ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: SUNDAY, July 29, 1990                   TAG: 9007310331
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RIGHT NUMBERS

THE SITE of TAP's planned new home carries a lot of pluses for Total Action Against Poverty - and for downtown Roanoke. For one thing, the numbers are right.

TAP officials say they need 50,000 square feet of office space to consolidate their headquarters. The agency had an option to buy the old Stone Printing Co. building across from Hotel Roanoke. But that had only 10,000 square feet of finished office space. TAP would have had to install the rest, raising the combined purchase and renovation cost above $2.5 million.

TAP instead will pay $1 million for the Crystal Tower building - far less than it would have had to pay either for the Stone Printing building or a newly built headquarters on Henry Street. And the Campbell Street building already has 78,000 square feet of office space plus a first-floor commercial area.

Insurance money from the fire that burned TAP out of its former headquarters will fund the purchase. By leasing the commercial and other office space, TAP can produce income - perhaps enough to pay the building's operating costs.

That's a good deal for TAP and for its clients. TAP offices won't be scattered around the city, as they are now. Money that would have been spent for bricks and mortar instead can be invested in TAP programs.

Not incidentally, the agency had received strong signals from around Roanoke that donations could be found for operations, but not for building a new headquarters.

TAP's move is a good deal for downtown, notwithstanding the uncertainty of some business people. "It's too early to speculate on what impact it will have on downtown development - pro or con," said Franklin "Kim" Kimbrough, executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc.

It isn't too early at all. TAP will bring 150 employees downtown with an average annual payroll of $1.5 million. By any measure, that's a big plus.

It would have been a plus, too, across the railroad tracks, on Henry Street. But TAP, like many of its clients, must make do. Given the circumstances, the Crystal Tower building was a good choice. 


 by CNB