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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103061099
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

MONTVALE INDUSTRIAL PARK PROPOSED

A Roanoke mail-order company Monday filed a proposal to put a new building in Montvale along with several spots for other industrial and commercial businesses, Bedford County planning officials said.

The Montvale Industrial Park is proposed for 145 acres on the south side of U.S. 460, Community Development Planner Jeff Burdett said.

According to the application under the county's Land Use Guidance System, Ajit Khubani, the owner of Corpac in Roanoke, has an option on the land and wants to put a 125,000-square-foot mail-order warehouse there.

Two to four other commercial establishments or industries would fill up the rest of the proposed park, Burdett said. It was not clear what those other businesses would be.

Corpac, which also sometimes functions as Direct Marketing of Virginia Inc. and as USA Buyers Network, has sold a variety of low-priced items through ads in Sunday newspaper supplements since it opened in May 1987.

Since then, it's also had complaints from the local Better Business Bureau and from the Federal Trade Commission.

Last April, the FTC charged the company with violating a mail-order rule by failing to ship merchandise when advertised.

Matt Rittberg, president of Corpac, said he could not comment on the Montvale plans because he was on his way out of the country for two weeks.

"When I get back I can tell you what, how, when, where and why," Rittberg said.

Khubani, contacted at his New Jersey office, did not return a reporter's phone call.

The planned development is for the same land where another proposal was rejected last November.

Then, the Board of Zoning Appeals turned down plans for a 365-unit mobile home park, grocery, drugstore and recreation area.

That project called for small lot sizes for the mobile homes and would have required a substantial increase in county services, officials said at that time.

The project did receive a high score under the county's land-use ordinance - and the latest proposal is likely to get a similar score.

A meeting between neighbors of the proposal and its developer is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 18.

by CNB