Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 2, 1993 TAG: 9301020035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
LANDLORDS GIVE STREET, TENANTS NEW LEASE ON LIFE
USED TO BE, people didn't want to drive down Miller Street, much less live there. Police and residents say new owners of an apartment complex are turning the old crime lane into a safe neighborhood - maybe even a desirable one.
The name was Miller Street.
"Killer Street," some called it.
Police say shootings, stabbings and drug-dealing were rampant along the Northwest Roanoke lane until a few years ago. There was at least one murder on the street.
Apartment dwellers fired on cars from balconies and thieves ripped plumbing and sinks right out of apartments as tenants from other units looked on with a yawn, said veteran Roanoke police officer Lylburn Ollie.
Miller Street, he said, was "Crime City."
Not any more.
It has been renamed Westside Boulevard.
Its four apartment complexes have merged under new owners and a new name, Brittany Apartments.
Owners have landscaped the grounds, painted the buildings and put in a swimming pool. They added playground equipment, dishwashers, new kitchen cabinets, thermal windows, miniblinds, and brand-new carpeting and appliances.
Grubb Property Management, a North Carolina company, has turned the apartments into a place for working-class families and others moving up from poverty.
Children cavort on playgrounds now without threat of gunshots. Soon they'll be tutored after school in Brittany's new community center. 4-H clubs are being formed.
Apartment managers pay kids $15 every time they make all A's. They get $10 for A's, B's and C's.
Mothers learn how to make cheese bread and other low-cost dishes from extension agents at the community center. Public health nurses give them tips on nutrition and cold prevention.
There are community parties at Halloween and Christmas. Last fall, 200 tenants feasted at a picnic catered by Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The turnaround of Killer Street is the result of a convergence of entrepreneurship, altruism, $3.5 million in state loans - and plain old desperation on the part of owners who bought the apartments unaware of just how bad the street was.
Unless the Grubbs could change its rotten image, they would be stuck with an unmarketable property.
The neighborhood's transformation has won the admiration of police, city planners, poverty workers and educators.
North Carolina apartment developer Robert L. "Bob" Grubb snapped up his first two complexes on Miller Street in 1980. He got them at fire-sale prices, but he didn't realize that people were actually afraid to come onto the street.
Grubb owns 2,000 upscale apartments in his home state, as well as the Woodridge Apartments in Southwest Roanoke. He started dabbling in Roanoke real estate back in the 1970s when his son, Gordon, was at Washington and Lee University in Lexington.
Right away, Bob Grubb regretted buying on Miller Street. His is a family-run business - Gordon is now president - and for years Bob's wife, Rochelle, gave him grief about buying those first complexes.
Then he started spending money on them. "I got in deeper and deeper."
At one set of apartments, he said, "It was so bad, half of the people living there weren't even on the rental roll. They were just squatters."
He eventually accepted the fact that he'd have to buy all four complexes to redeem the street and protect his investment. He bought the third complex in 1985 and the fourth in 1986.
Neal Rogers with the Virginia Housing Development Authority said the apartments were "in dire need of renovation."
In the flood of 1985, rushing waters from nearby Peters Creek engulfed them. Tenants say the flood served one good purpose - it drove out some of their most troublesome neighbors and inspired more remodeling.
There has been no flooding since then, they say. The city has begun flood-control work on the banks of the creek behind Brittany.
Under terms of Grubb's $3.5 million loans for rehabilitation and financing from the VHDA, the company agreed not to rent any of Brittany's 100 first-floor apartments, fully a third of the 300-apartment complex. Those ground-floor apartments stay locked and empty behind drawn mini-blinds.
Still, physical improvements weren't enough to draw people back to the street.
Rochelle Grubb, a former kindergarten teacher with a master's degree in housing, urged her husband to make it a place that made people feel good. The report card rewards were her idea.
She said things were so bad for so long, "I said, `We've got to get into positive thinking.' "
The Grubbs got the city to rename the street Westside Boulevard in 1984. City planner Ted Tucker said he doesn't recall a developer ever asking for a name change before.
