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

DATE: TUESDAY, September 27, 1994                   TAG: 9409270098
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HISTORIC BUILDING SALE DEVELOPING

City Council on Monday approved the $40,000 sale of 118 W. Campbell Ave. to Michael Vest, a William Fleming High School graduate who has run a successful commercial photography business in Manhattan for the past 10 years.

If the deal goes through, it will mark the first sale of one of the historically significant "Trinkle buildings," which the city purchased nearly six years ago to save them from a wrecking ball. The four buildings, at 118-124 W. Campbell, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It also may represent the first step in a revitalization of the 100 block of West Campbell, which has a number of empty storefronts. The four buildings stand in the center of the block's south side. The one Vest wants to buy is adjacent to a structure now housing the Curry Copy shop.

"It will give more confidence for people to [go into] the other buildings," said City Manager Bob Herbert.

The deal initialed Monday caps months of negotiations between Vest and the city's Economic Development Office.

Under the agreement, Vest has 90 days to line up financing for the purchase and buy title insurance for the property. If he is unable to do either, the deal is off.

The contract also requires that he assume costs for asbestos removal or encapsulation. City inspectors found a significant amount of the cancer-causing fiber in the buildings after they were purchased.

The city's Office of Real Estate Valuation this month estimated the structure's market value at $44,000, which is $4,000 more than the sale price approved by council. For tax purposes, the building is assessed at $49,300.

Vest, a former photography instructor at New York University, wants to return to Roanoke to be closer to his family, said Phil Sparks, acting economic development administrator. Vest could not be reached Monday for comment.

The photographer plans to move his studio onto part of the second floor of the three-story, 5,000-square-foot building. He would live on the remainder of the second floor and the third floor and open a gallery on the ground level, Sparks said. Vest plans to commute to New York for photo assignments.

The city acquired the four Victorian-era buildings in 1988 from landowner James Trinkle in a complicated cash and real estate swap that cost city taxpayers $164,000 plus a building the city owned on Kirk Avenue.

The purchase came after Trinkle threatened to demolish the buildings and use the space for parking lots. Historic preservationists beseeched council to save the buildings, and the state kicked in a $100,000 historic preservation grant to help with the purchase.

Originally, the city intended to renovate the buildings and use them as municipal offices. That plan died when renovation costs, originally estimated at $800,000, ballooned to $1.2 million.