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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 2, 1995                   TAG: 9502030037
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

GABLES COMING BACK TO LIFE|

For months now, drivers riding along South Main Street have watched as workers gutted a 50,000-square foot chunk of Gables Shopping Center straight down to the dirt beneath.

Come this fall, though, the space should be filled with aisles and shelves full of bread, milk, canned foods and other wares of Harris Teeter, which when it opens should make the center as viable an operation as it's been in 10 years.

"Hopefully by September, we'll have a brand new shopping center out here," said Bob Pack of CP Partnership, the local group of investors that took over ownership of the center just over a year ago.

Pack and CP must be beaming at having the center 90 percent leased - that's more stores in the center than at any other time in the past decade. They've spent tens of thousands in construction and improvements, and Pack credits an improved economy, good timing and "a lot of luck" in turning the center's fortunes around.

"It's a neighborhood shopping center ... and we want to return the integrity of that," Pack said.

The owners had to tear out three store spaces - each with different floor levels - to prepare the Harris Teeter space, Pack explained of the center's current state. "We've had hundreds of people ask us that same question - why we tore out the floors," he said.

With a new facade and revamped parking lot, new stores like Advance Auto Parts - scheduled to open in March - the YMCA Thrift Shop and a convenience store opening up in the former Texaco, Pack said, "it's going to be all a brand new store."

by CNB