Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993 TAG: 9306180058
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
That is one possibility being considered by a Downtown Futures Committee for giving the town's business section a distinctive look.
The committee grew out of a Wytheville-Wythe-Bland Chamber of Commerce-sponsored meeting April 29 that brought together some 40 people who own, manage or work in properties along Main Street.
"We need to rethink possibly the types of businesses that we want downtown," said Arlene Crockett, owner of Crockett's Cove Fashions. "A lot of study and research will have to go into this, as far as finding out what other places have done, getting more input locally, having some more meetings like this."
She noted that communities such as Pulaski, Marion and Galax have improved their downtown business sectors.
The committee has met twice since then. Crockett reported at the latest meeting June 3 that town officials have expressed a willingness to work with the committee on whatever recommendations it makes.
Emphasizing the historic nature of some of Wytheville's buildings is one direction the panel is studying. Another is working with merchants to erect symbols of their businesses similar to the giant pencil that has intrigued visitors at all three of the locations Wytheville Office Supply has occupied over the years.
"I kind of like the idea," said Wordsprint President Bill Gilmer. Shopping malls often can beat downtown stores on price, variety and hours, he said.
"The only thing we have left is to be outrageous. . . . That would be just the thing to give Wytheville an edge."
Other initiatives include working with businesses to coordinate later operating hours on some nights, scheduling performers or cultural activities downtown and advertising businesses in connection with them, putting displays in the windows of vacant buildings to dress them up, encouraging downtown banks to restore Saturday hours, and looking into financial incentives to get empty buildings occupied.
Another possibility is a connection of some kind between Withers Park, the town-owned park with a popular walking track, and other attractions north of Main Street, with the Elizabeth Brown Memorial Park near Wytheville Community Center south of Main.
Main Street does not have that many empty buildings, but at least two of them - the former homes of Leggett and Ball Brothers Furniture - are big.
"When Leggett left, everybody was horrified," Gilmer said. But large retail outlets are not as viable in a downtown as they are in a mall, he said.
Small shops, cafes, offices and similar enterprises work better downtown, he said.
Wytheville is fortunate with its unusually wide Main Street, which allows angle parking. Even so, the committee decided, store access could be improved with rear entrances on Spring and Monroe Streets paralleling Main.
Isaac Freeman, a Marion lawyer, owns the former Ball Brothers store. "It is an albatross," he said.
"It is the No. 1 asset in my portfolio and it's generating no assets," Freeman said. He said he had committed $200,000 of his own money to help convert it to a wellness center after being approached by Wythe County Community Hospital.
The hospital has since joined the town for a joint wellness and convention center at the Wytheville Community Center on Fourth Street. The project was announced in September.
The 22,500-square-foot former furniture building - which previously housed Crest Store before it closed nearly two decades ago - is too big for a single business today, Freeman said. "I get telephone calls from people wanting to set up judo schools, gymnasiums. . . . They've got the idea, and no money."
Such a building might be converted to multiple uses, but Freeman could not afford time away from his law practice to manage such an operation, he said.
An element introduced at a June 8 meeting of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors is the possibility of the county using one of the two large empty buildings for offices. The idea came from Supervisor Andy Kegley, and a committee including a town representative will look into it.
The downtown committee's next meeting is scheduled for July 8.
by CNB