Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 17, 1993 TAG: 9301150191
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Daniel Howes
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
HOTEL THINKING, BIG AND SMALL
Call it the Hotel Roanoke endgame.For more than three years now we've been hearing about the machinations, the fits and starts, the painfully slow negotiations:
Roanoke County begged off; the original developer was fired; critics, if only a handful, were endured then ignored; a nearby neighborhood, Gainsboro, objected to road-building plans tied to the hotel and other development. The objections, laced with implied racial injustice, terrified hotel planners and irritated the pro-development crowd.
City Council pledged $18 million in bonds and federal loans - all backed with taxpayer money - to the project it desperately wants; Virginia Tech, the hotel's owner, added another $4 million; Doubletree Hotels Corp., chosen to run the hotel, kicked in $1 million.
Still, the $42 million project came up nearly $20 million short. City officials quietly explored the chances of loaning more taxpayer money to the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which still hasn't been ruled out.
And then came Renew Roanoke, a community fund-raising campaign with hopes of raising $5 million between Thanksgiving and New Year's . . . in Roanoke, during the holidays, amid a weak economy.
Good luck, said the skeptics. There were many, including campaign organizers.
But last week, organizers announced they had reached their goal. Some 2,800 contributions - only 300 of them from businesses - poured in, totaling $5,006,000. Organizers were giddy; some, between sips of non-alcoholic champagne, admitted their previous doubts but it didn't make sense to talk about them. Especially now.
The beloved hotel project is $5 million richer. All that remains - besides a multimillion-dollar loan from area banks and a hometown insurance company - is banking a check from the railroad, Roanoke's founder.
Last Tuesday, fresh from the Renew Roanoke victory party, a power trio hopped aboard Tech's "Hokie Bird" and flew to Norfolk for a meeting with Norfolk Southern Chairman David Goode. Mayor David Bowers, City Manager Robert Herbert and Carilion Health System President Thomas Robertson knew that Goode - a valley native - knows how dear the project is to Roanokers.
He's said as much. He's said railroad bosses will "step up to the plate" for the project. They ought to, or they might get the century-old hotel back under a secret clause in the contract they cut more than three years ago with Tech.
No one's talking about the get-together . . . or at least not saying anything that means a whole lot. One participant described the meeting as "businesslike."
"We were assured our request would be given consideration with a response within two weeks," Robertson, also chairman of the campaign, said in a statement issued Wednesday. No clues, really, to how big the railroad's gift might be. There may be a $5 million gap - give or take a million, planners say - but the railroad isn't expected to plug it.
"It is not now, nor ever has been, anticipated Norfolk Southern will fill the entire $5 million goal of this phase of the campaign," Robertson's statement said. A railroad contribution would go to Renew Roanoke, a non-profit foundation that would own a piece of the project. But no one owns the foundation, so no one individual or corporation would own a piece of the project.
While hotel planners and railroad officials decide how and when to make the Norfolk Southern announcement, don't be surprised if you learn - officially - that several banks and Shenandoah Life Insurance Co. are loaning millions to the project.
In round figures, hotel planners had figured the loans would total $10 million, but sources close to the negotiations suggest the total will be less. How much less? They won't say.
With the bank loans nailed and the railroad gift in hand, hotel planners still may find themselves a few million short. Then they're likely look to the Redevelopment and Housing Authority - the taxpayers - for some more dough; or, as some have said recently, they may look to scale back the project cost without cutting its size (they're not saying how'll they might do that).
Stay tuned.
It's been about 10 days since Goode, the railroad boss, lambasted Roanoke Valley leaders for "thinking small" if they hope to compete in a global economy.
Question: Were the political leaders who heard it - to wit, Mayor Bowers - actually listening?
Answer: Who knows?
Bowers, one of the first out of the door, called the speech "a realistic assessment. The Roanoke Valley ought to stop thinking small."
Then, less than 24 hours later, he blamed Roanoke's recent economic woes - the sale of Dominion Bankshares Corp., layoffs at Gardner-Denver and Grumman Corp. - on the failure of valley governments to consolidate.
Bowers reminded folks of little joint cooperation on the Hotel Roanoke project and support for the valley tourism office. So far as those things are concerned, he's right.
Of course, he failed to mention tepid city support for the Explore Park or other efforts dear to Roanoke County leadership. But that didn't seem to matter to the county folks who responded the next day, denouncing Bowers for raising the consolidation canard and linking it to economic troubles.
That sound like an outbreak of "small thinking"?
Daniel Howes covers transportation, media and the economy for the Roanoke Times & World-News.