ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990                   TAG: 9003242295
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SKETCH PREVIEWS HOTEL CENTER

A new architect's sketch shows a handsome convention center and a new Hotel Roanoke conference wing, but Raymond Smoot of Virginia Tech said he will "almost promise" that the finished buildings "will not look like that."

The sketch, commissioned jointly by Virginia Tech and Roanoke, is "very attractive" but only a concept, said Smoot, business affairs vice president at Virginia Tech.

Smoot is overseeing the university's plans for use of the hotel, received as a gift from Norfolk Southern last fall.

In the sketch, a walkway connects the hotel graduate conference center to the convention center, across North Jefferson Street. Another covered walkway leads from the hotel to the Dominion Tower, a high-rise office building to be across the railroad at the Hunter Viaduct site.

Landscaped trees conceal the railroad in the sketch.

Virginia Tech expects to receive a prospectus on the hotel's future use by May 1, he said. Information is being prepared for national hotel developers and investors, who will be sought to take over the hotel.

After studying other schools' hotel operations, Smoot found two approaches - a hotel company acting as its own developer and investors contracting with a hotel company to manage the hotel. "We are looking at both possibilities," he said.

Architects are looking at Tech's program needs in order to translate them into cost figures for developing the hotel, Smoot said.

An Annapolis consultant and RTKL Associates, a Baltimore architectural firm, are preparing the prospectus.

A $20 million trade and convention center at the Norfolk Southern office building site was recommended last May in a downtown development report by RTKL Associates.

That plan is on hold while the city negotiates with Norfolk Southern on the rail system's proposed site for new offices at Williamson and Franklin roads. Until those talks are completed, the old Norfolk Southern office building site will not be available.

A city convention center is very important for Tech to attract capital for the hotel, Smoot said, "but we are not saying the convention center has to be in progress for us to develop the hotel. . . . We are not saying that we will put the rest of the project on hold until the convention center" is started.

Roanoke City Manager Robert Herbert is committed to moving the convention center forward at the earliest date, he added.

Smoot said people were asking city officials what the new buildings would look like and Virginia Tech agreed to share the cost of a sketch. 


 by CNB