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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990                   TAG: 9007180081
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STORE OPERATORS SUE SALEM MALL

Operators of a store at Valley Commons shopping center in Salem have claimed in a lawsuit they were lured to locate at the center with "false representations" about the site's business climate.

Dale and Karen Barger, owners of The Transport Room, a mailing and packaging business, filed suit this week against CBL Management Inc., a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based firm leasing the property.

The suit, filed in Roanoke Circuit Court, alleges that the Bargers lost business after moving into the partially filled shopping center, which CBL had assured them would be fully leased within three months after they located there.

The suit asks for $70,000 in damages and the recision of a lease signed by the Bargers.

In the suit, the Bargers claim that an agent for CBL learned in 1989 that they were starting a new business and showed them the Valley Commons site on Apperson Drive.

The center, anchored by a Food Lion supermarket, has space for about 11 smaller tenants.

According to the lawsuit, the agent assured the Bargers that storefronts in the center would be rented to operators of a restaurant, a dance studio, a video store and a hair salon.

None of those businesses has opened at Valley Commons, and empty storefronts remain at the center more than a year after the Bargers moved there, the suit states.

Terry Grimes, a Roanoke lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said the Bargers are still operating at Valley Commons, but they may soon be forced to go out of business.

Officials with CBL could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

by CNB