ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Pulaski County is pondering putting utilities along Virginia 100 in a fast-growing area just outside Dublin.
The area is already home to the 100-room Comfort Inn and Bonfire Grill restaurant, and is slated for a 100-room Hampton Inn and 80-room Microtel before the end of the year. All three motels will be owned by Humphrey Hospitality Trust of Silver Spring, Md., but managed separately.
A new branch of the First National Bank of Christiansburg is under construction at the Dublin Town Center, a recently added part of town that will eventually have a new Dublin Post Office and municipal building.
"That whole section is going to develop," Dr. Bruce Fariss, a member of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors, said at Monday night's board meeting.
He said the county needs to put water, sewer and lights along that section as it has done in its nearby Corporate Center industrial park. "We need to do that to promote a better quality of business along Route 100," he said.
The board approved his motion to have the county staff bring back, within 60 days, a plan for development along that corridor from the Newbern Exxon Service Station, just south of the Interstate 81 Dublin exit, to New River Community College.
Dublin officials have been watching developments along that section of Virginia 100, too. The mayor and several council members said during their successful re-election campaigns that they would like to annex it.
But annexation would carry some financial penalties, stemming from a voluntary boundary adjustment last year between the town and Pulaski County that added the former Burlington Industries property to the town.
Dublin bought part of that property in June, 1993, as an industrial park, and Burlington later donated the rest.
The agreement included a provision that any annexation within 15 years by Dublin, other than one agreed to by the county, would include some penalties on utilities being developed jointly by the town and county.
The Burlington property will be the site of the future Dublin Town Center and the industrial park.
In other business Monday, the county supervisors decided to separate an annual Courthouse Day celebration from the annual Count Pulaski Festival in the town of Pulaski.
A committee had recommended the celebration to be scheduled Oct. 5, during the town's festival. "This is our courthouse, not their courthouse," objected Fariss, who suggested putting the observance on another day.
The old stone courthouse was rebuilt after being gutted by a fire Dec. 29, 1989, and formally rededicated Dec. 29, 1992. Supervisor Charles Cook agreed with Fariss' idea of a separate celebration, but said the logical Dec. 29 date would be unsuitable because of winter weather.
"Make it the Fourth of July," Fariss said. Labor Day weekend will also be considered before a date is chosen.
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