Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300084
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Roanoke's efforts, said Franklin D. "Kim" Kimbrough, have worked because local officials have included business operators, property owners and farmers in decisions about the city's central business district.
He credits Roanoke's former city manager, Bern Ewert, and his successor, Bob Herbert, as well as elected officials with the wisdom to seek diverse opinions.
Today is Kimbrough's last day on the job as executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc. He is leaving to head a similar organization in Jackson, Miss.
"It really isn't me," Kimbrough said about downtown Roanoke's revival. "I was here at the right time." He started his tenure in 1989 when diverse interests already were pulling together.
Douglas Waters, president of Downtown Roanoke Inc., agreed that city officials seek input from diverse interests. Design of the pedestrian bridge from Hotel Roanoke to the City Market is only the most recent case in point, he said.
Kimbrough has taken a more active role than he claims credit for, Waters said. He cited Kimbrough for expanding downtown events and supporting the market. That would not have happened if the area had relied on volunteers or the city to get things done.
Kimbrough, he said, was sensitive to liaison and political realities in winning grass-roots support.
Assistant City Manager James Ritchie said the city tries to include all affected people in reaching decisions. He said Kimbrough was an important communications link in bringing groups together.
Kimbrough believes that "you really have to concentrate on the little things to make some big things happen."
Renew Roanoke, the campaign to save Hotel Roanoke, is a recent case in point. That drive raised $1 million in five weeks and grew well beyond Downtown Roanoke Inc. But all the "grunt work," he said, was done at the agency's office in the Crestar Bank Building.
Downtown Roanoke, Kimbrough said in an interview, is a "multifaceted entity with so many interests to be resolved." Only by involving everyone can things be made to happen.
The downtown community, he said, has had "enlightened leadership," people who can see that their financial interests, safety and security are tied to the common effort, he said.
Any city's downtown, he said, is the "best example of what the community thinks of itself."
Industrial prospects always ask to see the central core, noting how the city treats its oldest businesses there. "It's an image issue."
If Kimbrough is buoyed by the success that grew from such cooperation, he leaves with a disappointment, as well - his inability to convince the general public that differences between the downtown of the 1990s and that of the 1950s connote success, not failure.
There are 186 retailers doing business in downtown Roanoke and the district has more workers than ever before, Kimbrough said, yet people still recall when department stores operated flagship stores there.
"People tend to dwell on negatives," he said. They see the vacancies, which cannot be hidden downtown the way they are at a mall.
Downtown Roanoke has a real estate vacancy rate of 13.5 percent, he said, which exactly equals the rate at many regional malls. It's one of the lowest downtown vacancy rates in the country.
Although Woolworth Corp. is closing its downtown stores throughout the country, Kimbrough said, the one in Roanoke always made money. Three potential users of the variety store's space have surfaced even before the outlet officially closes at the end of the year.
The public also perceives a parking problem downtown, even though there's plenty of space, Kimbrough said.
One aspect that has changed is an old impression that doing good for downtown is a charitable venture, such as helping the United Way. People see they can make money downtown, so it's no longer "a civic thing. . . . Downtown is not a charity. It's an asset to be cultivated and cared for," Kimbrough said.
Downtown Roanoke is attractive and safe, he said, but it's also pedestrian-oriented, comfortable, exciting and "alive. This is where things happen."
Inability to achieve a long-cherished goal of developing downtown housing has been a particular frustration.
The city's plans for several developments in the market area never materialized because they coincided with economic recessions.
The city dealt with as many as 20 national developers, Kimbrough said, but with the downturn in the economy, investors were unwilling to venture into an unproven market.
The Community Development Corp., a partnership of the city, Downtown Roanoke and banks, did spur some housing effort.
There are three apartments in the old Wright Furniture Co. building on Campbell Avenue, four over Howard's Soup Kitchen on Church Avenue and two under construction at 25 Church Ave. S.W.
Two other projects in affordable housing are on the verge being announced, Kimbrough said.
The future, he said, will be to a large extent "managing success." The committee looking for his successor should have no problems, he said, because Downtown Roanoke enjoys a national reputation for cooperation and results.
"Roanoke has a great reputation in downtown development efforts," with a 34-year-history of accomplishment, he said.
Roanoke, he said, is "Western Virginia's downtown . . . the heart and soul of the community."
It will end the year with a net gain in businesses and in jobs, he said. Retail sales are up, so "somebody is doing something right."
"This is a great job," Kimbrough said, and always in the past he has ignored attempts to lure him elsewhere.
But Jackson, Miss., where Kimbrough will head its Capital Center, Inc., a new downtown development corporation, offers him "a completely different set of challenges" because people want him to re-create the vitality of Roanoke's downtown.
The pull was even stronger than that, though. As his children grew, he explained, they lacked ties to their grandparents, who live on the Gulf of Mexico coasts in Alabama and Mississippi.
He said he wanted his children to enjoy their grandparents the way his own grandparents meant so much to him. Their closest relatives were in Birmingham, Ala., and "something was missing."
"We're going home is what it amounts to," Kimbrough said.
by CNB