Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 24, 1990 TAG: 9007240137
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Both the Henry Street revival site and the city's Booker T. Washington school administration building apparently have been eliminated.
Cabell Brand, president of TAP's board of directors, said Monday that the Stone Printing building now is the leading candidate for the new headquarters.
TAP has an option to buy that building for $900,000. The executive committee for the agency's board will meet today to decide whether to exercise the option, which expires Friday.
The headquarters will not be in the Henry Street renewal project, the preferred site, because City Council said Monday the city can't afford to provide $2.1 million TAP requested to help finance it.
Council offered to donate land on Henry Street for a headquarters and to make other improvements valued at $302,000.
"The key point is that right now we have so many projects under way and so many demands on public funds that we simply cannot commit to give TAP $2.1 million . . . ," said Vice Mayor Howard Musser.
Councilman David Bowers raised the possibility that Gov. Douglas Wilder's pending cuts in state aid for localities could cost Roanoke $2.5 million.
"It really got to the point that something had to give and we didn't have $2.1 million now to give," Bowers said.
Besides donating the land and making sidewalk improvements, TAP wanted the city to provide $2.1 million to help finance a proposed $7.1 million renewal project on Henry Street that would have included a new headquarters.
The project would have included commercial and retail development, additional parking and other features. The agency would have raised private funds, obtained bank loans and secured money from other sources to help finance the plan.
TAP already is developing a music center on Henry Street.
"An expanded effort on Henry Street by TAP, in partnership with the city, would generate jobs, minority-owned businsses, affordable housing and pride in that part of the city," Brand said. "A vital Henry Street - with cultural and commercial establishments - also would be an enhancement to the city's plans for a convention and trade center."
Without the city's help, "we can't do it alone, however," Brand said after council's meeting. "TAP's headquarters will not be on Henry Street."
The anti-poverty agency's old headquarters on Shenandoah Avenue Northwest was destroyed by fire two days before Christmas.
The city also offered to sell the school administration building at Douglas and Orange avenues to TAP for $750,000.
Under that proposal, the school administration offices would have moved into the old Jefferson High School, which is to be renovated and converted into an arts, educational and office complex.
Musser said the city's analysis showed that this would be TAP's cheapest alternative. The Stone Printing Co. building will cost $900,000 and will require major renovations.
But the school administration building will not be available for two years. TAP needs to combine its operations at one location as quickly as possible, Brand said.
TAP's operations are now scattered at several sites, including an old Norfolk and Western Railway building at Norfolk Avenue and Second Street Southwest.
Brand said the school administration building also is not large enough to accommodate all of TAP's operations and agencies.
Musser said TAP's primary reason for rejecting the school administration building apparently was the two-year delay while the old Jefferson High was being renovated.
"This rejection was despite the fact that it would take two years or more for TAP to raise the money and construct a new building on Henry Street and that fund raising must take place to renovate the Stone Printing building," Musser said.
But Brand said TAP can occupy 10,000 to 12,000 square feet immediately in the Stone Printing building, now occupied by Frame One, even though it will require renovations. "We can move in immediately and remodel it in stages," he said.
Some city officials said earlier they were concerned that TAP's purchase of the Stone Printing property might interfere with the city's plans for a trade and convention center.
But city officials say now there are too many unknowns about the convention-center project to determine whether the building might be needed.
by CNB