Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995 TAG: 9507120064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER NOTE: Below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At a joint meeting Tuesday of Roanoke City Council and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Harry Nickens urged his fellow politicians to scrap stalled plans for a Roanoke Valley visitors center and called instead for a larger, more inclusive effort.
"We've concluded there is no money out there to fund a Roanoke Valley center that focuses on the Blue Ridge Mountains alone," Nickens said. "We've got to make it statewide."
Nickens, who has worked in support of a tourist destination on the parkway for more than two years, told council and board members that the Roanoke Valley is a perfect site for an "orientation and interpretation center" because it is near major north-south roads.
Virginia Mountain Country, the proposed name for the center, "focuses on a corridor that has its center near I-81, Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway," Nickens said. "Within an hour on either side of these corridors is the history of this country. We ought to be telling this nation's story."
The Blue Ridge Parkway attracts 2.7 million visitors a year, and Roanoke-area officials have grappled for years with ways to lure its traffic - and money-spending tourists - into the local area. Previous discussions about a visitors center for the valley broke down when the county, Explore Park representatives and the National Park Service failed to reach consensus on potential locations and federal park officials concluded that a center was not needed in the Roanoke Valley.
The proposal advocated Tuesday is the most sweeping in a series of efforts to draw up plans for a parkway-based center, but could have a better chance at beating out the competition for funding, Nickens said.
"We could market this both nationally and internationally. If we can convince people from Berlin, Germany, that they could come here to see the cradle of democracy - Staunton, Monticello and the like - I think we could attract international visitors," Nickens said. "We have the real thing: geography, battlefields, historic homes."
Tim Gubala, the county's director of economic development, told the local officials that they need to act fast and endorse a proposal.
Several other groups in Southwest Virginia are working to build regional tourist centers, and if the Roanoke Valley doesn't get behind a more extensive plan swiftly, the already-dwindled state reserves could be depleted.
"We are not alone. There are other localities in Western Virginia that have the same idea," Gubala said. "We really need to come together as a valley to choose a visitors center site, work with the National Park Service, and get behind it."
After hearing the presentation, the two governments agreed to establish a task force that will report back with its recommendations within 30 days.
The task force, which will include city and county staff, the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the National Park Service, will study five possible sites for a center.
All five sites are situated around the parkway, not far from Explore Park. The preferred site, identified after environmental impact studies by the National Park Service, is a farm just east of Vinton and north of the Roanoke River. The property is owned by Al Hammond, who previously had refused to sell the land, saying he would prefer to build a center himself and lease it to the park service.
Nickens said Tuesday that Hammond had agreed to enter a partnership with local governments and public interest groups and put up part of the needed money. That will be key to the success of the project, which is expected to cost nearly $3 million in its first phase, Nickens said.
Hammond could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
by CNB