Neal Rogers salutes the Grubbs for sticking with a place that many businesses would have unloaded in a hurry. If they hadn't rehabilitated the place, he said, "It probably would have been boarded up." Instead, residents like Jerry Pannell, 41, a city utility worker and Kroger employee, lives there in peace and quiet with his 3-year-old son.
"It was terrible in the old days," Pannell said. "It's totally different now. I looked around, and this place was the best for the money, and the upkeep of the place is very nice."
There is no more government-subsidized rent. Tenants pay all their rent and all must have verifiable incomes.
For a $299-a-month two-bedroom apartment, they must earn $1,196 a month; for a $329 three-bedroom apartment, they must make $1,316.
Alvin Jones lived on Miller Street in the 1970s. "Ah, man," he said, "it was rough. Come up here, you were likely to get your head busted in. Garbage everywhere, grass wasn't kept up."
He moved back to the street four years ago.
"It's totally different here now, and I love it. Grounds [are] kept up, everything kept up." When his bathtub clogs, he said, he calls the office and a maintenance crew is at his door in a jiffy.
This Christmas, he played Santa Claus at a party for Brittany's kids. He said he's glad his two sons have a safe and friendly place to live.
Beatrice Guerrant has a private home across the street from Brittany's offices on Westside Boulevard.
Two of her grown children live in the apartments.
In years past, she said, many tenants were young singles with children and no jobs. "This was known as a little drug area," she said.
"Things are very different" since the Grubbs took over, she said. "It's quieter. Every now and then, you get a little outbreak of the noise and cars, but most of the time it's people who are visiting," not the residents.
Ten families interviewed at random for this story praised Brittany. Their only complaint was of snowy television reception and trucks that rumble past on their way to Roanoke Electric Steel at the end of the street.
Leasing agent Amanda Bayne says some tenants juggle two or three jobs to stay at Brittany. Many work nearby at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center or at banks, fast-food restaurants, hospitals and industries.
"A lot of our residents are moving up," she said. Many lived in government-subsidized Section 8 housing before and now are saving to buy their own homes.
When some people come for a tour, she said, they look with wonder on Brittany's dishwashers and appliances.
One little girl lay down on the carpet and made "snow angels." Bayne said the child was used to the linoleum of her public housing. "There are so many things that we take for granted," Bayne said.
Some people are still afraid of the street.
She's filled about 87 percent of the 200 available apartments. But, she said, "we're still struggling to overcome that negative image."
People lean across her desk and whisper, "You know, this was Killer Street."
Every Friday and Saturday night, Brittany has staffers out on "courtesy watch." They patrol the huge complex, jump-start cars and help residents who lock their keys in their cars. Their presence also keeps troublemakers off the grounds.
Roanoke Police Sgt. Guy Hurley said crime complaints from the street used to keep police tied up at the far end of town. That's changed. "We get very, very few [complaints] compared [to] what it used to be," he said. "You get a domestic or two. People have their problems, but it's not like it used to be."
Lt. Steve Lugar, head of vice, said he executed plenty of search warrants for drugs on the street in years past, but he couldn't remember one in the past two years.
Warren Crawford, principal of nearby Fairview Elementary School, praised Brittany. He said students from the street are "conscientious, careful of school property. I commend them."
Last summer, a city poverty task force urged private developers to provide more safe, affordable housing for low-income people. Grubb has done just that, said Bill Bestpitch with Total Action Against Poverty.
"They have absolutely flabbergasted me with what they've been able to do over there," he said. He's helped the company do research on local sources of help and education for families.
The Grubbs' acceptance of the fact that they couldn't rent a third of their apartments amazed him. "A lot of people would have walked away."
The good-grade awards impressed him, too. "How many landlords give the kids who rent from them any recognition, even a gold star? They're saying to residents, `We're really interested in your progress.' "
Bob Grubb acknowledges that there isn't much money to be made in working-class housing. "You don't really do it to make money," he said.
So will he sell Brittany?
He's not sure. "There's a good chance we'll end up keeping it."