Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409230034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Valley Tech Park is a 177-acre industrial park with 110 acres suitable for building. The initial phase of the park development is under way and expected to be finished by mid-November, according to Brian Duncan, the county's assistant director of economic development.
Space in the park is being marketed by the county and the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, primarily to technology-based industries. The property is south of U.S. 11/460 about one mile west of the Salem state police headquarters. For several months in late 1990 and early 1991, it was considered as a factory site by Allied-Signal Inc.'s Bendix Automotive Systems Group, which makes auto disc brakes. The company abandoned that plan when demand for automobiles dropped during the recession.
The grant money, announced Tuesday by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, will be used along with other funding for water and sewer installation, storm drainage and road construction. Work now is aimed at improvements to the park's highway entrance, Duncan said.
"A large number of national companies are participating in joint research projects with Virginia Tech in areas ranging from transportation research to communications technology," Boucher said in a statement.
"Our belief is that the Valley Tech Industrial Park and industrial parks in the New River Valley will in time be the home to manufacturing plants owned by those companies producing the technology originated through the joint research projects," Boucher said.
by CNB