking, nothing more, and that is fine for what it is.
Surge Adventure Park
Surge at 2720 North Mall Drive is the indoor option for a rained-out weekend: trampolines, a ninja course, dodgeball, a high dive into foam, a trapeze and an arcade. Open Tuesday through Sunday, closed Monday, and it runs holiday hours, so check the site.
New Land Neighborhood Park
New Land Neighborhood Park on New Land Drive is a few minutes further south off Lynnhaven Parkway, a playground with swings and a picnic spot in a 1980s subdivision. Open 6 to 8.
Schools That Serve Lynnhaven Addresses
Lynnhaven is one of the most split areas in the city for school zones, because the Boulevard and the parkway are zone lines. An address south of the Boulevard near the mall typically feeds Lynnhaven or Brookwood Elementary, Plaza Middle and Green Run or Princess Anne High; a few blocks north of the Boulevard you are in Kings Grant Elementary, Lynnhaven Middle and First Colonial High. Nobody should take a listing sheet’s word for it. Put the exact address into the Virginia Beach City Public Schools zone lookup before you make an offer. The schools below are the ones most Lynnhaven addresses feed.
Lynnhaven Elementary School
Lynnhaven Elementary is at 210 Dillon Drive, off Lynnhaven Parkway just north of the mall, and serves kindergarten through fifth grade for the streets between the parkway and Rosemont.
Brookwood Elementary School
Brookwood Elementary at 601 South Lynnhaven Road covers kindergarten through fifth for the southern half of the area, including the streets around Bow Creek. It feeds Plaza Middle.
Plaza Middle School
Plaza Middle at 3080 South Lynnhaven Road takes grades six through eight from both Lynnhaven and Brookwood Elementary, so most of the area funnels here. It sits at the south end of the neighborhood near Holland Road.
Green Run High School
Green Run High at 1700 Dahlia Drive is the zoned high school for the Club House Road and Bow Creek side of Lynnhaven, about 10 minutes south. It runs the district’s Green Run Collegiate charter program on the same campus, which is worth asking about if your address lands here.
Princess Anne High School
Princess Anne High at 4400 Virginia Beach Boulevard is the zoned school for the Lynnhaven Elementary side of the area and is a 5-minute drive east on the Boulevard. Opened in 1954, it is the oldest high school still operating in the city and hosts the International Baccalaureate program.
Playhouse Day Care Center
The Playhouse at 2960 South Lynnhaven Road is a locally owned day care and kindergarten open 6:30 to 6 on weekdays, with meals and snacks included. It has been on that corner for years and fills from the surrounding streets.
The Goddard School of Lynnhaven
The Goddard School of Lynnhaven at 2572 Virginia Beach Boulevard is the franchise preschool option, open 7 to 6 on weekdays since 2014. Infants through pre-K, with the usual Goddard add-ons like sign language and a second language.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and ask a question
View Properties In Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Here is what the money buys. Over the past year 138 homes changed hands across the Lynnhaven area. Detached houses, mostly three-bedroom ranches and two-story colonials from the 60s and 70s on quarter-acre lots, sold around $460,000 in the middle of the range, with the renovated ones higher. Townhouses and condos near the parkway made up a large share of the sales and run well under that, which is why the typical price for the whole area comes in around $330,000. About 8 percent of the homes sit in a FEMA flood zone, almost all along the creeks, so check the address.
If you want to see what is listed right now, browse the houses and townhouses for sale around Lynnhaven Parkway; the list updates live. If Lynnhaven is close but not quite, Little Neck is the next neighborhood east with bigger lots on the water, and Kempsville to the south gives you the same era of house at a similar price with a different set of schools.
Top Reasons To Live In Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
Three reasons Lynnhaven keeps coming up when I am helping someone narrow a search.
Quiet Streets Five Minutes from the Interstate
Once you turn off the parkway the subdivisions are quiet, with mature trees and sidewalks, and you are still five minutes from 264 and the mall. That combination is rarer in Virginia Beach than it sounds.
Central Location to It All
Oceana is about 10 minutes, the oceanfront about 15 on a normal day, Town Center about 15, and Norfolk about 20. Nothing in the city is far, and the Boulevard gives you a second route when 264 backs up.
A Price Range Most Buyers Can Work With
From a $200,000s condo by the mall to a renovated colonial over $500,000, the spread here is wider than in most single neighborhoods, and the detached houses still sell in the mid $400,000s. For a first house or a right-size move, that range does a lot of work.
Ask Jake: Your Insider to Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
I show houses in Lynnhaven most weeks, and I know which streets back onto the creek, which condo sections have the better HOAs and which schools an address actually feeds. When you are ready to look, call or email and we will start with the questions you have.
Jake Maines, Virginia Beach Realtor
Jake Maines is a REALTOR® with Iron Valley Real Estate Hampton Roads, serving buyers and sellers across Virginia Beach. Virginia salesperson license #0225247466, held since August 2020. He is a two-time Circle of Excellence recipient, Gold in 2023 and Platinum in 2024, and was named to Inside Business’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2023. He is a member of NAR and CoVAR.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach
How far is Lynnhaven Mall from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront?
How many stores are in Lynnhaven Mall?
Who owns Lynnhaven Mall?
Does Lynnhaven Mall have a curfew?
Is Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach under an Oceana jet noise zone?
Does Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach flood?
How do you confirm which schools serve a Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach address?
Can you get out on the water from Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach?
Where exactly is Lynnhaven in Virginia Beach?
The middle of the city, around Lynnhaven Parkway and I-264. The name covers more than one thing: Lynnhaven was a borough of Virginia Beach from 1963 until the borough system ended, the Lynnhaven River and Lynnhaven Inlet are 4 miles north on the Chesapeake Bay side, and Lynnhaven Mall sits at the 264 interchange. When people say they live in Lynnhaven they almost always mean the neighborhoods between Virginia Beach Boulevard and the interstate, from Great Neck Road west to Rosemont Road. A “Lynnhaven” listing can be on the river or by the mall. Check the map.
What do homes cost in Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach?
About $330,000 for a typical home, with a wide spread. Over the past 12 months 138 homes sold across the area: detached houses mostly in the mid $400,000s, with townhouses and condos near the mall mostly in the $200,000s to low $300,000s. The detached stock is largely 1960s and 70s construction on quarter-acre lots, so the price gap between an original kitchen and a renovated one is large. You can check what Lynnhaven homes are listed at right now against those numbers.
How long is the drive from Lynnhaven to NAS Oceana and the Norfolk bases?
Oceana is about 10 minutes down Lynnhaven Parkway and London Bridge Road, Dam Neck about 15, Little Creek about 20 up Independence and Shore Drive, and Naval Station Norfolk about 30 on 264 and 64 outside of rush hour. Downtown Norfolk is about 20. Lynnhaven is one of the few neighborhoods where every base on the south side is under half an hour, which is why so many orders land here.
