The Roanoke Times | File April

The old Red Lion Inn was demolished in April. Hokie and NFL football star Bruce Smith will open a $50 million student-oriented apartment, hotel and restaurant complex on a roughly 12-acre parcel once home to the inn.

About the project

• Developers: Lead developer Bruce Smith of Bruce Smith Enterprise LLC is partnering with Armada Hoffler, a real estate development and construction company in Virginia Beach
• Components: Five apartment buildings with a total of 284 apartments, a 140-room hotel and a 5,000-square-foot structure that Smith expects to house a restaurant
• Cost: $50 million
• History: The Red Lion Inn was built in 1973. It closed in November 2004. Smith announced plans to conduct a feasibility study for a mixed-use development on the site in February 2006. The roughly 12-acre parcel was rezoned as mixed use in April. Demolition of the Red Lion Inn began the same month.
• Timeline: The apartments are expected to be complete in the summer of 2008 and the hotel will likely follow in the spring of 2009.

He couldn't afford to live off-campus when he was a student at Virginia Tech, but come summer 2008, Hokie and NFL football star Bruce Smith will open a $50 million student-oriented apartment, hotel and restaurant complex in Blacksburg.

After more than a year of proposals and negotiations, Smith announced Thursday that he and development firm Armada Hoffler are officially moving forward on an agreement to redevelop a roughly 13-acre parcel once home to the Red Lion Inn.

The project will include five apartment buildings housing a total of 284 upscale apartments, a 140-room hotel and a 5,000-square-foot structure that is expected to hold a restaurant.

"I personally consider the Red Lion Inn site a very special site. ... It was the first hotel I stayed in when I came on my official visit to Virginia Tech," Smith said. And we "want to rejuvenate that site, bring life to that site and make it as vibrant as it ever was."

Another former Tech football standout and NFL player, George Preas, built the Red Lion Inn in 1973, and through the years, the hotel at U.S. 460 and Prices Fork Road was a popular place for Hokie sports fans.

The Preas family closed the hotel in November 2004, and it sat vacant and unused until catching Smith's eye.

In February 2006, the Virginia Tech Foundation, which owns the property, announced Smith's development company, Bruce Smith Enterprise LLC, would conduct a feasibility study on a multimillion-dollar, mixed-use development there.

At the time, Smith's proposal called for about 225 apartments to sit above 45,000 square feet of retail space, a hotel and an additional 5,000 square feet of signature retail space.

Yet in the months since, Smith and his development team have eliminated much of the project's retail component saying it would be difficult for a large amount of retail to survive in an area that does not see much foot or car traffic.

Blacksburg Town Council last month approved an ordinance establishing a mixed-use zoning district and rezoned the Red Lion Inn site to allow residences on all floors of the apartment buildings.

That approval was the last hurdle in finalizing Smith's agreement and, in anticipation of a favorable outcome, bulldozers took to the site in early April.

A month after demolition work began to dismantle the Red Lion Inn, Smith described his hopes for what will rise up in its place.

"I think it will certainly fit in the plan of strategic and economic growth" in Blacksburg, he said. "Certainly a quality project of this magnitude should be well received: It will create jobs, it will take down the eyesore that was once there -- the last three years, the hotel was just sitting there, it's a wonderful piece of property and we're just happy and excited to have the opportunity to put a first-class development on that particular site."

Smith has teamed with Virginia Beach-based Armada Hoffler to do the project but said he will act as lead developer, providing plenty of opportunities to visit a town and a school he "can't stop talking about."

Smith and his partners have worked out a 40-year land-lease agreement with the Virginia Tech Foundation with five, five-year renewable options.

In addition, the foundation has a "carried interest" in the project, meaning it could eventually receive a percentage of project profits.

"In round numbers, we're looking at about a tenfold increase in annual revenue from the property compared to what was coming to us from the Red Lion Inn" when it was operating," said Ray Smoot, the foundation's chief operating officer and secretary treasurer.

Smoot estimated that would mean roughly $200,000 in annual revenue, as compared with $20,000.

"I'm pleased that we are at last going to be beginning construction soon," Smoot said of the development. "It will bring additional tax revenue to the town of several kinds. ... It will also increase the supply of student housing approximate to the campus, and it will generate revenue through the land lease to the Virginia Tech Foundation."

The development is one of several large projects in various stages of consideration and construction in Blacksburg.

In addition to a hotel being built on South Main Street, a retail expansion of University Mall is under way and site plans were recently released for a $40 million retail center and a six-story, $60 million sports condominium hotel.