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

DATE: MONDAY, January 31, 1994                   TAG: 9402240001
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

$2 MILLION

A TOO UNCRITICAL Gov. George Allen wants the Virginia General Assembly to gamble nearly $150 million, mostly for roads, on the Disney's America theme park proposed for Northern Virginia.

Surely they can go along with the modest and realistic $2 million that House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell (along with state Sen. Brandon Bell) is asking for Explore Park in the Roanoke Valley. This should be so particularly now that the promising but controversial idea of merger with the Martinsville-based Virginia Museum of Natural History has been shelved.

Consider:

At $2 million, the two-year operating subsidy requested for Explore is only 1.3 percent of the road-building sum requested for Disney's America - a considerably smaller gamble.

Despite its relatively small scope, Explore - like Disney's America - also holds potential as a catalyst for economic growth beyond the project itself.

Southwest Virginia and Northern Virginia are different. As an egg in Southwest Virginia's economic basket, tourism remains oddly undeveloped, despite several regional assets that lend themselves to this industry. As an egg in the national capital's basket, tourism already thrives. As a suburb of Washington, heavily congested Northern Virginia hardly stands in much need of attention-getting tools. We could use more.

As a nonprofit state-owned enterprise, Explore need not make money to be accounted a success. That's in contrast with Disney's America, a purely commercial venture whose taxable value to the state rests on its profitability.

To be sure, nobody wants Explore to turn into a steady drain on the public purse. But it already is valuable as a beautiful spot, saved as a state park. The ultimate test of the development's value will come on such criteria as authenticity, accessibility, ability to attract private benefactions for further capital development and the level of quality at which it fulfills its educational, environmental and recreational missions

On those points, the Explore project has laid the foundation for potential success. If the park can open this spring with $2 million from the state for the next two years of operating expenses, that foundation can be built upon.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994

by CNB