Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993 TAG: 9311190048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hicks has worked at five different locations in the more than 30 years she has been a secretary for Roanoke County.
Make that six.
Today, Roanoke County will move many of its offices a few miles down Virginia 419 to the former Travelers office building on Bernard Drive.
Several county offices will be closed today as movers cart computer terminals, furniture and boxes of records to the $2.4 million office building. A second moving day for remaining county offices is scheduled for January.
The transition may confuse some residents who need to get a building permit or pay their taxes. But county officials say "customer service" should improve once they get most offices under one roof.
"There's confusion now," said Anne Marie Green, county spokeswoman. "A lot of people come here in search of the personnel office, and we have to send them down Brambleton Avenue."
The first phase of the move comes 11 years after Roanoke County relocated to the refurbished Mount Vernon Elementary School on Brambleton Avenue.
The county outgrew the old school during the fast-paced growth of the 1980s. The county had to lease office space for personnel and appraisal services, and the old building was difficult to adapt for handicapped use.
Last fall, the Board of Supervisors decided to look for new quarters. The overbuilt commercial real estate market made it cheaper for the county to buy an existing building than to construct a new one.
The former Travelers building has 49,483 square feet on four floors. County Administrator Elmer Hodge said it will meet the county's needs for "at least 20 years," with no need to buy or lease additional office space.
Teams of county employees have been planning today's move for months. Things have run as smoothly as can be expected, with workers juggling packing with their regular work load.
"We're losing our minds daily," chief accountant Vincent Copenhaver joked.
Andrew Glenn, the county's new budget analyst, reported for his first day of work Monday to find an office in disarray.
"We got him here just in time to pack," secretary Lynda Murphy said.
The move has turned up files and personal items long forgotten.
Economic development specialist Brian Duncan found a $43 check behind his desk. The check, written in December 1992, was for a computer class that Duncan never took.
Mary Allen, clerk to the Board of Supervisors, is hoping that a long-lost pearl earring that her husband gave her for their anniversary will turn up when movers take down partitions and move her desk.
"I'm pretty sure I lost it in the office," she said.
Hicks, executive secretary to the county administrator, said she is looking forward to having her own office - with a door - in the new building.
When she came to work for the county in 1956, Hicks had a desk in the basement of the old courthouse in Salem.
Her office was moved across the street to a building that has since been torn down. She next worked for a while on the second floor of the old Salem Theatre, then in the Clay Street building that now houses the county sheriff, before moving to the old Mount Vernon School in 1982.
"I started out in the basement, and now I'll be on the fourth floor," she said. "At least you can say I'm moving up!"
by CNB