Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The city Redevelopment and Housing Authority voted Monday to approve sale of the site at Franklin and Williamson roads to the railroad for $1,375,000.
Ground breaking is expected by August and construction could be finished by 1992, said Don Piedmont, NS director of public relations.
Approximately 1,000 railroad employees will have offices in the building, which will replace the company's buildings north of the railroad tracks near Hotel Roanoke.
"We are all delighted that the railroad offices will continue to be a part of the city," Piedmont told the authority's board.
The authority owns the land because it was part of the Downtown East urban renewal project. NS has been negotiating with the authority for several months for the 65,000-square-foot tract, which is now a parking lot.
The new building will have at least 150,000 square feet. Piedmont said architects still are working on the design.
When NS rejected a proposal last summer to join Dominion Bankshares in developer Henry Faison's proposed office tower at Jefferson Street and Salem Avenue, there was speculation that the railroad might move employees out of Roanoke to Norfolk or Atlanta as it has done in recent years.
NS Chairman Arnold McKinnon denied that speculation then. He said the railroad's reasons for constructing its own building were both economic and non-economic, but he declined to go into detail.
Sale of the site is the culmination of "three long years of hard work," said City Manager Robert Herbert. "This helps keep 1,000 jobs here and we can't take that for granted."
Herbert said he understood that the building will be designed so it can be expanded.
The city plans to construct a garage on Church Avenue to provide parking for tenants in the Crestar Bank building who will lose spaces when NS constructs its new building.
The garage, next to Fire Station No. 1, likely would provide parking for NS and the public in addition to the bank, city officials said.
The authority has a legal commitment to provide 266 parking spaces for the Crestar Bank building (formerly Colonial American Bank) under the terms of the original sale of the land.
Plans for the garage are "coming together quickly," Herbert said.
Consultants have recommended the city construct a convention center on the site of the railroad's century-old general office buildings on North Jefferson Street. Herbert said sale of the Franklin-Williamson site did not include any agreement on the old NS building.
After details for the new building and plans for parking have been resolved, Herbert said he will begin talks with NS about the old building.
The city's convention center plans are linked to Virginia Tech's plans to renovate the hotel, which was donated to Tech last year by NS.
by CNB