Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 28, 1995 TAG: 9503290042
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What started three years ago as a protest against another city incursion into mostly black Gainsboro has turned into a positive intervention enhancing the fragile remnant of the once-vibrant neighborhood.
Given the history of urban renewal - black, largely poor neighborhoods bulldozed and paved over in the '60s - it was understandable that residents reacted warily or angrily when the city decided in the '90s that Wells Avenue, running through what little remained of Gainsboro, had to be widened.
With the need to accommodate Hotel Roanoke's renovation and handle future downtown traffic - and with Gainsboro lying flush up against the hotel in the heart of downtown - it looked as though the city's common good might have to be served once again at the expense of a neighborhood that had given up much. The hotel renovation is the city's No. 1 economic-development project, and downtown traffic already is congested.
The way things have worked out, however, Gainsboro is hardly being sacrificed. Contrary to the depiction of a small group of protesters, the neighborhood in fact is benefiting.
This time, city officials were more receptive to neighborhood protests than they've been in the past.
Compromise wasn't easy. Community leaders wanted Gainsboro to benefit from the hotel renovation, but they first wanted to assure there would be a neighborhood left. The city took extraordinary measures to provide this assurance, including (1) redrawing its plans to avoid demolishing a dozen homes and (2) spending more than $600,000 to remodel the only two homes that remained in the widened road's path and moving them to fill in formerly empty lots.
The result is a Wells Avenue more nicely landscaped, lighted and designed than the entrance to any other neighborhood in the city - at the expense of not one home. For $5.8 million, one-third mile of roadway has been transformed into a boulevard enhanced with historic details suggesting an era when the neighborhood was bustling.
Mere "wallpaper," Evelyn Bethel, an early and continuing opponent of the project, says dismissively. But as with the hotel renovation, beyond the warm glow of nostalgia lies the promise of payoffs for all Roanoke's neighborhoods - particularly those just north of the railroad tracks.
Wells is a major corridor between the hotel area and Gainsboro, where hopes burn for restoring nearby First Street to some commercial value, if not to its Henry Street days of glory.
The city has promised to devote more resources to the area for housing rehabilitation and a professional park for minority businesses. But government can spread only seed money; it cannot guarantee success. To thrive again, the area must attract private investment. For that to happen, investors must be convinced they can make money there. And for that, the neighborhood must be inviting.
The widened, improved Wells adds to the invitation.
by CNB