LAND SALE PLANNED IN REORGANIZATION

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992                   TAG: 9201080300
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
LAND SALE PLANNED IN REORGANIZATION
Montgomery County real estate developer William B. Matthews told a Bankruptcy Court creditors' meeting in Roanoke on Monday that he will sell his property to meet his debts of $7.6 million.
Matthews and his wife, Helen, estimated their assets at $7.3 million, about $300,000 less than their liabilities, after they filed for reorganization last month.
"I will place everything I own up for sale, with the anticipation of paying back with whatever sells first and getting it into a manageable limit," Matthews told his creditors.
He listed 20 pieces of property in his court papers including some in Blacksburg and Hilton Head, S.C.; Patrick County mountain land; and a lot at Smith Mountain Lake.
As a result of a depressed real estate market, Matthews said, "I was spread out in four subdivisions [and] the lenders' marketing scheme wouldn't work. . . . Everybody quit buying in August a year ago."
Interest rates and the effects of the overbuilt "kiddie condo" market for Virginia Tech students also had an impact on real estate, Matthews told James Cosby of the U.S. trustee's office at the creditors' meeting.
His bankruptcy filing on Dec. 6 came minutes before the First National Bank of Christiansburg was to hold a foreclosure sale of 7.4 acres in the Shenandoah I subdivision in Blacksburg.
Matthews, a former star basketball player and coach at Virginia Tech, was a prominent figure in a controversial swap of farm land along New River for prime commercial property on U.S. 460. He also had a role in developing Market Place shopping center and the Kmart store in Christiansburg.
Among Matthews' major creditors, according to court papers, are: First National Bank of Christiansburg, $2.7 million; New England Life, $1.1 million; National Bank of Blacksburg, $580,000; Jay D. Nicewonder, Clintwood, $378,000; Sovran Bank, $308,760; and George M. Harvey, Radford, $300,000.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB