Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 22, 1994 TAG: 9402220022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Last month's announcement that a Roanoke Valley minority contractor had been awarded a $3 million slice of work on the Hotel Roanoke and conference center project was hailed as a victory for local workers, both black and white.
Roanoke officials said the subcontract to Property Maintenance Corp. of Roanoke proved the city's commitment to local and minority participation in the project. They said Roanoke would be seen throughout Virginia as a leader in such participation.
But the announcement left out some details:
PMC's owner, Kenneth Haley of Salem, who has run the janitorial and security business since 1975, didn't receive his Class A contractor's license until September. The license is required for anyone contracting for work valued at more than $1,500.
Haley didn't select the subcontractors who will work for him and do the roofing and drywall, fireproofing, concrete finishing and painting work that he's responsible for. His crews also are from out of town.
In fact, exactly how much Haley will participate in the project has not been determined.
"We're going to make certain that he has a role in the construction," contractor Jay Turner said.
Turner Construction and F.N. Thompson Co. of Charlotte, N.C., which built the First Union Tower in downtown Roanoke, formed a joint venture to win the hotel and conference center construction job.
Turner was brought into the project for reasons similar to Haley's participation - to get local firms involved.
Nothing is illegal or even improper about the way the contract was awarded to PMC. But the process does illustrate the difficulties involved in finding minority contractors - and the lengths that local governments will go to bring them into a high-profile public project.
The Hotel Roanoke project is a venture of Virginia Tech, which owns the hotel through a private entity, and the city of Roanoke, which is footing the bill for the conference center. The project involves private, public and government funds and is in the city's oldest black neighborhood, Gainsboro. It was loaded with controversy from the beginning.
Gainsboro residents fought the routing of a road that will serve the hotel and conference center, and one of the things they won was a Nothing is illegal or even improper about the way the contract was awarded. But the process does illustrate the difficulties involved in finding minority contractors - and the lengths that local governments will go to bring them into a high-profile public project. commitment that minorities would benefit from every phase of the project.
Enter Alvin Nash, Roanoke native, deputy director of Total Action Against Poverty, and Haley's classmate at Lucy Addison High School.
Nash is a member of one of the two Gainsboro coalitions that grew out of the community's concern for its stability in light of the project. He was farmed out by TAP to the Conference Center Commission to assure minority participation.
After no minority contractor emerged as a project participant through the regular prequalifying and bidding routes, Nash invited Haley to participate.
To anyone who suggests the invitation showed favoritism, Nash responds: "If you're going to have a local program, someone is going to be favored."
Haley took the Class A contractor's exam in August, and the state hurried up his license as it has done for others, said Matthew Brandon, state supervisor for contractor licensing.
Once Haley had his license, Nash had his candidate.
"It appeared to me he was open to something creative, so I went to Turner-Thompson with the idea of a joint venture before they selected the tradespeople for the project," Nash said.
Nash said Turner-Thompson found "four or five" contractors to participate as Haley's crews, and a deal was born at a "responsible price."
Nash said Haley's part of the contract did not add to the project cost, but was carved out of the Thompson-Turner portion.
"I convinced Virginia Tech and the Conference Center Commission and the general contractors that this deal solves our problem: We can have our cake and eat it, too. The price is responsible. Ken will get management experience, and the next time around he might be able to bid it on his own," Nash said.
Turner and Thompson are "not going to let him fail," Nash said.
Haley declined to comment on his involvement because, he said, he stands on his credentials as a businessman.
He has said that he didn't look for favoritism as a minority business.
"If somebody says to me that I'm a minority vendor, I put up my defenses," he said in 1988.
If minorities - and small businesses in general - don't get to see from the inside how big businesses operate, they don't stand much of a chance of becoming one, said Ron Leeper, a former Charlotte, N.C., councilman who speaks from firsthand experience.
Leeper, who has his own construction business, said F.N. Thompson and NationsBank Chairman Hugh McColl gave him that opportunity. Thompson, a 100-year-old company, and NationsBank both have headquarters in Charlotte.
Leeper said McColl persuaded F.N. Thompson to set up a mentoring program for him in 1990 and paid half of his salary for the three years he was in it.
Although Leeper had been a Charlotte councilman for a decade and had operated a building-supply business, he said he had only a high school education and knew little about the construction business.
During the mentoring period, Leeper progressively took on more and more responsibility as he learned the ins and outs of the business.
In November, he completed a $2.5 million project for Thompson and, in January, he opened R.J. Leeper Construction Co.
"That kind of exposure allowed me to go into business and not to fail," Leeper said.
This month, his company, in partnership with the bank's development company, won a $34 million job to rehabilitate a downtown Charlotte housing project.
While with F.N. Thompson, Leeper spent two months in Roanoke helping search for a solution to minority involvement in the hotel-conference center project.
He said he did not find the leaders in the project to be particularly receptive to the risk-taking required to create change.
"When a community decides that it makes sense that the African-American community should be vested," then it will do something, Leeper said.
After learning of Haley's selection, Leeper said that if "handpicking" someone for an "incubator" effort was the only way to ensure minority participation, then it was the right way.
Haley "is interacting with major contractors," and the experience should prepare Haley to branch out on his own, Leeper said.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***