Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510200017
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With all the new businesses that have opened there in recent months, you just can't tell your stores without a program anymore.
To list just a few of the most recent additions:
Twist & Turns, a manufacturer of custom metal furniture and home decor items, opened a new showroom on Campbell Avenue.
Pepperberries and Oxford Mercantile, two gift shops, moved into Twist & Turns' old spot across the street.
Imagination Station, a toy store, and Annie's Cottage, a children's clothing shop, now share a space on Market Street.
Beginner's Luck, a gift shop and art gallery, opened on Market Street.
The Full Moon Cafe set up shop on the market.
O'Dell's, another restaurant, has opened on Salem Avenue across from the First Union Tower.
Plans are in the works for a wine shop and a Turkish restaurant, and there are still more storefronts available.
"There seems to be a whole lot of momentum," said Matt Kennell, executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc.
Look at the numbers: By June, 20 new businesses had opened downtown, a 65-block area bordered by Wells Avenue, Elm Avenue, Fifth Street and Williamson Road. Kennell said he expects a total of 40 new businesses by the end of the year. Last year, a total of 26 moved into downtown. Over the last five years, about 109 new businesses have opened. Considering businesses that have closed in that period, the net gain has been about 10 new shops and restaurants a year.
The most recent spate of store arrivals can be attributed partially to the upcoming Christmas retailing season. Shirley Hammond, who opened Imagination Station last week at 305 Market St., space that formerly was the Lock, Stock & Barrel gift and housewares shop, said there's no way a toy store like hers could open any later than October and still catch the Christmas rush. It is the season that for many retailers accounts for almost 40 percent of annual sales and determines whether the fiscal year is profitable.
Lisa Farmer agreed. "You have to get in by Christmas if you want to make any money," she said. She opened her gift shop, Pepperberries, on Campbell Avenue two weeks ago.
Merchants also credit the reopening of the Hotel Roanoke and the construction of the pedestrian bridge with bringing new customers - and, hence, new businesses - downtown.
"There's an optimism about the market," Hammond said. When the Hotel Roanoke closed four years ago, downtown merchants watched sales drop, she said. Now, just six months after the hotel reopened, businesses are looking to make up for lost time and sales.
Joyce Mills, who in April opened Beginner's Luck, said about 60 percent of her customers are from out of town. She credits the hotel and conference center with much of that traffic.
Other observers say it's important not to make the mistake of assuming that this growth is somehow a fluke, little more than short-sighted optimism in response to the opening of the Hotel Roanoke and the pedestrian bridge. Bill Green, a professor in Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies, said that what Roanoke is now experiencing certainly has been helped by the convention center and the tourists. But he said it's more accurate to see this expansion as part of something larger - a plan that was dreamed up almost 20 years ago and is just now reaching fruition.
In the 1970s, there was concern that Roanoke would suffer the same fate of so many similar cities - that downtown shops would move to the malls and the once-vibrant downtown area would die. In 1979, a team led by architect Charles Moore held town meetings to gather ideas for a plan for a revitalized downtown.
What's amazing, Green said, is that so many of the report's recommendations have become reality. He listed examples: The report said the downtown district should be anchored around food vendors; Roanoke now has the Market Square and a number of restaurants. The report said the city needed a tall building as a symbol of progress and success; First Union Tower and Norfolk Southern Corp.'s regional headquarters building now provide two visual anchors. The report said the former indoor farmers' market should be moved outside; today, farmers sell their produce from open-air stalls in all but the coldest of winter weeks.
Despite the revitalization efforts, some businesses have moved out of downtown and into the heavier traffic of malls and shopping centers. But Green said that losing stores like Woolworth's, which last year closed its longtime outlet on Campbell Avenue, and possibly Heironimus, which has been the subject of rumors for months, shouldn't be taken as a sign of ill health. Rather than trying to attract big chain stores, downtown Roanoke should concentrate on what sets it apart from malls: small, unique, locally oriented shops.
From the looks of the new stores opening downtown, Roanoke merchants already know this. The shops they're operating aren't all of a type; even the handful of gift shops specialize in distinct merchandise lines. Mills of Beginner's Luck said that downtown store owners are generally careful about stepping on one another's toes; Mills herself visited many other downtown shops before she opened her own, just to make sure that she wouldn't be competing with anyone else's merchandise lines.
And for all the talk about attracting tourists, these shops are still for Roanokers, Green said.
Roanoke lawyer Robert Szathmary owns several buildings downtown, including the one on Campbell Avenue that now houses Pepperberries and Oxford Mercantile. In the mid-'80s, Szathmary operated a gallery in that space, where he sold antiques and fine and primitive art.
He couldn't make a decent living at the business, he said, because Roanokers who had the money to buy such items didn't want to shop in their home town - they preferred to say they bought their furnishings in Atlanta or San Francisco or New York. Today, he said, that's all changing. Now, people who live in Roanoke are eager to claim that they bought this or that piece of art "on the market."
"That's the ultimate compliment to Roanoke's development," Szathmary said.
by CNB