ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 1996                  TAG: 9606040034
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
DATELINE: PEARISBURG
SOURCE: CLAYTON BRADDOCK STAFF WRITER 

TOWN SEES BLUFF CITY AS GROWTH AREA

The Bluff City neighborhood is still months away from being officially annexed by Pearisburg, but Town Council already knows what to do with it.

They want to build a big hunk of tomorrow.

While the council waits for closure of the long-simmering annexation dispute with Giles County, it is looking ahead to the day when the area will draw new residents to part of a 440-acre parcel.

Rather than preparing for a massive shopping mall and a sprawling subdivision, council will lay the groundwork for a $691,000 sewer project that will open the first door for an expansion-minded grocery chain, another grocery company now building a new addition, the county School Board's existing bus barn, a restaurant waiting for expansion and a few residences.

But that part of Bluff City - an unincorporated area between Pearisburg and the New River bridge leading to the Hoechst-Celanese Corp.'s Celco Plant - is only a fraction of the larger piece of land.

A much bigger door for the Bluff City sewer project will be the solid waste collection system which will reach out over the greater part of the future, the part which planners and engineers hope future residents and other commercial interests will create that future.

The project may seem a distant dream, but Town Manager Ken Vittum looks on it as much like the popular film "Field of Dreams," "Build it and they shall come," he said.

On July 3, the town will open bids on the project. If bidding stays within economic range, in about 90 days - about Oct 1 - the council will award bids on the project.

Many of the nearby residences have no indoor plumbing and will be served by the new system, which is a short distance from the town's sewage treatment plan, built in 1993.

The new collection pipes are not the only sewer system in Pearisburg. About a third of the town has an existing system in the central part of the town, including Fort Branch and an elementary school. Other parts of the town are served by other septic systems.

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