Thursday, January 31, 2008
Valley Forward's promises don't add up
From the RoundTable blog
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Dick Howard
Howard is a former food service designer. He lives in Roanoke County.
In unveiling his group's second, revised proposal for Rockledge, the Valley Forward spokesman emphasized that the downsizing was in response to public disapproval of the amount of green space on Mill Mountain Park that would have been destroyed by the original 80,000-square-foot inn, restaurant and parking garage shown in proposal No. 1. Valley Forward stated it was able to eliminate the need for a large, concrete, costly parking garage because it had eliminated the overnight lodging.
Proposal No. 2 showed two new parking lots to accommodate a total of 70 autos. It is significant that Craig Balzer, one of Valley Forward's consultants, stated, "We're basically sizing it [parking] on the building itself."
From the beginning, Valley Forward has touted its Rockledge proposal as an economic dynamo. Advocates have promised that, if built, a restaurant would attract more visitors to the zoo, Discovery Center and the Star and more casual visitors to Mill Mountain Park in general.
Zoo and Discovery Center employees describe the current parking lots as maxed out, yet Valley Forward is not showing any additional parking to accommodate the increased number of visitors they are promising for the park.
Balzer's comment raised another red flag. Proposal No. 2 shows the Rockledge Center as a 10,000-square-foot building for dining and meetings. Another Valley Forward consultant has told me that the actual eating and meeting areas would occupy between two-thirds to three-fourths of that space. According to City Code 36.2-652, that proposal would need a minimum of 110 to 125 new parking spaces just to minimally accommodate restaurant and meeting rooms users. Thus, the 70 new spaces shown are far less than would be required by city code for just the Rockledge Center. Yet the plan shows no additional parking for all of the new traffic and visitors Valley Forward is promising for the park. Doesn't that take us right back to the need to build an ugly, costly concrete parking garage?
The Roanoke Times has printed many commentaries and letters to the editor that advocate for building the Rockledge. A recent pro-Rockledge commentary, "The Future of Roanoke: Rockledge is not just about a restaurant" (Dec. 30) stated, "Rockledge Center ... is just one example of a proactive strategy for transitioning Roanoke toward a competitive advantage in terms of creating a vibe that attracts these scarce skilled workers, and hence their employers, in the years ahead."
These are lofty words indeed, but not the words of a writer who has crunched his own numbers.
Unless the city of Roanoke is prepared to bulldoze the remaining green space at the summit of Mill Mountain Park or dip into the taxpayers' pockets to build an ugly parking garage, Valley Forward's proposal is nothing but another feel-good dream from people who prefer the ease of using smoke and mirrors to the labor of sitting down and doing their homework.
So can we have it both ways? Can we build Rockledge and preserve much of the green space that is left at the summit of Mill Mountain Park?
Maybe. There has been some speculation about rebuilding the long-demolished inclined tram on the side of the mountain. The tram would certainly decrease the parking needs at the summit, but it would be expensive.
At the risk of finding angry people with pitchforks in my front yard, here is another idea. The Mill Mountain Zoo could be moved to Explore Park and the current zoo location could be used for the new Rockledge. Placing the new Rockledge there might be a smarter use of an area that is already commercialized but generates little or no revenue.
A Rockledge in that location would meet Valley Forward's goals, would decrease parking demands on the mountain, would allow the zoo to move to a location where it would have unlimited space to grow and would keep the area between the star and the zoo green as it is now. There's something there for everyone.
We cannot create more space at the summit of Mill Mountain Park. If the residents of Roanoke want a new Rockledge without destroying the remaining green space in that park or without the expense of an ugly, concrete parking garage, perhaps they need to be thinking about changing the ways that the entire summit of Mill Mountain Park is being used, not just a portion of it.
