COUNCIL OKS LOAN OF $28,500 TO BRING IN ANTIQUES BUSINESS

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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993                   TAG: 9301210171
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium
COUNCIL OKS LOAN OF $28,500 TO BRING IN ANTIQUES BUSINESS
The town will make a $28,500 loan for the purchase and renovation of a Main Street building for yet another antiques and collectibles center.
This would be Pulaski's fifth antiques business announced since October.
Town Council approved its Finance Committee's recommendation Tuesday night to make the loan to Maria Luise Ryssel-Flynn and Muriel Flynn to convert the building at 27 Main St.
Another $28,500 would be loaned by Signet Bank, and the Flynns will invest 10 percent of the total project cost. The future appraised value value of the building, following the renovation, will be about $70,000.
The town's loan will be at 5 percent interest and is to be repaid within 15 years.
It will come from the town's Urban Development Action Grant funds, which are earmarked for economic development and downtown revitalization activities. As the UDAG funds are repaid, they are kept for future loans of this kind.
UDAG loans to Pulaski Furniture Corp. and Magnox-Pulaski Inc. are among those now being repaid.
It was a $33,750 loan from the town approved by council Oct. 27 that launched the conversion of downtown Pulaski to an antiques center. That loan, also in UDAG funds, went to E. Sargent Hoopes III of Aiken, S.C., to buy and renovate a building at 80 W. Main St. as part of an antiques and collectibles mall.
A month later, Martin's Pharmacy owner Eddie Hale announced plans to renovate the 4,000 square feet on the top floor of his store at 57 W. Main St. to rent spaces for antique dealers. That enterprise will be called Court Square Antique Mall.
Two more stores were announced earlier this month. Carmella Jessee of Bluefield, W.Va., said she and her mother, Elizabeth Simmons, will open an antiques store called Memories on North Jefferson Street in mid-February.
Gary Quesenberry from Fancy Gap in Carroll County will manage Briar Patch Antiques, also on Jefferson Street, with several other dealers once repainting and other improvements are complete next month.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB