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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 10, 1992                   TAG: 9203100395
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

HOTEL ROANOKE

CREDIT is due Del. Chip Woodrum of Roanoke for his hard work on behalf of Hotel Roanoke's future. This past session, he shepherded through the thorny legislative process an innovative proposal that commits state funding for the cause of reopening the hotel.

In a first-ever for Virginia, the legislature agreed that state sales-tax revenue can be used to help pay off public debt for a conference center as part of the joint endeavor by Roanoke and Virginia Tech to renovate the hotel.

The state's not losing too much in the deal. It wouldn't get any tax revenues from the project if the hotel doesn't reopen. Meantime, the Woodrum bill will provide an estimated $200,000 a year in extra debt financing.

That's no guarantee the city's landmark hotel will reopen. A developer still must be found. But the legislation does sweeten the deal for all concerned by easing the venture's risk.

Former Sen. Granger Macfarlane proposed the concept of sales-tax diversion, after city officials and others planted the idea. Now Woodrum has sold it to the assembly - no easy task. It's a fine feather in his legislative cap.

by CNB