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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 30, 1994                   TAG: 9403300158
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE IN THE ALLEGHANY REGION

While officials, who announced the park Tuesday, have no tenants lined up yet, they are planning a facility that could bring as many as 1,000 new jobs.

The park, to be called the Alleghany Regional Commerce Center, will be at a wooded site north of Interstate 64 and the Jackson River near Low Moor, a small community between Clifton Forge and Covington.

It will be developed by the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Authority, which represents Alleghany County and Clifton Forge. The authority will use $700,000 from the sale in December of an Alleghany County industrial shell building and $500,000 appropriated by the 1994 General Assembly as seed money for the project.

The site was identified as early as 1968 in a Virginia Power Co. study as the one holding the most economic development potential in the region, said Glynn Loope, the authority's executive director. While the terraced land has been looked at for nearly 30 years as a possible industrial site, the lack of a bridge across the river has stood in the way of its development, he said.

The authority bought the land for $750,000 from Valley Ridge East Inc., a consortium of investors. Loope said he hoped construction of the bridge, at an estimated cost of another $750,000, could begin by next spring.

L.J. Rose, chairman of the Alleghany County Board of Supervisors, said development of the park should be the first step in the economic recovery of the Alleghany Highlands.

The $9.2 million park will be developed in three phases, Loope explained during a news conference Tuesday at the Fifth Planning District Commission offices in Roanoke. The first phase includes construction of the bridge, an access road and water and sewer extensions and will cost an estimated $3.4 million.

The second phase would be construction of a $3.4 million tunnel to take highway, rail and pedestrian traffic under I-64. The $2.4 million third phase would take a rail line across the river into the park.

Alleghany County and Clifton Forge will provide nearly $2 million in matching funds toward the first phase and are seeking help from state and federal agencies to pay for the rest, Loope said.