Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507210009
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The bridge between the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center and downtown's City Market is scheduled to open the latter half of next month.
City officials see it as a key accessory to the $42 million renovation and expansion of the hotel and conference center, completed this year, and improvements to the market area dating back to the 1980s, said Brian Wishneff, director of the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission.
Like the yellow canopies installed during the 1980s over farmers' stalls along Market Street, the $6.85 million bridge is seen as a way to stimulate retail activity and the taxes that sales generate - helping to pay back the city for its investment in the various downtown projects.
Officials have not estimated that impact because the actual number of people who will use the bridge - let alone what they might spend - is impossible to predict accurately, they said. But, in an upcoming $150,000 study on revitalizing downtown west of Jefferson Street, the bridge will be held up as a good example of how the city can link geographic areas, said Matthew Kennell, executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc.
City leaders also hope the bridge will also raise property values in the stagnant commercial district north of railroad tracks adjacent to the market area and will improving access to the 725 parking places in the city-owned parking garage adjoining First Union Tower, Wishneff said. The garage and bridge will be joined.
Market area businesses said they expect the bridge to funnel more tourists their way, so they are carrying a few more souvenirs, considering longer hours and stocking bigger inventories of popular goods.
Thelma Pugh, owner of Thelma's Boutique, is stocking star-shaped earrings among the accessories she sells to go with a selection of women's clothes. Nearby, Billy's Ritz restaurant may open for lunch on weekends and stay open weekday afternoons between 2:30 and 5, a time when it is now closed, manager Bob Slaughter said.
Ezera Wertz, owner of Wertz's Country Store, said he has enlarged his 8-month-old wine cellar to cater to the hotel crowd that he expects the bridge to deliver to downtown.
"It's going to be so enticing, people are going to want to walk it," Wertz said. "It's going to be one of the greatest things that happened to our market since the Center in the Square came down," he said, referring to the museum-theater complex on Market Square.
Downtown advocates such as Kennell dismissed as unlikely any concerns that an influx of tourists could spoil downtown as locals know it.
No, he said, there's little reason to expect the appearance of racks of cheap jewelry and hi-fi equipment on sidewalks. There's no reason to expect back-to-back T-shirt stores and kiosks of cheap sunglasses on every corner, as seen in touristy districts in bigger cities and resorts.
Kennell said he felt assured the City Market area will retain its character, in part because the city's Architectural Review Board would block "the tacky stuff."
ARB control over retailers is limited, though. The City Council-appointed board enforces laws that govern all aspects of the outside appearance of buildings in the market area and elsewhere, including signs and doors, with an eye toward historic preservation. But it is powerless to dictate what merchandise is carried or even how it is displayed in windows, meaning it could not prevent a souvenir store from replacing an existing boutique.
Skeptics need only look at the preservation of Hotel Roanoke to see where Roanoke wants to take its downtown, said Catherine Fox, tourism development manager for the Roanoke Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau. If the city sought to create a glitzy, modern urban tourist mecca, "we could have made it a Hilton high-rise," Fox said.
Guests at the hotel already are finding their way downtown - via shuttle bus, cab or as pedestrians - and they have boosted Wertz's business 10 percent, he said. But he expects another increase after the bridge opens.
The bridge will cut the walking time between downtown and the hotel to about five minutes, Fox said.
Laying out a pedestrian bridge is "almost like designing shopping malls. You have to create magnets at either end to pull people through," said David Gosling, an urban design professor at the University of Cincinnati.
The Roanoke steel and glass bridge, at 365 feet long, is small compared to the nation's most famous foot bridge, the Skywalk system in Minneapolis, but "it sounds to me like it will be successful," Gosling said.
Of course, it takes more that just good design to have a successful span. Cincinnati's extends across downtown, passing through various buildings, and incorporating shops midway through several of its trunks. But some shops are vacant and "there are fairly considerable stretches where there is nothing going on," in part to security problems, Gosling said.
A security system is, "unfortunately, a necessity these days," he said. Roanoke's bridge will have eight video cameras feeding images to the city's 911 dispatch center and eight push-button calling devices for reporting trouble. The system will cost significantly less than an estimate of $225,000 given to City Council earlier this year, but contractors have not yet provided their bids to the city, said David Agnor, communications manager.
Roanoke merchants are justifiably optimistic, said Mike Waldvogel, principal in the commercial real estate firm Waldvogel, Poe & Cronk, which handles downtown retail property.
"Making the access to downtown easier will bring more people in," he said. "I don't have any concerns it will change the character of the area."
The bridge also will help Hotel Roanoke's food and drink sales, simply by making it easier to walk there, according to Waldvogel.
"It plays in our favor," said Gary Crizer, sales and marketing director at the hotel.
Guests have liked what they have seen of the market area, he said, and they are the sort of people merchants and restaurant owners like to see. Crizer said, "people attending a conference have extra income. People bring a little cash," Crizer said.
While the bridge is sure to increase foot traffic in downtown Roanoke, it should not be viewed as the area's golden egg - the single key to unlocking the riches of the ongoing downtown revitalization effort, said Millie Moore, sales manager for the commercial real estate division of Boone & Co.
She compared downtown to a puzzle with "many missing pieces," such as a full complement of retail stores and entertainment venues. The bridge will no doubt entice some using the hotel and conference center to grab a bite to eat downtown, but, Moore asked, "How much shopping do businessmen do?"
Answering her own question, she said: "Not as much as people are anticipating."
Moore noted that the Williamson Road bridge, which has a narrow sidewalk alongside several lanes of traffic, already runs between the market and one corner of the hotel property. "I don't see a lot of people walking on that," she said.
Hotel officials can help make the bridge a boon to downtown merchants by explaining to guests where it leads, Moore said. She said she would recommend a flier about downtown in every room.
Gary Walton, the hotel's general manager, said he expects to have some printed material put together this fall. Of late, the bridge had not been added to a list of amenities at Hotel Roanoke provided to booking agents who answer an international toll-free line for Doubletree Hotels Corp., which runs Hotel Roanoke. But Walton and Crizer said that could change.
Although the new bridge may appear as more of a convenience than a necessity, it fulfills the wishes of local residents who have long sought to tie together the hotel and market area in a way that bridges don't.
The longing for a foot bridge dates back more than 25 years, when citizens mourned the removal of a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. That one was demolished so crews could build the Jefferson Street leg of the former Hunter Viaduct, said Wishneff. That bridge connected the old Norfolk and Western passenger station, which still stands near Shenandoah Avenue and Williamson Road, with the market area, according to Wishneff's interpretation of old photographs.
Even if the bridge isn't packed with tourists soon after it opens, it is guaranteed a certain amount of foot traffic. That's because Norfolk Southern will close a ground-level pedestrian crossing of the tracks at Jefferson Street and Norfolk Avenue when the bridge opens.
It's not hard to understand why many might favor the bridge over the street crossing.
The bridge will be ventilated by industrial-sized fans and shaded by a roof and green-tinted glass.
The sidewalk route to the hotel meanders. The bridge, on the other hand, leads straight to the hotel's front door, where doormen stand ready.
Then there are the trains - they run an average of once every 17 minutes between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on the tracks beneath the bridge. From the bridge's viewing area, the trains will become something to enjoy instead of tolerate as they block the crossing. The tallest trains will clear the underside of the bridge by less than three feet.
"It's almost like another attraction," said the visitor bureau's Fox. "I think people are going to walk the bridge just for the fun of it." O
by CNB