
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250555
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DAY CARE/ INDUSTRIAL PARK'S FRINGE BENEFIT

IF ROANOKE officials want to know how to attract businesses to a city industrial park, they ought to listen to what the people already there want. The employers have a two-word request: day care. Taking a step to meet it might help sell sites at the Centre for Industry and Technology.

The five companies at the industrial park off U.S. 460 east want the city to donate an acre or two of land for a day-care center. From the city's standpoint, it would be a clean deal. The city puts up a little land, and a private company takes it from there. The offer of land ought to be attractive to day-care providers. The government would not get involved in providing child care.

Day care is in demand among the 1,250 people who work at the industrial park, and the demand can be expected to grow as the number of businesses increases. There is one child-care center nearby, and it's filled.

Two-worker families have become the norm in American society, but many businesses have been slow to respond to changes in family life. Both parents have been expected on the job every morning, and employers haven't wanted to hear about problems they had finding a place to leave the children. This is beginning to change, in part because quality child-care is in very short supply.

The companies at the Roanoke park - BellSouth Communications, Advance Auto, Vitramon, Orvis and Gardner-Denver - are to be commended for their awareness of workers' needs. It may fall into the category of enlightened self-interest: Workers - especially mothers - are likely to be more productive when they aren't concerned about whether their children are in reliable hands. Having children close enough for a lunch-hour visit can ease parents' minds.

A day-care center at the Centre for Industry and Technology won't fill vacant business sites overnight. But it might help attract the sort of employers Roanoke would like to have: companies that want a stable, contented work force.

by CNB