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

DATE: THURSDAY, July 28, 1994                   TAG: 9407300025
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPANY TO SHOW QUARTERS AFTER A YEAR OF RENOVATION

The company, which was looking for a place to consolidate the headquarters of its two subsidiaries, Branch Highways Inc. and G.J. Hopkins Inc., paid $800,000 for the 19,000-square-foot building.

Now, a year later, the former manufacturing plant of Clarke-American Checks Inc. has been renovated into modern shop and office space and has grown in size to 26,000 square feet. The company declined to disclose the value of the expansion and remodeling program.

Branch is showing off the new quarters at an open house today for the company's customers and associates.

Rutherford Avenue, in the vicinity of Roanoke Civic Center and the city's main post office, has become something of a contractors' row, with Adams Construction Co. and Avis Construction Co. Inc. across the street from Branch.

The movement of construction companies into urban enterprise zones in various Virginia cities has stirred some controversy lately, with critics, including competing companies, arguing that the zones were never meant to serve as tax havens for existing companies.

However, Ralph Shivers, chairman of the Branch Group and president of Branch Highways, said a tax inequity exists among contractors around Virginia, regardless of whether they're located in enterprise zones. A contractor in Fairfax may pay higher property taxes than one in Roanoke, but a Roanoke company pays more than companies in rural areas, such as Bath County, he said.

Federal enterprise-zone legislation was intended to revitalize urban areas and bring jobs to the core cities. Shivers said his company has done that and will be adding to the city's tax base.

Doug Chittum, who administers the enterprise zone program for Roanoke, said Branch is a "shining example" of how the enterprise zone program is supposed to work. The company has created investment and jobs in the city's urban core, he said.

Branch Highways, a road construction company, was formerly based in the city in a 6,000-square-foot building on Franklin Road. Its G.J. Hopkins unit, a mechanical and electrical contractor for commercial construction, was in an 11,000-square-foot building on Thirlane Road in Roanoke County.

Besides the enterprise zone tax advantages, the company decided to move because it had outgrown its Franklin Road office and because the Rutherford Avenue location was central and offered ready access to Interstate 81, Shivers said.

Branch Highways was founded in 1963 on Starkey Road in Roanoke County. The company bought G.J. Hopkins in 1984. The Branch Group, which is employee-owned, did more than $100 million in business last year, Shivers said.

Employment within both companies totals roughly 1,000, with about two-thirds working for the highway contractor. About 70 employees work in the new headquarters.