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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990                   TAG: 9005110841
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GROUND BROKEN FOR DOMINION TOWER/ LEADERS SEE 21ST CENTURY OF PROGRESS

The mood was upward and onward among the business leaders and city officials who gathered this morning to open the construction phase of what will be Roanoke's tallest building.

A giant balloon marked the building's 320-foot height to give onlookers an idea of the impact the $40-million project will have on the Roanoke skyline.

The 20-story Dominion Tower, to be built in the center of downtown, is a project of Faison Associates of Charlotte, N.C. It will have 205,868 square feet of office space. Dominion Bankshares Corp., for which the building is named, will occupy 90,000 square feet of the building. Two other anchor tenants are the law firms of Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove and Moss & Rocovich.

The project will include a six-level parking garage within the office building and an ajoining garage wing.

The parking facilities part of the project is expected to cost $11,379,000. This will be paid by the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which will lease three stories of the parking garage to Faison for 60 years for use by tenants in the building. The city will own three stories in the garage and operate it as a public parking facility.

A section of the Hunter viaduct, built in the 1950s over the Norfolk Southern tracks, is being razed to make way for the new building.

Henry Faison, president of Faison Associates, joined David L. Caudill, president and chief operating officer of Dominion Bankshares and Roanoke Mayor Noel Taylor in saying that the Dominion Tower is the first step in Roanoke's move to "build bridges" into a 21st century of progress.

by CNB