ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
Black Roanokers threatened lawsuits, repercussions in spring City Council elections, and ``an uprising in this town like you've never seen before'' if city boards don't slow down and give them a shot at the once-proud Henry Street.
``Once we have lost Henry Street, we have lost it all, and we're not going to lose Henry Street,'' declared the Rev. Lenord Hines.
More than 50 residents packed a room at the Gainsboro branch library Tuesday and demanded that the board of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the Henry Street Revival Committee wait for more community feedback before sending a land-use plan to City Council. It's scheduled to receive the plan Monday.
Tuesday's Henry Street briefing by authority director Neva Smith drew five times the people and more angry response than a similarly acrimonious briefing last week. That meeting led Smith to set a public meeting on the Henry Street redesign at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in High Street Baptist Church's fellowship hall.
Residents said Tuesday that the authority ought to sell them back Henry Street properties once owned by blacks and now slated for an $18.5 million tourist attraction.
``That property was the most valuable property that was close to the city,'' said Perneller Chubb-Wilson, president of the Roanoke chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
A band of consultants headed by Roanoke's Hill Studio wants to build an entertainment district around two of the old buildings that remain on the street, the former Dumas Hotel and the Ebony Club. Of the estimated costs, $5 million would come from the city in improvements to the street, sidewalks and utilities, and $13.5 million would be drawn from private investors.
Who in the black community has the kind of money it would take to buy back the street? asked Henry Hale, a young member of the authority board who grew up among elderly Gainsboro residents who were at the briefing. Smith said no one has tried to buy back properties there in the three years she has been at the authority.
``The question is, will they be given an opportunity to?'' asked Martin Jeffrey, community development director for Total Action Against Poverty. His question went unanswered.
Hale said consultants' plans announced last week offer the only concrete hope for Henry Street in 20 years of decline. He said he is determined to ensure that blacks will win a high percentage of jobs and business space on the street. He noted that chain stores don't own the mall buildings they use but they make millions anyway.
As the land-use plan stands now, the authority would retain ownership of the land and hire a developer to build 11 clubs and restaurants, office space, retail stores and new offices for the authority. The developer also would select the businesses that would lease space in the buildings.
``We will never own it,'' Wilson said. ``Next thing you know, they'll be coming up Lafayette Boulevard and Orange Avenue and Cove Road,'' referring to predominantly black residential streets deeper into Northwest Roanoke.
Henry Street was once the commercial heart of the city's oldest black neighborhood. Plans to rebuild the nearly deserted blocks into a tourist mecca of jazz clubs and restaurants have incensed black residents more than the Wells Avenue widening for the Hotel Roanoke or any of several controversial city projects in the historic neighborhood of Gainsboro in recent years.
Tuesday, residents pointed to the city's redevelopment of old black neighborhoods for interstates, industries and businesses and its failure to bring the black jobs that were promised. They particularly noted the destruction of Gainsboro homes to expand the Coca-Cola plant a decade ago.
``Their families' graves are byways and freeways now,'' the Rev. Johnny Stone of Hill Street Baptist Church in Gainsboro said of former residents.
Historic Gainsboro president Evelyn Bethel and others have asked that Henry Street include a movie theater, a drugstore and retail shops. The Hill Studio plans call for 4,000 to 7,000 square feet of retail stores.
Black Roanokers once had a plan for new neighborhood businesses on Henry Street, but it was taken over by city officials, said George Heller, former director of the Gainsboro Neighborhood Development Corp. Ten years ago, his group spent $110,000 on consultants' plans that called for a shopping center, pharmacy, food concession area, grocery store, florist, barber shop and cleaners for the street.
Heller said those plans were ignored after former Mayor Noel Taylor set up the Henry Street Revival Committee. That body of eight white and five black members is the primary shaper of Henry Street's future. With the committee's approval, the authority paid Hill Studio $47,725 for the land-use plan.
John Elkington, developer of the Beale Street entertainment district in Memphis, Tenn., and a likely bidder for Henry Street's redevelopment, said in a phone interview Tuesday that he likes the idea of a movie theater and more retail stores. ``I think all of that is possible.''
He and Hill Studio architect Don Harwood said they agree with suggestions at Tuesday's meeting that a large portion of Henry Street revenues should be poured back into the neighborhood.
At day's end, Henry Hale said long-held black resentment of the city could sabotage the plans. ``I don't know if Henry Street's going to happen,'' he said. ``I have my doubts, and it would be a shame.''
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KEITH GRAHAM/Staff. 1. Hill Studio architect Don Harwoodby CNB(far left) talks Tuesday with (from left) Clark Welcher, Thurman
Hendricks, Edward Thompson and the Rev. William Holland about the
land-use plan Hill Studio produced for the city. 2. ``They are
hurrying us up like we're a bunch of cattle,'' the Rev. Lenord Hines
(standing) says in seeking a delay on the plan. Martin Jeffrey
(left), of Total Action Against Poverty, asked whether black
residents will have a chance to buy property there. color.