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

DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993                   TAG: 9308270012
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

DEVELOPMENT GROUP BLAMED IN REJECTION OF STOCKING MAKER

Crewe said the development authority provided insufficient information about those job possibilities because they depended on the addition of a bleaching and dyeing operation, which in turn depended on the town's being able to supply 1.25 million gallons of water a day.

This month, Wytheville Town Council denied a zoning exemption that would have allowed Superior Mills, a socks and stocking manufacturer, to occupy the former Greenlawn Classics building off U.S. 11 near a residential subdivision in west Wytheville.

The building was constructed in 1974, with an addition two years later, and employed a maximum of 300 people before it closed at the end of 1987.

Six residents of the Golf Club Lane area opposed the exemption at a public hearing Aug. 9 and council denied it.

At last Monday's council meeting, Peggy Copenhaver asked the governing body to reconsider. "The factory was there when most of them purchased their homes," she said.

Crewe then gave a 10-minute statement about what he said council perceived as the development authority's shortcomings in seeking the zoning exemption.

He said the number of jobs was not as firm as authority representatives indicated. The town could have supplied the necessary water, he said, but not to the former Greenlawn Classics building without massive retooling. He also said the authority failed to tell the industrial prospect about other possible locations.

"We never have been able to find out what kind of jobs they were talking about, what kinds of skills," Crewe said. There was no information about how parking or traffic problems would be worked out in the residential area, what chemicals might be used, or what kind of landscaping might be done.

Crewe said town officials now are working with representatives of Superior Mills without the help of the authority to see if some other arrangement can be worked out to bring the industry to the area.

He said he was not speaking for Wythe County, which also is part of the authority, or Rural Retreat, which helped create it but has since dropped out.