Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995 TAG: 9502280071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The faded beige paint is chipping. There are parking spaces for the handicapped, but no handicapped access to the building. There's no central air conditioning, and the heating system is old. The windows and roof need replacing.
Yet that worn building in Salem - or at least the land it's standing on - is a hot commodity.
Undeveloped land in Salem is scarce, City Manager Randy Smith says.
It's so scarce that Salem has a contract to pay Roanoke County $600,000 over the next three years to buy the building at the corner of College Avenue and Fourth Street. As part of the deal, it also will get the adjacent building - formerly used by the county Health Department and School Board - and two parking lots.
``When you're 95 percent built out on land, and sizable pieces of land come up, we like to look at them to see if it'd be of use to us or the community,'' Smith said last week.
The city hasn't come up with a use for the building, which once housed a cigarette vending machine company, but that didn't stop Salem from pouncing on the opportunity to acquire land in a high-traffic area.
But there's more at stake here than just land. There's also the issue of control: Roanoke County had it, and Salem wanted it.
``If you let [Roanoke County] sell it, they might sell it to someone who might not be the best thing for the community,'' Smith said. ``When you own it, you can attract and decide who to sell it to.''
City Councilman Alex Brown put it more directly: "We don't know what we're going to do with it, but we're buying it so we can have control."
Smith admits, however, that there haven't been any bites about the property yet, with the exception of an inquiry from Salem School Superintendent Wayne Tripp about the use of one of the parking lots.
Smith said he is sure that will change.
``I don't have anybody [to buy it] now, but I didn't have anyone when I got the industrial park on Apperson Drive either, and it didn't take us any time to fill that up,'' Smith said.
The deal for 526 and 510 College Ave. is one that's been in the works for months - ever since the county School Board announced that, after 37 years in Salem, it was moving its offices to the former Roanoke County Occupational School on Cove Road.
It was the buildings' condition and lack of space that led to the move.
The Cove Road locale ``is somewhat larger, and it allows us to have all our offices together. If we had stayed there at 526 [College], a number of renovations would've had to have been done,'' said Marty Robison, executive assistant to the Roanoke County schools.
Around the same time that negotiations for the property got under way, Salem began mulling a decision to discontinue its 20-year practice of charging fees to Roanoke County for garbage collection and fire and rescue services at its buildings in Salem. The county still has a courthouse and a jail in the city.
Those fees cost Roanoke County about $25,000 annually.
Smith calls the overlapping time periods purely coincidental.
``It was something that came up at the same time,'' Smith said. ``What's fair is fair. We don't pay a service charge on the property we own in the county, and if I don't charge the state and federal governments, then why should I charge'' Roanoke County?
Although elimination of the service charge passed on second reading Feb. 13 - the same night council formally announced that it would try to negotiate a deal with Roanoke County for the school property - County Administrator Elmer Hodge agrees that the two issues were separate.
``It's not a part of the formal contract, and Salem had already discussed the fee when we made the sale. But was that taken into consideration by our [Board of Supervisors]? Yes. It was a gesture by Salem to be reasonable and fair.''
The city has not decided whether it will renovate or raze the two buildings, but ``there's better than an even chance [the school building] will be torn down,'' Smith said.
Staff writer Sarah Huntley contributed information to this story.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***