ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512040030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on December 5, 1995.
A headline in Monday's paper incorrectly said ground was being broken
Monday for a regional vicitor center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The
groundbreaking was for the Roanoke River Parkway, which will connect
Explore and the visitor center with the Blue Ridge Parkway.
THOSE WHO WOULD like to see a visitor center along the Blue Ridge Parkway finally have made some progress.
Getting a visitor information center along the Blue Ridge Parkway has been a seesaw ride for years, with the Roanoke Valley leaders and the National Park Service never quite seeing eye to eye.
But the Roanoke River Parkway, a 11/2-mile stretch of pavement that will connect the Roanoke Valley's living history Explore Park to the Blue Ridge Parkway, may be the key to ending years of deadlock.
Come April 1997, there will be a regional visitor center along that spur. Today, ground is being broken for it.
Granted, the center will be housed in borrowed quarters on Explore Park grounds. But Roanoke County Supervisor Harry Nickens said he is confident that by 2000 the valley will have a permanent headquarters for its center off the spur.
Nickens, who six months ago was eyeing Al Hammond's 300-acre farm for the center, said his change in heart is linked to one thing - access.
To be successful, a visitor center - which will feature a museum on the Blue Ridge Parkway's history and tourist destinations in the valley - needs visitors. And without a direct link to the Blue Ridge Parkway - the park service wouldn't allow an access point - the Hammond site would lack that crucial ingredient, Nickens said.
So the site Nickens and the ad hoc Visitor Center Task Force now favor is along the closed Roanoke Regional Landfill. Nickens is chairman of the task force, which includes officials from Salem, Roanoke, local chambers of commerce and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke.
That site has an almost guaranteed infusion of Blue Ridge Parkway travelers via the Roanoke River Parkway.
Since the Roanoke River Parkway was proposed in 1987, the fate of the road and the proposed visitor center have been tied together.
Initially, the parkway was envisioned as a 10-mile stretch that wound its way through Vinton, crossed the Roanoke River and dead-ended at Explore Park. At that time, the park service also studied five sites for the center before advancing one.
Hammond's 300-acre farm north of the Roanoke River was then the logical locale for the center. A center there would snag tourists from the Blue Ridge Parkway and direct them and their dollars to the Roanoke Valley.
But a 1990 study, which put the price tag for the road at about $110 million, prompted the National Park Service to scale back its plans. In the park service's final recommendation, the parkway no longer crossed the river. Instead, it stayed south of the river and ran straight to Explore.
"At that time, it left that preferred location high and dry," said Explore Park Executive Director Rupert Cutler of the Hammond property. The park service "never got around to changing its record of decision."
The wheels now are turning for the park service to do just that, said Joyce Waugh of the county's economic development department.
That means the park service will remove Hammond's property as the preferred site, opening the doors for the original study's second choice - the closed landfill.
The county isn't taking any chances, though. At its Dec. 12 meeting, the Board of Supervisors will consider another resolution in support of a center along the spur and will ask other localities to do the same. The county forwarded a similar resolution to the park service in 1993.
But for the park service to change its mind may prove a long and involved process, Waugh said.
And then there's the question of funding, which is part of what made Hammond's property so appealing, Cutler said.
Waugh said there are no estimates on what the center will cost but Hammond, who repeatedly refused to sell his property to Explore Park, had promised to chip in millions of dollars toward building an interactive visitor center and museum. The task force has since punted the more elaborate plan for the Virginia Mountain Country center - a center promoting the history of the country found in Virginia's mountains.
Now, however, the valley must come up with funding alternatives, Nickens said.
He's hoping for a federal, state, local and private partnership.
In 1988, Congress appropriated $450,000 to study building the center. But that money was "reprogrammed" only after $180,000 was tapped for the center.
Even the temporary site, which would be a log cabin next to the Brugh Tavern in Explore Park, poses a funding question.
The 18th century tavern is scheduled to be completed by the spur's opening in April 1997. Cutler said he hasn't worked out how the center's cabin will get from Charlottesville to Roanoke and who will pay for it and its move.
Cutler estimates the cost at about $100,000, and he's hoping for an infusion of county dollars for the project.
County Administrator Elmer Hodge said he has not received any funding requests for the cabin.
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