Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301260341
SECTION: NEW RIVER VALLEY ECONOMY PAGE: 28 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BECKY HEPLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
RETAIL CORE SHAPES UP IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Many a developer has proposed a shopping center as an economic development project, a way to enrich an area by increasing the tax base and bringing in more jobs.In Montgomery County, that potential is being fulfilled.
At a time when surrounding counties are seeing only marginal growth or losses, Montgomery County's taxable retail sales have increased at a solid rate.
Third-quarter figures for 1992 showed a 10.3 percent increase for the county, from $99.8 million to $110.1 million. Floyd County's third-quarter sales increased by 1.5 percent.
But it was a different story in other valley localities - a 4 percent decrease in Pulaski County, a 10.7 percent decrease in Radford City and a whopping 35.1 percent decrease in Giles County.
Most experts attribute the Montgomery County growth to the mushrooming of retail opportunities around the New River Valley Mall and all along the U.S. 460/114 corridor in Christiansburg.
"The area has reached critical mass in retailing facilities and that allows us to expand the trading area," said Radford University marketing professor Howard Combs.
"It's truly a regional market. Before, people would have to go to Roanoke, Beckley, Bristol or Harrisonburg to find this kind of shopping experience," Combs said. "Now, all those tax dollars are staying here, as well as the jobs and other benefits."
Combs cites changes at The Marketplace, a strip center on U.S. 460, as essential to this process.
"It was not really doing that well until a year or so ago. Now they've been able to fill up a lot of the empty spaces," he said. "By getting that many different stores in, you get even more people coming. By making the center more interesting, it makes the mall more interesting."
Combs said the growth should continue at an even better rate when the expanded Wade's Supermarket goes in close to Kmart, which opened last year near the Market Place.
"It will be one-stop shopping then," he said. "We predicted a lot of this."
Before the mall was built, his students, in a classroom exercise, devised the location and contents of just such a shopping center. The students narrowed the choices to two possible locations, one where it is and the other across from Hills Shopping Center near Interstate 81.
Combs explained that while the Hills site would have been more convenient to interstate traffic, it would have been less accessible to the higher-income area of Blacksburg.
Moreover, the current site would dry up the University Mall traffic and it would be close enough to Radford to forestall the growth of any mall in that area, he said. And because it was still close to Christiansburg, the mall would continue to get the interstate traffic.
This attention to the student populations at Radford and Virginia Tech had a beneficial effect. Combs said students in university communities support the local shops, or they go back to their home communities to shop.
"They don't shop much in Roanoke," he said.
Richard Sorenson, dean of the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech, sees the growth as a part of an overall trend.
"Retailing is up all over the nation," he said. "With the recovering economy, that growth will continue."
It is not just the sales tax, a direct benefit to state and local governments, that makes this development so important. It also is the additional jobs that these retail outlets provide.
Virginia Employment Commission figures show that from the second quarter of 1991 to the second quarter of 1992, retail trade jobs increased from 6,144 to 6,158, even though the number of retail businesses decreased from 347 to 339.
Ruth Smith, head of the Virginia Tech marketing department, said the growth is not just new businesses moving into these new retail places, but established firms relocating to them
Shops like JoAnn Fabrics, Leggett's and Sears had been in Blacksburg's older malls before moving to the new shopping centers.
As a force in Montgomery County employment, retail trade has grown.
In 1981, retail jobs were held by 14 percent of New River Valley workers. By 1992, that had grown to 20 percent.
This follows national trends in our switch from a manufacturing to a service economy.
Montgomery County also follows the national trend in the decrease in manufacturing jobs.
In 1981, manufacturing jobs were held by 24.1 percent of employed persons. By 1992, that had decreased 20.6 percent.
The downside of this development is the differences between the wages and salaries of the two types of jobs.
In 1991, manufacturing jobs paid an average of $489 a week, up 77 percent from 1981's wages of $277. Retail sales wages rose at only about half that rate, going from $141 to $196, a 39 percent increase, according to Virginia Employment Commission figures.
Combs reiterated the bad news.
"Retail jobs tend to be not as career oriented and lower paying, with no benefits," he said. "They also tend to be new jobs, for people just entering the marketplace, rather than replacement jobs for people who are having to make career changes."
Smith agreed with Combs' assessment.
"These retail services are no equivalent to the manufacturing jobs we've lost in the area," she said.
Still, both acknowledged a universal truth.
"I would certainly rather have any job than no job," Combs commented. Echoed Smith, "I'd rather be flipping burgers at Hardee's than be on unemployment."