ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512040075
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
CHRISTIANSBURG - First National Bank has promoted three people to vice president positions.
John S. Phillips, who will be in charge of commercial loans, is a graduate of Virginia Military Institute and is pursuing a master's of business administration at Virginia Tech. A native of Atlanta, he has eight years banking experience.
Peter A. Seitz is general counsel for the bank. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Washington and Lee University. He is from Fairmont, W.Va.
Jane M. Meyer will be in charge of the commercial credit department. Meyer is a Radford University graduate who has been a teller, customer service representative, loan review officer and credit analyst since joining the bank in 1988.
New River mall gets new stores
CHRISTIANSBURG - Four months after getting a new manager, six stores have opened or are slated to open soon in New River Valley Mall.
Shoppers can now stop for a cup of coffee at a new Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea or browse for the latest computer programs at Software Etc.
Sears has added a bed and bath shop in a 9,500-square-foot expansion. And a novelty shop, Treasure Isle, has joined these businesses in opening in recent weeks.
Coming this month are Merle Norman cosmetics, Pad Thai, a Thai restaurant, and Pretzels Plus.
"I have been trying to entice people to come into the mall, and it has been working," said mall manager Mike Poldiak, who has been on the job since August.
With the new stores, the mall will have 72 percent of its leasable space occupied. Poldiak said his goal for 1996 is to add a half dozen more stores, to bring the occupancy rate to between 78 and 80 percent.
Several of the new stores are moving into spaces that have been long unoccupied.
Poldiak said he has been trying to recruit local businesses into the mall, which in its eight years has been plagued by empty store fronts.
Previous mall managers have not emphasized local businesses, Poldiak said, and he has been trying to do just that.
"It sounded interesting, so we did it," said Scott Elich, co-owner of Mill Mountain, which also recently opened a new location in The Forum shopping center near Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke.
The lease on his site near the mall's food court expires at the end of January. Elich said he will not decide if he will renew the lease until after Christmas, when he will have a better idea of what business is normally like in the mall.
Red Lobster ready to build new eatery
CHRISTIANSBURG - After more than a year of rumor and conjecture, Red Lobster has announced it is ready to break ground on a restaurant to be built on the corner of U.S. 460 and Peppers Ferry Road, next to Ryan's.
Construction could start within days, and the restaurant could be open for business within six months, said Dick Monroe, vice president for public relations for the restaurant chain, from corporate offices in Orlando, Fla. The eatery will seat about 200 people and employ between 85 and 100 full- and part-time workers.
Monroe said the Christiansburg restaurant will feature the chain's new design, patterned after wharfside establishments. It will have old-weathered wood and nautical artifacts.
Monroe, who has never visited the site and was unfamiliar with Christiansburg, said he did not know what impact the restaurant would have on traffic in the congested area. He was relieved when told the business will be in the middle of what has become Montgomery County's retail and restaurant hub.
"I am more nervous when I go to a Red Lobster and see there are no competitors around it," he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Seitz, Phillips.by CNB