Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 9, 1992 TAG: 9203090149
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And each month for the past 14 years, City Council has received a monthly reminder.
That's because ever since Taylor conceived the idea back in 1978, the mountaintop hotel has been among the pending items listed on the City Council agenda every month.
Taylor doesn't give up easily, but he does recognize that financial and political reality might force him to abandon the hotel dream when he leaves the mayor's post in June.
"At this moment, I know that reopening Hotel Roanoke is our No. 1 priority. That is my main concern now," Taylor said.
There are other projects, such as the Jefferson Center and the expansion of the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology, that have a higher priority, he said.
Still, the idea of the mountaintop hotel remains alive in Taylor's imagination - a decade and a half after he proposed it. Taylor has not asked the city clerk's office to remove the hotel proposal from the pending list for a very simple reason: He has not been prepared to drop it.
He made the proposal on July 10, 1978, during his annual state-of-the-city address. He expanded on a proposal for a lodge, restaurant and theater that originally had been included in a consultants' plan for the mountain in 1965.
Taylor envisioned the mountaintop hotel as a landmark.
"From any approach to the city, a hotel on top of the [mountain] would be an instantly recognizable landmark. This hotel would be the only facility of its kind located anywhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway," Taylor said then.
"Since Roanoke is the largest urban community and serves as the nerve center for the entire western half of Virginia, I believe a mountaintop hotel would be a natural attraction to parkway travelers, tourists, vacationers and those attending conventions in the Roanoke area."
Taylor saw a mountaintop hotel as a companion to the Hotel Roanoke.
He proposed a cable-car system so visitors could park at the base of the mountain and ride up in a cable-car lift.
Roanoke almost got the mountaintop hotel, too.
"We were very close to having it - within $2 million to $3 million - in discussions with developers," he said.
At one point, it appeared that the Mill Mountain Zoo would become part of the Explore Park, the proposed living-history park off the Blue Ridge Parkway. That would have freed up space on the mountain for a hotel and other development.
But the idea of moving the zoo has been dropped. The zoo is expected to remain on the mountain and expand.
Taylor's hotel proposal also could conflict with a plan to regulate development on the mountain that was approved by council two years ago.
Evie Gunter, a city planner, said the development plan would not automatically rule out a hotel, but it could be difficult to build one there within the development guidelines.
"There may be opportunities to do some creative things with development, but a hotel could be a problem because of the number of rooms, parking and other things that would be needed," she said.
Taylor said he realizes that a lot of things have changed since he made his proposal. And he doesn't want to leave the mayor's post with "leftover ideas" for the new mayor and council.
He plans to meet with City Manager Bob Herbert and determine whether the hotel proposal finally should be stricken from council's pending list of items.
"I am willing to take it off the list if it's no longer feasible," he said.
by CNB