ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996                  TAG: 9606240091
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER 

SALEM IS HOPING FOR LAND SWAP ROANOKE COLLEGE ACRES COULD SOLVE CITY'S TROUBLE

If a proposed land swap is agreed on by Salem City Council during an executive session tonight, Salem will own the largest portion of the most desired piece of land within its landlocked borders - Roanoke College's Elizabeth Campus.

And that could be the answer to the city's future need for more industrial and commercial land, City Manager Randy Smith said.

About 52 acres of the campus - including the YMCA, which the city leases from the college - will be swapped for the school administration building and former city hall on North College Avenue. Salem proposes to pay $1.6 million to close the deal.

The city and college have been negotiating a possible deal for two to three years. Salem Mayor Jim Taliaferro and T.D. Steele, chairman of Roanoke College's executive committee, have led the talks.

Steele said the college has had offers for the land from other interested parties.

"We have been talking to the city for so long about it that we felt we would eventually get it worked out with the city," he said. "It's just a great location. It could make some good sites for several things."

Taliaferro, who leaves office at the end of this month and will attend his last City Council meeting tonight, did not return phone calls.

Smith said the city has discussed using the land for anything from an industrial site or a hotel and restaurant to extra space for Civic Center activities.

The city now uses some of the land every year for parking for the Salem Fair.

The 77-acre campus was originally the home of Elizabeth College, an all-female school. Years after the school burned in 1915, it became the site of the Lutheran Children's Home. Roanoke College purchased the campus in 1984 and uses part of the land for student housing and the Cabell Brand Center for International Poverty and Resource Studies. Some of the undeveloped land is used by athletic teams as practice fields.

"The college doesn't have any need for that land," Steele said.

Roanoke College will still have more than 20 acres of the Elizabeth Campus left. The college hopes to develop athletic fields on that land, Steele said.

Discussion of the proposed deal tonight will not be open to the public. However, any official action must be taken in public.

Smith said the executive session is unrelated to another agenda item, Roanoke College's request to have the section of High Street that runs through the main campus granted to the school. It is only by coincidence that both agenda items were scheduled on the same night, Smith said.

LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines
ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC:  Map by staff. color.