Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 18, 1995 TAG: 9502200041
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
John Stroud, president of the chamber, said it will move its offices in July or August after remodeling the building on South Jefferson Street at Kirk Avenue. Chamber offices now are in the Crestar Building at Church Avenue and First Street Southwest.
Charter Federal will lease the portion of the first floor that it uses as its downtown Roanoke branch.
Stroud said the purchase price was $365,000 for the 26,000-square-foot building. The chamber expects to spend another $200,000 for renovations.
Downtown Roanoke Inc., which now shares the Crestar Building mezzanine with the chamber, also will leave the building. Executive Director Matthew Kennell said the organization is looking at several downtown locations but has not reached a decision.
Another Crestar mezzanine tenant, the export office of the Virginia Department of Economic Development, will move with the chamber to the Charter Federal building.
Douglas Deppen, chief financial officer for Charter Federal, said the deal will represent "no big change" for the savings bank because it will continue to operate in the same space. But it, too, will renovate its portion of the building.
He said the upper floors of the five-story building have been vacant since Charter Federal took over the location, acquiring it with the former Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association in 1981. It apparently had been empty much longer than that, Deppen added.
"They came to us" with an offer, Deppen said, and Charter saw it as an opportunity to make some use of the vacant upper floors while retaining its present space.
Hall Associates Inc. of Roanoke represented Charter in brokering the deal. The chamber has retained Richard Rife of the architectural firm of Rife and Wood to develop plans for the renovation. Bids will be taken on the construction.
Stroud said the chamber will about double its present space of 7,000 square feet.
It will use some of the first-floor space behind the area it will lease to Charter Federal.
The mezzanine will be turned into a meeting room which can hold 75 people. "We have a lot of meetings," Stroud said. Its present meeting room has a capacity of 40 people.
The third floor will become the chamber offices, Stroud said.
The fourth and fifth floors, containing about 8,000 square feet, will be available for lease, according to Stroud. He said that space cannot be used without construction of an expensive fire escape, and the chamber cannot build the fire escape unless it finds a tenant.
Stroud said the chamber's move to the building will "really help downtown revitalization," an important reason for making the move.
by CNB