ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996                  TAG: 9603040051
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN AND BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITERS

HEIRONIMUS TO CLOSE ITS NEW RIVER VALLEY STORE GRAND PIANO TO TAKE ITS PLACE

Less than two years after nearly doubling its size and moving to Christiansburg, the New River Valley's Heironimus department store is closing.

Larry Drombetta, president of the Heironimus division of The Dunlap Co., said Saturday that the store would close and Grand Piano & Furniture Co. would take its place. He would not comment about why the store was closing. A closing date has not been set.

Grand Piano has a store in downtown Blacksburg, and one local merchant said there had been rumors that the store might move to the fast-growing U.S. 460-Peppers Ferry Road area of Christiansburg.

The Roanoke-based furniture company, started in 1945, ranks among the largest furniture retailers in the country with stores in Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. Grand Piano President George Cartledge Jr. did not return a call to his home Saturday evening.

The Dunlap Co., a Fort Worth, Texas-based department store chain, bought Heironimus in 1993 from Roanoke owners. In January, it closed the Heironimus flagship store in downtown Roanoke.

Heironimus moved into its 40,000-square-foot Christiansburg store in August 1994 after closing a 23,000-square-foot store in Blacksburg's University Mall.

Heironimus was the last big retailer in Blacksburg. Those businesses shifted to the New River Valley Mall area after Christiansburg annexed it from Montgomery County in 1988.

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