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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994                   TAG: 9402230070
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOULD-BE VENDORS BRIEFED ON SELLING TO HOTEL ROANOKE

Grace Hickenbotham is interested in bidding on the furnishings and floral decorations for the Hotel Roanoke and conference center.

R.J. McLean Jr. hopes to supply stationery and other paper items to the complex, to open after renovation in spring 1995.

The two were among 150 or so business people who attended an informational session Tuesday for potential vendors to the $40 million project.

The vendor open house was a departure for Doubletree Hotels Corp., the Phoenix company that will manage the hotel and center and the one that will be buying the $6.8 million worth of goods and services.

"We don't normally do this," said Scott C. Pollack, director of purchasing for Doubletree's Innco Hospitality Purchasing division. "In a typical project, we'd be buying goods all over the country."

Hickenbotham owns AA Send a Smile Florist and Furnishings and McLean represents Dillard Paper Co. Both said the session at the Roanoke Civic Center's exhibit hall was a good opportunity.

"You've got to be here to get yourself involved," said McLean.

Because the project involves public entities - Virginia Tech, owner of the hotel, and the city of Roanoke, which is paying for the conference center - Doubletree's leaders have promised to use local companies, especially minority- and women-owned businesses, wherever possible.

Tuesday, vendor information forms were distributed, along with lists of items that will be bought and a purchasing timetable. For example, specifications for furnishings are expected to be ready March 1; the bidding will open March 21 and end May 13.

Similar schedules have been set for the purchasing of millwork and laundry equipment to operating supplies.

Mode Johnson of Virginia Tech explained that purchasing for the hotel will be handled differently from that for the conference center.

Opening of bids for the conference center will be advertised in newspapers because those purchases are to be made under the Virginia Procurement Act. There also are special guidelines vendors to the hotel must meet, because that project is getting federal Housing and Urban Development funds.

by CNB