Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The agency's board of commissioners on Tuesday praised conceptual plans for such a project and gave a green light for a feasibility study to determine whether the estimated $2.5 million investment could be recouped by renting space to professionals and small retailers.
Now called First Street Northwest, Henry Street 50 years ago was crowded with black-owned "mom and pop" enterprises such as barber shops, restaurants, dry cleaners, a hotel and theater. Now it's largely urban blight with empty, deteriorating buildings and vacant, overgrown lots.
"We believe the authority's building will be a catalyst for further development of the Henry Street area," said Willis Anderson, chairman of the agency's board.
The project was also lauded by former Mayor Noel Taylor, chairman of the Henry Street Revival Committee. The group has pushed redevelopment efforts along the former Henry Street.
"A kind of excitement has been created by this possibility. We've waited for some type of project like this to come forward - for nine years, to be exact," Taylor said.
A three-story, 30,000-square-foot building would front Henry Street on a commercially zoned parcel between Loudon and Wells avenues that the authority already owns.
It would be one block west of the soon-to-open Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, just north of the Henry Street Music Center and Jazz Institute, and cater-corner from the First Baptist Church on Wells Avenue.
Designs were unveiled by architects from Hill Studio, which has been retained under a $30,000 contract to prepare site plan work, the feasibility study and estimates of development costs.
The building would be 50 feet wide, 190 feet long and flanked by courtyards on either end. The south courtyard, facing the music center, would be large enough for outdoor concerts, said architect David Hill.
Rather than a large monolith, the project's Henry Street facade would appear as a series of eight small buildings attached to each other. The historic-style facade would continue into a three-story open atrium that would look like an enclosed street, Hill said.
The other side, which would face Second Street after its realignment, would appear modern, with a glass entrance and skylights spanning the building's third floor.
The board won't make a final decision on going ahead with the building until the market study is finished and it has firmer cost estimates. But commissioners, who unanimously approved the concept, sounded as if they're ready to give final approval now.
The authority doesn't have a firm idea of how it would pay for the project. But under state law it could raise a portion of the funds by selling bonds that would be repaid through office rents, Smith said.
The building already has one prospective tenant: the authority itself. It would move its headquarters from Salem Turnpike and occupy the project's third floor. The authority would offer the second floor as professional offices, and lease ground-floor space to small retailers and food-service businesses.
There is plenty of downtown office space available, said Edwin Hall and Mike Waldvogel, two Roanoke-based commercial real estate brokers. But Waldvogel said the market is tight for government agencies, which might value the proximity to housing authority offices.
Evelyn Bethel, president of the Historic Gainsboro Preservation District Inc., said she was unaware of the authority's plans and will reserve judgment until she studies them.
But if the agency truly wants to bring back Henry Street, it should try to attract black and other minority entrepreneurs to the building, she said.
"Without that effort, then Henry Street won't ever be what it once was," she said.
Anderson said the nearby $42 million hotel and conference center, which will open in April, will provide the pedestrian and street traffic through the area that makes the project workable.
by CNB