ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
A proposal to revive downtown Roanoke business and develop new housing there is drawing support from those who have seen the draft.
The study was written by Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh for Downtown Roanoke Inc., a private group representing downtown merchants, property owners and others interested in the central business district.
John Berry, executive vice president at the Roanoke office of Trigon Healthcare Inc., called the plan bold. He said it represented the same type of thinking that resulted in development of Elmwood Park and the Roanoke City Market. "You have to be bold to excite people."
He liked the proposal for suggesting Williamson Road as an entrance to downtown through landscaping and on-street parking. "I was struck by its niceness," Berry said.
Berry also favors the idea of naming different parts of downtown such as the Rail, Financial and Warehouse districts.
Gary Walton, manager of Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, said the draft is "very, very exciting," both for its impact on the community and its effect on the hotel. If the plan is carried out, he said, downtown will offer more attractions and amenities for visitors.
If the proposals come into being, he said, Roanoke will have a downtown rivaling Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Edwin C. Hall of Hall Associates Inc., a commercial realty broker, said he liked the consultants' proposal of buying an outdoor recreation company and moving it to Roanoke. He said that's more effective than showing industrial prospects pictures of the Roanoke Valley.
Hall recalled that Roanoke business interests bought the old American Viscose plant in the 1960s and turned it into an industrial park. Now more people than ever work there, Hall said, and "it shows what can be done."
The plan, he said, "sounds far-fetched, but that's what it takes today."
William Carder, manager of the Patrick Henry Hotel, called the report "outstanding." He liked the emphasis on recruiting business for the entire region to help downtown: "Roanoke depends on the region."
Carder, too, said that buying the stock of a public company and moving it to town "is not an unrealistic proposal. It's not that far out."
Michael Waldvogel of Waldvogel, Poe and Cronk Real Estate Group Inc. said the plan "struck me as being a good blueprint of what we ought to be doing in the next several years." He said he liked the idea of constructing several apartment buildings around the downtown area.
The Rev. Kenneth Wright, minister of First Baptist Church on North Jefferson Street, said he had not had time to read the plan. But he said he liked the proposal for adding more housing to Gainsboro with no demolition in that neighborhood.
Lawrence Hamlar of Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home said he had "a mixed reaction" because the plan differed from what he had expected.
Hamlar said he liked the ideas for creating a Rail District along the Norfolk Southern tracks and for building apartments. He said, however, that the consultant may have recommended too many apartments.
He also would like to move the Harrison Museum of African American Culture to Henry Street where more people could visit it.
"There was nothing I said no, no, no to," Hamlar said, but he liked the a former downtown plan, Design 79, better. That 1979 plan resulted in upgrading of the Roanoke City Market.
The Roanoke Times has placed the full report on the Internet, at www.roanoke.com. Also, copies are at offices of Downtown Roanoke Inc. in the Crestar Bank Building, Church Avenue at First Street, Roanoke.
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