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

DATE: THURSDAY, November 3, 1994                   TAG: 9411030081
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ADVANCE PLANS TO MOVE

Advance Auto Parts, one of the largest companies based in Roanoke, said Wednesday it plans to move its corporate headquarters from Wasena to a building on Airport Road in Roanoke County. The building would allow the company to expand in coming years.

Under the still-tentative agreement, Advance Auto, legally Advance Stores Co. Inc., would buy a 50,000-square-foot building from First Union Corp. The building, at 5673 Airport Road, once housed a printing plant. Most recently, Dominion Bank used the building for its credit card processing center. It has been vacant since First Union bought Dominion Bank in March 1993. A company spokeswoman said she did not know the terms of the sale.

"The move to the new building will facilitate expanded company growth over the next few years," company president Garnett Smith said Wednesday in a statement.

The move also would make the headquarters more convenient to Roanoke Regional Airport and would move the company's office outside the Roanoke River's flood zone.

The company's headquarters have been located in the Eighth Street Southwest building since Advance Auto began in 1932. An adjacent warehouse would continue to be used, said spokeswoman Betsy Parkins.

About 250 employees would move to the new location over a six-month period beginning in December. They include workers from the company's Wasena headquarters, its Salem Avenue advertising and marketing office and the training department, which recently moved to the Brambleton Avenue store because of space constraints in the main building.

"This is a great marriage with Roanoke County and one of the soon-to-be corporate leaders in the valley," said County Supervisor Bob Johnson, whose district includes Airport Road. "It brings a lot more employees to that side of the county."

Both Smith and company owner Nicholas Taubman were out of town Wednesday and unavailable for comment, Parkins said. She said they are the only company officials who would discuss the move in detail.

Roanoke County Administrator Elmer Hodge also was unavailable Wednesday, but as recently as Tuesday, Economic Development Director Tim Gubala said he knew nothing about Advance moving to the county.

Advance Auto has expanded in the last six years from 125 stores in the South to more than 300. In May 1993, it opened its second major distribution center in Gadsden, Ala. Its other distribution center, in the Centre for Industry and Technology in Roanoke, employs another 200 people, according to 1993 figures.

The company has stores in Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia. Advance likely will expand to other states as well, Taubman said in an interview last year. There are seven Advance Auto Parts stores in the Roanoke Valley.

First Union is still negotiating to sell Valley Court, another surplus Dominion building, on Thirlane Road.

by CNB