ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110068
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
A developer is requesting land at Turner Street and Price's Fork Road for the Collegiate Square project be rezoned - again - to keep open the option of building a hotel.
The property is zoned commercial, which today would allow the construction of a hotel as a by-right use. But Blacksburg's zoning ordinance rewrite, which may come up for a vote next month, would put the property in the downtown commercial district. Permission to build a hotel in that zoning district requires a special-use permit, which requires a public hearing.
A public hearing on the Collegiate Square rezoning, and other topics, is scheduled for 7:30 tonight in the town's Municipal Building, 300 S. Main St.
The Collegiate Square developers are hoping to put a fourth floor in the project's planned main building. The square footage for the project would be no more than the 84,650 originally approved by Town Council in October 1994. The developers are asking to build a maximum of 128 bedrooms, which could be used for a two-floor dormitory-type residential unit. The hotel is one of several options the developers are requesting.
The Collegiate Square project - better known as the big strip of exposed dirt on the edge of downtown along Prices Fork Road - has a long history. It started out the project of a Blacksburg developer who won approval from Town Council in 1992 for a 75,000-square-foot complex. But that proposal ran into financial difficulty and an an out-of-town firm took over, redesigned the project and sought and won another Town Council OK. Last summer, the present developer said construction would not start until an anchor tenant had committed to the site.
There are two other public hearings tonight, including:
One on a request to rezone 11.6 acres and 28 acres on the east side of the 2100 block of Ramble Road, in the area south of the Virginia Tech Airport. The rezoning would create the Knollwood Planned Commercial District. Its access road would be named Knollwood Drive. The development would include five commercial buildings, 40 town houses and 120 apartment units.
A third hearing for an ordinance amending and rezoning part of the Southpark Planned Commercial District on the east side of the 2300 block of Ramble Road for the Hunter's Crossing at Southpark development.
The plan includes 30 three-bedroom town houses and an option to build no more than eight units on the second floor of each of the three commercial buildings.
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