Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201270191
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Medium
PLANT STAYS IDLE AS SALES ATTEMPTS CONTINUE
The silence says a lot.Two years after AT&T officials announced they were shutting down this plant beside the New River and set the sale price at $14.25 million, all is quiet here.
No machines are humming. No transformer parts - or any other parts, for that matter - are spilling off the assembly line.
There's still a payroll - for the single AT&T employee, Ed Hicks, left behind to manage the empty plant. There also are some security and maintenance personnel working under contract.
But gone are the 2,000-plus employees who once streamed past the factory gates.
There have been endless nibbles and rumors and close calls, and one bizarre incident of a prospective buyer who wound up in the Pulaski County Jail - but no buyer.
"We're still showing it to some prospects," said AT&T spokeswoman Mary Lou Ambrose. "But at this time, we're not close to a sale."
"It's taking longer than anybody thought," said Tom Loner, who was managing the plant when it closed. "There's only so much you can do. . . . We continue to do some advertising. We know that sooner or later it will pay off."
What a difference a decade makes.
Ten years ago, AT&T was rapidly building up a work force here that would top out at more than 2,000 people.
The pay and the benefits were good, the work steady. In those early days, people queued up at local Virginia Employment Commission offices to apply for AT&T jobs.
But the bloom was off the rose by the end of the decade when AT&T announced the plant would close. The factory already was riddled with layoffs. The "final solution" affected about 1,000 workers.
The truth is, said another AT&T spokesman, Burke Stinson, that AT&T by the end of the decade was overbuilt. Thus, the company started consolidating work at fewer factories.
Prospective buyers, their identities shrouded in secrecy, have toured the sprawling Fairlawn plant. Rumors have flown that a purchase was imminent.
Somehow, though, a deal is never closed.
"The grounds are extraordinary," said Stinson of the 743-acre riverside plant and grounds outside Radford. "As a facility, it is a little gem."
But Stinson also said the economy could be working against a sale. "Perhaps there aren't as many people looking for gems as we would like."
Oddly enough, it's that dismal economic climate that has warmed local officials to the idea of buying the site to develop as a regional industrial park.
"It's just like a house," said Montgomery County Supervisor Henry Jablonski. The longer it's on the market, "sometimes you think you can get a better bargain."
Elected officials from Montgomery and Pulaski counties and Radford met last week to discuss the idea in closed session. Similar talks between the three last year fell through when the recession hit the New River Valley full force.
Money is still scarce, and taxpayers wary, said Radford City Councilman Gary Weddle. "It's not a good time to go out on a limb." But, if anything, people are willing to invest in economic development as a step toward a stronger future, he said.
Interest continues. Hicks, the plant manager, said he has shown the property to three prospects since June.
Loner said there have been several inquiries just since Jan. 1.
Is that encouraging?
Loner laughed.
"It used to be," he said.
Staff writer Cathryn McCue contributed information for this story.