ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603250100
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRUCE BRENNER
FOR 12 years, I've been an active member of the Henry Street Revitalization Committee. I've shared Noel Taylor's dream and thoughts, and his disappointments. Now when the resurgence of Henry Street is about to become a reality, the opportunity is being destroyed. Don't let emotions ruin the day. Let me share some thoughts with you.
First of all, you must understand the mission and vision of those of us who worked on the committee. I've asked that it be published along with this commentary. Three principles have served as a guideline to work during the past 12 years.
* Restore vibrancy to the area, capturing the historical flavor and significance of Henry Street.
* Promote the area as a dining and entertainment district to complement the existing downtown market.
* Seek private rather than government funds for development, with an emphasis on opportunities for minority ownership.
The selection of Hill Studio for our updated study needs explanation. We elected to interview all four firms that replied to our request for proposal. All of them gave us a better understanding of the problems and opportunities.
One of the firms, Stull and Lee, was led by Dr. M. David Lee, a black adjunct professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture. Dr. Lee gave us a clear definition of the factors we should consider if the area was to be developed as a dining and entertainment district. Two of these factors were consideration of local conditions and the experience of an entertainment developer.
The Hill Studio presentation including John Elkington, the developer of Beale Street, Ed Barnett and Bob Price, a local architect and a local builder, and Thomasile M. Williams, a local historian, completely covered these factors.
It must be remembered that as important as it was to study the feelings of the community, and indeed, many one-on-one interviews were conducted, other factors had to be evaluated to make sure the project had the ingredients of success.
Land use and design was another key component. The total potential market had to be evaluated with a plan that complemented our total downtown market. This included evaluating such items as future tour bus potential, student participation within a 40- to 50-mile radius of the area, and spin-off business from the Hotel Roanoke. Together these factors showed there was the potential for a viable Henry Street Project and economic success for those involved.
Several weeks ago the newspaper published an article by Professor Reginald Shareef encouraging the members of the Henry Street Committee to read ``The Vision of the Enlightened'' by Thomas Sowell. As a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University, I was able to locate a copy at the library and read same.
For those of you who are willing to listen, Dr. Sowell, a black economist and philosopher with the Hoover Institute at Stanford, points out that the ``Vision of the Enlightened,'' or programs of the majority in Congress since 1960, have had desolate effects on the black community and family. The war on poverty has taken away the motivation and need to work for many families; sex education has encouraged teen-age pregnancy and the single family; and leniency on criminals has encouraged more crime.
He devotes a whole chapter on inconsistency ``the enlightened'' have used to develop statistics illustrating their success. In another book of his essays, he stresses that education and economic development will enhance the upward mobility of the community.
The true thrust of the current Henry Street Plan is to make Henry Street a slice of the pie of the Roanoke Valley. Its focus is to be a dining and entertainment area. Our committee wants the Beale Street Plan to serve as our model because it aggressively seeks black involvement at the entrepreneur and management level.
In the 1993 Beale Street Manifesto, the objective was for 40 percent of the businesses to be owned by African-Americans by December 1996 and 50 percent of all managerial employees to be African-Americans by December 1997. As of mid-1994, 35.5 percent of the businesses were owned by African-Americans and 35 percent of the managerial employees were African-Americans.
It's time to be practical. This plan will not get under way when emotions supersede facts. It's our hope that there is a ``silent majority,'' from both the black community and others in the Roanoke Valley, that support the committee's concept of developing Henry Street as a dining and entertainment area.
Sowell is also a very practical philosopher. I'd like to conclude this article with one of his thoughts. Sowell on ``Needs'': ``The real issue is almost never whether we should have nothing at all or some unlimited amount. The real issue is what kind of trade-off makes sense. That usually means having some but not all we want.''
Bruce Brenner of Roanoke is a member of the Henry Street Revitalization Committee.
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