Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Inside the aging red-brick plaza, all of the shop owners know each other, and most of their customers, by name.
People from the neighborhood walk there to eat a sub sandwich, buy their stamps, do their banking, or get a haircut.
"It's very much a community. It's a neighborhood here," said Annette Yates, owner of Annette's Place, a beauty salon.
It's that sense of community that the businesses at Oak Grove Plaza hope a McDonald's restaurant will preserve. McDonald's has set its sights on the old SupeRx location in the plaza.
"I look at it as the salvation of the mall. The last breath before someone comes in and tears it down," said Chuck Parker, who owns the plaza's Jumbo's Pizzas & Subs.
That's a very real possibility. If Roanoke County officials deny a special-use permit for the restaurant to have a drive-through window, it's doubtful McDonald's would move in. The county Planning Commission holds a public hearing on the permit request tonight at 7 and will make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.
"I've never seen a McDonald's without a drive-through," said Chuck Line, whose company, Tech Line, owns Oak Grove Plaza.
And if McDonald's doesn't come, Line said he's selling.
"I've had it with the center. I'm ready to give it up and let someone else do it," Line said.
That someone could be Collett & Associates, a Charlotte, N.C., commercial and corporate real estate company.
The company has an option with Line to buy the plaza, and it doesn't want to share the plaza with McDonald's.
In a Sept. 7 letter, Collett representative Ryland Winston made his pitch to the Oak Grove Elementary School PTA. Oak Grove Elementary School is just across Grandin Road Extension from the plaza.
"We will only purchase it if McDonald's does not obtain the special-use permit. ... The property will not accommodate both a modern grocery store and McDonald's. If we buy Oak Grove Plaza, the grocery store will be our tenant," Winston said in the letter.
He also characterized the shopping center as "largely vacant and run-down" and outlined the potential headaches a fast-food restaurant would bring to the area.
"The worst case for the Oak Grove community would be that McDonald's obtains a special-use permit, Harris Teeter and Revco close their existing stores across 419, Oak Grove Plaza continues its decline and becomes a worse eyesore," Winston wrote.
However, a spokesperson at Harris Teeter's headquarters in Charlotte and a Roanoke district manager for Revco, both contacted Friday, said they have no plans to close their stores.
Winston also urged parents to push the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to reject the McDonald's plan.
The PTA responded to Winston's call for action with a letter of its own. The Sept.18 letter was addressed to Oak Grove Families.
"Today [Oak Grove Plaza] is run-down and largely vacant. Without a major overhaul, it cannot attract or keep quality tenants. Fortunately, there is a company willing to purchase Oak Grove Plaza and completely redesign and rebuild the entire area," PTA member Betty Nevin said in her letter.
The letter offended and angered the tenants of the plaza. (The PTA has since sent a letter of apology to the tenants).
"It was extremely hurtful," said Carole Kephart, who has worked at Clothes Rack for two years. "There are a lot of little people who are going to be hurt" if Collett buys the plaza.
Winston's letter did not say what the fate of the dozen or so businesses now operating in the plaza would be. He did not return several phone calls Friday.
But at a Sept. 21 community meeting organized by McDonald's, John Draper, who manages the property for Line, said tenants may be worried about nothing.
"I've never seen any draftings or architectural renderings" from Collett, Draper said. "In my opinion, it could be a pie in the sky kind of thing."
Parker, however, isn't waiting for answers. He's been shopping around for a new location for Jumbo's, without much success.
"I've searched and searched, and there's just no place for me to move my restaurant," said Parker, who has owned the business for 15 years. "There are very few places a small restaurant can go."
So Parker has a copy of McDonald's design plan in his restaurant, and he's collecting signatures for a pro-McDonald's petition to take to the Planning Commission.
Line also supports the idea.
"I've lost money on the Oak Grove Plaza for 10 years. The problem is I don't have an anchor store," Line said of the plaza, which is only 65 percent full.
And that has been a Catch-22 situation for him: Without an anchor store he couldn't get a loan from a bank to renovate, and without renovating he couldn't attract an anchor store - until now.
Line said he will renovate if the restaurant moves in.
But the possible grocery store isn't the only obstacle. The stretch of 419 from Brambleton to Apperson Drive is fast-food restaurant-free. And some area residents want to keep it that way.
Robert Shelton, who lives a block over from Oak Grove Plaza, is one of them.
"I don't think we need it out here, and I don't want it," Shelton said. "I haven't talked to any of my neighbors who want it, either."
Neighborhood resistance was enough to keep a Burger King from building a restaurant nearby at 419 and Glen Heather Drive in 1988.
The Board of Supervisors rejected the plan, which was approved by the Planning Commission, after the restaurant failed to win the support of residents in the neighborhood.
by CNB