Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 31, 1993 TAG: 9307310218
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The commission unanimously approved a resolution Thursday to ask the Board of Supervisors to include $2 million for economic developments in the November bond package.
Jack Lewis, the commission chairman, said he was confident voters would approve the bond, even though a similar $1.73-million bond for community development was defeated in 1990.
"The community is very pro-economic development right now," he said. "I think we can make this thing pass. The chemistry wasn't right with the community last time, but I believe it is now."
The commission, which will make a presentation to the supervisors Aug. 9, wants the money to help finance the county's shell building program, started in 1985, and to help build new industrial parks.
It's up to development leaders to campaign to convince voters that the bond money will mean new jobs in the future, said Ray Smoot, a commission member and vice president of business affairs at Virginia Tech.
"Unless we are willing to undertake a fairly significant effort . . . it's very doubtful that this will pass," he said.
Dwayne Kittle, vice chairman of the commission, said the 1990 bond package failed partly due to an inadequate campaign for it.
"The first effort was poorly sold," he said. "The people only heard higher taxes."
About 80 percent of the companies looking to expand or relocate go to communities that have existing buildings, said Don Moore, executive director of the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission. The county invested $362,000 in the first shell building of 51,200 square feet in Christiansburg. In 1989 Ames Textile Corp. bought that building for $821,500.
County officials took the money from the sale of the first shell building and funneled it into a second building in the Blacksburg Industrial Park. Tetra Sales USA bought for $1.15 million.
The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution this month encouraging the Industrial Development Authority and Economic Development Commission to draft a proposal to continue the shell building program.
Lewis said the money could also be used to help purchase and develop industrial sites or to provide incentives to companies considering a move to Montgomery County.
"Obviously we could use more than $2 million," he said. "But we are sensitive to what we could sell the voters."
by CNB