ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 14, 1997 TAG: 9702140017
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
WHEN IT COMES to making deals to finance big-league sports facilities in the state, Roanoke's Brian Wishneff knows how to play ball.
Northern Virginia is talkin' baseball. Hampton Roads is pitching regional cooperation for a National Hockey League franchise.
And where did the people who want to bring major-league sports to Virginia look for ideas on building their potential homes, not to mention building public consensus?
Would you believe the corner of Jefferson and Campbell in downtown Roanoke?
From his 10th-floor corner office in the old First Union Bank building, Brian Wishneff can see a lot farther than the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, which is where the financing plans for a Northern Virginia ballpark and Norfolk arena really sprouted.
Wishneff, the former director of economic development for the City of Roanoke, is a consultant on the two bids for the big leagues in the commonwealth. Until he began working for Virginia Baseball Club Inc. 18 months ago, he didn't talk sports much more than any detached fan.
Wishneff, 44, specializes in creating public/private partnerships on projects, such as the one that reopened the Hotel Roanoke and created the adjacent conference center. It's also the sort of plan used by most pro sports owners and municipalities in creating new places to play.
``People have recognized the ability to do partnerships related to office buildings, shopping centers and hotels for a long time,'' Wishneff said. ``Sports is just getting to this, but it's no different.''
Wishneff, in 17 years in city government, worked on several partnerships that shaped the core of the Star City's downtown. And when it came to the once-grand Hotel Roanoke's comeback, he wrote the state's Public Facilities Act.
``The idea, when I wrote it, was that it could be of benefit to any conference center, arena, stadium, race track, whatever,'' Wishneff said. ``When I do something, I'm interested in it being founded in good public policy. Whether everyone would agree with that policy is another case.''
By the time the Public Facilities Act got through Virginia's General Assembly, it had been rewritten and amended so that it would fit a city of such population that it could only be for Roanoke.
However, the basic concepts were in place, and when telecommunications executive William Collins got the nod as Northern Virginia's baseball bidder, he was told to contact Wishneff.
``In the city, we had gotten a reputation around the state that when we'd faced an obstacle on a project, we could get over it and get it done,'' Wishneff said. ``With the city, I got involved in a lot of partnerships.
``When Bill Collins got his effort together, the next thing he needed was a stadium authority. Someone told him he ought to try and get `Hotel Roanoke-type legislation.'''
Collins' group did, and Wishneff's work with Virginia Baseball then brought him in contact with the Hampton Roads hockey bid in his native Norfolk.
Bills on both projects are before the General Assembly.
``They're somewhat similar in that in both cases the plan is to be able to get back incremental state taxes from the facilities, because the projects are there,'' Wishneff said.
The downtown Norfolk hockey arena would receive $1.50 annually per resident from 15 Hampton Roads municipalities to retire 20- and 30-year bonds on the building.
``It's the type of regional approach we need to look at if we want to do these kinds of projects in Virginia,'' Wishneff said.
Although Wishneff is working on other projects, none seems to inflame public passions as much as the two sports proposals. Even his wife, Andee, says Wishneff is more excited about his work with prospective sports facilities than other projects. That goes back to when he used to run home to watch the World Series on television at the end of the school day.
``I became a Pittsburgh fan that way,'' he said. ``Bill Mazeroski's home run [to win the 1960 World Series] hooked me. Roberto Clemente was my favorite player. Then I picked up the Steelers.''
Unless you count an occasional adult touch-football game on a Sunday afternoon, Wishneff's own playing career ended at Granby High School in Norfolk when several of his facial bones were smashed during a football game.
He has bachelor's and master's degrees from Virginia Tech, where his ``athletic claim to fame was refereeing intramural basketball finals.''
In Wishneff's years with the city, his primary sports work was with the 1991 Metro Conference men's basketball tournament at the Roanoke Civic Center and with former councilman Mac McCadden's proposal to build a minor-league ballpark next to the Hotel Roanoke.
The ballpark didn't happen when Salem club owner Kelvin Bowles turned down a $1 million-plus offer for the Carolina League franchise from the United Coal Co. On the proposed site, Wishneff is working on turning the old Norfolk & Western office buildings into a higher-education center.
```Economic development,' the term, is a little like `beauty' or `entertainment,''' Wishneff said. ``It means different things to different people.
``Sports franchises can bring economic development. Look at Charlotte, with the Hornets first and now the Panthers. There's a study that shows that as a tourist attraction, a major-league team in Northern Virginia would rank third in the state as a tourist attraction, behind Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion and ahead of Colonial Williamsburg.''
Wishneff said the frustration in his work ``is that we seem to have this island mentality in Virginia, about what [a major-league team] will bring to the state. We're more concerned about what it will mean to a region or a locality, a what's-in-it-for-me [approach].
``That's clearly not the same view of the world as our neighboring states have.''
Wishneff sees North Carolina and Maryland building football and baseball stadiums in the past few years. He sees the Tar Heel State getting behind the Greensboro-based regional bid for major-league baseball. He talks about what Arizona and Colorado have done legislatively to bring the bigs to those states.
``What I would like to see is research on the number of Virginia residents who leave the state to watch the Redskins, Orioles, Bullets, Capitals, Panthers and Hornets in neighboring states and the District of Columbia,'' he said. ``Then, put a dollar value on that. That's what is leaving Virginia.
``What's good, as public policy, for Northern Virginia, should be good for Norfolk, Richmond, Roanoke. Look what new facilities have done for Baltimore, Cleveland and Denver, just to name three.''
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART STAFF. Brian Wishneff's influence extendsby CNBwell beyond downtown Roanoke from his office in the old First Union
Bank building.