Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 15, 1993 TAG: 9305150241
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the end, no one of them may be chosen. Features from several may be blended.
But the city is offering the five scenarios to Gainsboro residents for feedback at a viewing of the architect's renderings at the Municipal Building on Monday afternoon and at a meeting Tuesday night at Gainsboro's First Baptist Church.
The road design, including landscaping, could cost $1 million, and the whole Wells Avenue construction project probably will run $2.5 million to $3 million - mostly in state money - city officials and Gene Cress, the city's consulting engineer, said at a Friday news conference.
City spokeswoman Michelle Bono said money for the design work could come from state, federal or private money - not just city coffers. Local companies could be asked to sponsor portions of the work.
Wells Avenue is set to become an east-west connector of Interstate 581 and Williamson Road with Gainsboro's other planned four-lane road. The other, longer road would run from downtown's Second Street over the railroad tracks along Gainsboro Road to U.S. 460. Engineers say the roads are crucial for downtown traffic flow in the next century.
Leaders of Historic Gainsboro Preservation District and the NAACP - among those opposed to road-building in Roanoke's oldest neighborhood - examined the sketches earlier this week. Helen Davis, an officer of Historic Gainsboro, said the roads will destroy their residential peace and they will not give their blessing.
Five commercial buildings are due to be demolished along Wells Avenue. Two homes might be moved to vacant lots nearby.
City officials "expect us to be excited about it," Davis said. But it's like an executioner offering various means to the same awful end, she said. "You want to be hung? You want to be electrocuted? You want to have lethal injection? They're still going to kill us."
John Marlles, Roanoke chief community planner, said a median strip and other suggestions gleaned from a meeting with Gainsboro residents early last month were worked into the design alternatives.
All five drawings showed large trees along the street, as well as crosswalks, a median with grass and ornamental trees, and Gainsboro "gateway" signs in curved walls at each end of Wells Avenue.
Other features being considered are brick sidewalks, handicap-accessible walkways, decorative street lights, retaining walls, gazebo-like bus shelters, and either additional parking or landscaped green space for First Baptist Church.
On the north side of Wells across from the hotel, one rendering showed a possible interpretive park - with decade-by-decade "time-line" information about Gainsboro and the development of Roanoke from that early settlement.
Marlles said the city will recommend that, except for trucks bringing supplies to the hotel, the only big trucks on Wells would be those heading east from Jefferson Street to Williamson Road - the route now used by the Coca-Cola plant on Shenandoah Avenue.
Marlles said the city is not secretly holding final plans for Wells Avenue in its back pocket. He said the city needs public input. "This process is not over," he said.
"We need to go back to the neighborhood to see what they like and don't like," said Laura Orrison, an apprentice landscape architect with Hill Studio, a Roanoke design firm that's working with city consulting engineers Mattern & Craig.
Bono said the city will try to balance the desires of hotel developers with what's wanted by residents.
City Traffic Engineer Bob Bengtson said there will be other public meetings about Wells Avenue after next week.
A city news release said the information-gathering is being sponsored by the Wells Avenue Design Development Task Force, a subcommittee of the Gainsboro Coalition. The coalition includes city officials and representatives of First Baptist Church, Total Action Against Poverty, Gainsboro Neighborhood Development Corp. and the Southwest Virginia Community Development Fund.
Citizens may see the Wells Avenue designs and talk with city staffers Monday from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 159 of the Roanoke Municipal Building. The designs will be formally presented at 7 p.m. Tuesday at First Baptist Church, 310 N. Jefferson St.
by CNB