Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990 TAG: 9006290698
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The old A&P Grocery building, which houses the mall, is scheduled for demolition next month to make way for a new parking garage that will be part of the Dominion Tower project. Some antique dealers who rent mall space for their businesses are complaining that they have no place to go and that the city doesn't care enough to help them find a new facility.
Roland "Spanky" Macher, who sold the building to the city for $425,000, is angry that city officials won't put off the demolition until summer's end to give the dealers more time to find a new location. "It's not a matter of money; it's a matter of what's moral and what's not," Macher says.
But this building has long been a matter as much of money as of morality. Macher made a nice profit on the sale to the city. And he knew well over a year ago - even before the mall opened last July - that the building would have to be vacated because it would come down when Dominion Tower started going up.
Construction of the tower - a long-anticipated economic-development project, and one of the city's biggest - is now under way. Delaying construction for any reason could prove expensive.
As Vice Mayor Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr. suggests, it was not the city's responsibility to make sure the dealers knew they would eventually get eviction notices. Their gripe is "an issue with the owner, not the city."
If Macher didn't warn them, he should have. So enough, already, of trying to lay the problem on the doorstep of uncaring city officials.
by CNB