ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
An intercontinental rocket next to the future Second Street Bridge. A trolley-style bus to shuttle people to area attractions.
A raised walkway putting you eye-level with passing trains as you amble from City Market to the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Restaurants, perhaps a dinner theater, maybe an antiques mall, in Warehouse Row. A connection to Henry Street and Historic Gainsboro.
City officials are calling it Railwalk, Roanoke's latest downtown tourist attraction.
The city and architects from Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern unveiled plans Tuesday night for the $1.8 million linear walkway that could get off the drawing board later this year and be opened to the public by the end of 1997.
Judging from the reactions of a handful of residents who showed up to look over the plans, there are still a few kinks to be worked out, but the project looks like a go.
"There is nothing about this plan that's going to be shoved down your throat," architect Tim Jamison assured the roughly 20 people who expressed some concerns about the project.
As he described it, the park would be like an "English garden - you don't see all of it at once," Jamison said. "It's a series of vignettes."
But it would also have a railroad feel. One style being considered would give it the look of an old-time passenger railroad station platform.
The linear walkway's genesis was years ago, when former Mayor Noel Taylor proposed a smaller version along Norfolk Southern tracks near the City Market. But it never got to the drawing board.
In 1993, city officials expanded the idea as a way to link the City Market and the Transportation Museum and asked for residents' input.
Conceptual plans were formally unveiled by Mayor David Bowers in 1994, when the city sought approval from voters for a $23 million bond issue.
About $1.5 million of those borrowed funds will be used in the walkway's $1.8 million first phase. A federal grant is providing the other $300,000.
The initial construction would include the raised walkway, some landscaping, water fountains and lighting. Construction could begin late this year and conclude in 1997, city architect Charles Anderson said.
In the designs presented Tuesday, an 1,800-foot raised walkway would extend along the railroad tracks from Market Street to Warehouse Row, where it would jog slightly to the south and hug the Norfolk Avenue side of the warehouses.
It would be about 4 feet higher than the street and 15 feet wide for much of the distance, but as narrow as 6 feet in some places, such as Warehouse Row. The chain-link fence along the tracks would be replaced with a more attractive barrier.
The walkway would end at a pedestrian plaza extending under the planned Second Street bridge and to the Virginia Museum of Transportation.
Plans are to add benches, small sheds and a tower connecting the walkway to the First Street bridge, which would allow pedestrians access to Henry Street.
But there is no timetable or cost estimate on those items. Working out those details was part of the purpose of inviting residents to preview the plans Tuesday.
Most of the concerns came from owners of buildings on Warehouse Row and some who own structures on Salem that back up to Norfolk Avenue across from the warehouses.
They fear losing parking and access to their buildings.
Questions were also raised about moving the old Wasena Park rocket to a plaza between Warehouse Row and the future Second Street bridge, an item that's possible in future plans.
"That thing that's by the [Wasena] bridge? They want to move that down there?" asked Gainsboro activist Evelyn Bethel. "What's the significance of that?"
Hayes Seay architect Gary Lievers said the rocket is intended to lure pedestrians all the way down Warehouse Row and to the transportation museum behind the bridge.
But Kay Houck, executive director of the museum, fears that the rocket would be seen as the end of the walkway and that people wouldn't make it to the museum.
Other items that are undecided include what materials to use for the walkway's top deck, Anderson said.
There may be additional costs. City officials believe they'll need to acquire at least one piece of land next to Warehouse Row that is used as a commercial parking lot.
The walkway extends over land owned by the Norfolk Southern Corp., and the city hasn't begun dickering over the project with the railroad. NS officials want to see final plans before negotiations begin, Anderson said.
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