Dandridge is a former member of the Mill Mountain Advisory Committee and is a Realtor and certified EcoBroker.

I would like to challenge the notion that a restaurant and coffee shop on Mill Mountain will attract young professionals to the Roanoke Valley.

While I do agree that a well-developed greenway system pulsing through our valley will attract this coveted group, I question whether the proposed development will serve as a significant draw to young adults.

As a child, I remember playing on a swing set in a grove of trees below the house of the former caretaker of Mill Mountain.

It is on this slope of the city’s mountain that Valley Forward and its supporters wish to place the proposed restaurant and coffee shop.

Not only will the building site not afford a spectacular view of the Roanoke Valley, but it is also on a section of Mill Mountain deemed unsuitable for development.

In 1999, the Rhodeside/Harwell study, commissioned by the city for a cost of about $30,000, advised against the development of this particular portion of the mountain because of its slope of more than 25 percent. Development would significantly increase runoff, and, as a consequence, erosion.

Valley Forward’s look back on the halcyon days of the former Rockledge Inn is through rose-colored glasses.

During its lifetime (1892 until it burned down in 1976), the building served many functions.

Between 1892 and 1910, it housed the Tavern on Mill Mountain; between 1910 and 1929, it was the Rockledge Inn; between 1929 and 1964, it was the Mill Mountain dance hall; and between 1964 and 1976, it housed a drama troupe that became Mill Mountain Theatre.

It was the fabled Rockledge Inn for only 19 of its 93 years. Will the proposed restaurant/coffee shop suffer the same fate? If business falters, will the building struggle to find new tenants, or — worse yet — will it fall vacant?

Many powerful forces are now aligned in favor of the proposed development on Mill Mountain, and it appears that it will receive the support of the Roanoke City Council.

I strongly caution against marring the mountain, for the consequences will be long-lasting, while the business proposition might not be. The building, as proposed, will also necessitate the construction of two surface-level parking lots.

While a shade better than the garish parking garage that was first proposed, the current parking solution will still require the removal of two large sections of grass to make way for asphalt.

When I first read about the possibility of further development on Mill Mountain in The Roanoke Times, I noted Valley Forward’s claim that they would not derive any profit from the project.

The request for proposals was advertised to developers in Roanoke and, lo and behold, only one response was submitted. It was a proposal from the very organization that suggested the development in the first place: Yes, Valley Forward.

The opponents of the proposed project are a well-reasoned, passionate, intelligent, persistent lot, and there are as many reasons to be against the proposal as there are opponents.

It is a very personal matter to all of us. Some of the supporters of the project, however, have misrepresented us as being against any development at all on the mountain. This is patently false.

The Discovery Center was built on Mill Mountain in 1999, and you did not see any of our members protesting its construction. That is because we agreed with the rationale behind the Discovery Center.

The Discovery Center was a civic-minded creation, built to serve a needed function — to illustrate, to magnify and to educate visitors about the wonderful flora and fauna that exist on Mill Mountain specifically and in the Blue Ridge Mountains in general.

The building was intended as a tool to help visitors appreciate the nature surrounding them.

I do wholeheartedly support the premise of Valley Forward: that Roanoke should attempt to stop the local brain drain. I just wish they would focus more of their energy on the greenway system, the redevelopment/restoration of downtown, supporting our burgeoning art community, and building an outdoor amphitheater.

I believe that these are the areas Valley Forward should concentrate on if they want to attract young professionals to the Roanoke Valley.