ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603140006
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
THE $150,000 STUDY by Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh will try to map out the next phase of renewal for the city's central business district.
The consultant named Tuesday to guide redevelopment of downtown Roanoke said his company typically treats such studies as marketing plans intended to generate private investment.
If you have a good plan and public dollars are well placed, Rob Robinson said, you should create interest among private investors. Private development worth $100 million is not an unreasonable goal for Roanoke over the next few years, Robinson said.
City officials credit three previous downtown plans as prodding private development in the downtown area worth three times that amount.
Robinson is a senior associate with Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh, which was named Tuesday to spearhead Outlook Downtown Roanoke, a communitywide study of the next phase of renewal for the city's central business district.
The goal, he said, is to develop a "compelling vision" that will attract investment money available now. That requires a framework rather than a fixed, rigid plan, he said.
Robinson, a native of Galax and 1976 graduate of Virginia Tech, said he has been familiar with Roanoke all of his life. He recently helped plan Spring Valley, a 200-unit residential project on U.S. 460 in Blacksburg.
"Roanoke has changed pretty dramatically" in recent years, Robinson said. Its downtown, he added "is the envy of many cities." The City Market, new nearby office developments and the Hotel Roanoke's conference center, he said, should leverage development for downtown Roanoke.
Robinson and his associates will come to Roanoke in late March or early April. Their work should take seven to eight months to complete, he said.
The study will cost $150,000 plus the consultants' expenses. The city of Roanoke has appropriated $75,000 for the work, and the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority added another $35,000. Downtown Roanoke Inc. will lead a drive among local businesses to raise the balance of $50,000.
Robinson said Urban Design will take a storefront or ground floor location, perhaps moving from time to time to be available to more people. He said he expects people who are downtown to drop in, review drawings and offer suggestions.
The consultants also propose a series of brown-bag lunch presentations to get more input from people with an interest in downtown.
Urban Design has written downtown plans for Alexandria, Norfolk and Portsmouth and for Charlotte, N.C.; Pittsburgh; Cleveland; and Lexington, Ky.
The consultants' plans for Portsmouth and Charlotte both called for mixed-use developments that included housing in retail districts.
The Outlook project's chairman, Beverly T. Fitzpatrick Jr., said a panel from the three sponsoring groups chose Urban Design Associates after reviewing proposals from more than a dozen urban revitalization firms.
Five other specialty firms also were named to work on the downtown plan:
nSiemon, Larsen & March of Chicago, development strategists;
nRhodeside and Harwell of Alexandria, landscape architects;
nZimmerman/Volk Associates of Clinton, N.J., residential market analysts;
nGlatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez Rinehart of Orlando, Fla., traffic planners; and
nHill Studio, a design firm located in downtown Roanoke.
Fitzpatrick said there will be workshops this spring, and the public will review recommendations from the consultants in the fall. The schedule calls for adoption of the plan by the end of the year.
Fitzpatrick, a vice president of Downtown Roanoke Inc., has been a leader in three previous revitalization plans: Design '79, which led to renaissance of the City Market; Design '85, which created the special assessment district downtown and led to development of convention facilities and housing; and Focus '89, which concentrated on vehicular access to downtown with construction now in progress.
Those studies triggered private investment of $300 million, exclusive of the remodeling of Hotel Roanoke and construction of its adjacent conference center, said Assistant City Manager James Ritchie.
The new study is expected to cover development of more residential housing and of more attractive gateways into the downtown district.
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