Thursday, October 29, 2009
Editorial: Still waiting in Gainsboro
Roanoke's housing authority has been more than patient in giving a nonprofit group the chance to develop a historic tract.
From the RoundTable blog
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After 10 years, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority is near the end of its patience. The chance for a neighborhood-driven plan for the last piece of undeveloped commercial real estate in the historic Gainsboro district has a use-it-or-lose-it due date: March.
The Roanoke Neighborhood Development Corp. either puts together a viable proposal in the next five months or the authority will take back its offer to donate the land.
The press of a deadline might spur action. It even might help the minority-led nonprofit get three squabbling neighborhood groups, each claiming an emotional stake in the venture, to focus on a common objective: control over what will land in a neighborhood nearly wiped out by urban renewal projects of the last 50 years or so.
The downtown renaissance in bloom today already has brought exciting changes to what remains of Gainsboro's old Henry Street commercial strip -- historically, the other side of the tracks. If the RNDC can successfully develop the final half-acre lot, it would help to cement the notion that the neighborhood will have a share of future prosperity.
Still, success hinges not on hope but on investment dollars, and nothing dampens the entrepreneurial zeal of private investors so much as political uncertainty about what will or will not be allowed.
The housing authority directed the development group to talk to all the stakeholders -- the neighboring Roanoke Higher Education Center and recently renovated culinary school and Dumas Theater, as well as neighborhood groups. All well and good.
After listening and considering their input, though, it will fall to the RNDC to settle on a concept that will attract an investor or find an investor with a compelling vision of his own.
That is a tall order, indeed, in these hard economic times, but not an impossible one. Money continues to flow into downtown projects. And the housing authority has eased its restriction that the Henry Street parcel must be used for an office building with a retail mix. Anything that falls within the bounds of the neighborhood plan and the city's comprehensive plan will be allowed.
We hope the RNDC can come through.
