Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GALAX LENGTH: Medium
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, told people gathered in the Galax High School auditorium that the House of Representatives has approved $5 million to start construction, and he was confident of Senate approval.
He said he expected President Clinton to sign the Interior Appropriations Bill, which contains the funding, next month.
"That takes us halfway there," he said. The total project will cost $10 million, so another appropriation will be needed in the next budget cycle.
"I think it represents a part of the culture and heritage of the Blue Ridge that has been missing," said Gary Everhardt, superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
David Hill, who started working on the project with Dewberry & Davis, a Marion architectural firm, while he was attending Virginia Tech, outlined plans for the Blue Ridge Music Center at the meeting.
Hill, who now has his own firm in Roanoke, said the project will include an amphitheater, a half-mile trail with eight musical performance sites along it, and a visitors' center compound composed of several buildings.
Boucher said the project was the only one of about 60 that received congressional funding approval.
He credited local support and the fact that the city of Galax donated half of the 2,000 acres on Fisher Peak needed for the site.
In June, Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., tried to have funding for the center and several projects elsewhere in the country removed from the appropriations bill. Boucher said that the land donation by Galax was a key factor in keeping the money intact for the center.
The National Park Service valued the city's 1,000 acres, originally acquired to protect its water source, at about $4 million.
"After so many years of planning, we are on the verge of constructing the Blue Ridge Music Center," Boucher said. He said it would draw some of the 2.2 million parkway visitors passing through the area each year into Carroll and Grayson counties.
The Fisher Peak site is on the border of the two counties and also straddles the Virginia-North Carolina border. Boucher said he hoped the states would provide part of the $360,000 per year in estimated operating costs.
by CNB