Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

The 78 acres that were St. Albans Hospital, on the Radford University West campus, will be sold as soon as the university’s Real Estate Foundation can sell it.

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• Buildings to be sold have long history

It was a transformational gift and a touted cornerstone of Radford University's future.

Now it's surplus property.

The 78 acres that were St. Albans Hospital will be sold as soon as the university's Real Estate Foundation can.

Sherri Mylott, the foundation's executive director, said two brokers are negotiating for the right to sell the property, which was valued at $8.4 million when the foundation took ownership in 2004. It should be on the market "during the course of the winter -- sooner rather than later," Mylott said.

The sale would sever Radford University's connection to a historic landmark on the Pulaski County side of the New River and erase the vision of a mixed-use, campus-business-housing development the university promoted for seven years as a boon to itself, the city and the region's economy.

That vision, in fact, may have been erased already.

"We certainly don't anticipate anything coming across the river," said John Hachtel, Radford University's vice president for university relations.

'To serve and enhance'

Seven years and 12 days ago, Carilion Health System and Radford University signed the agreement that would turn the property over to the university.

"We want the Carilion St. Albans campus to continue to serve and enhance the lives of New River Valley residents for many years to come," Houston Bell, a Carilion executive vice president, said when the deal became public. "Partnering with Radford University is an innovative and creative way to support education and economic development in the region."

Flo Graham, then an economic development officer with the university, said the planned project for the site would "marry the university's resources to the corporate world and integrate the corporate brainpower to the classroom with the hope that the corporations will use our students for internships and jobs."

The old hospital building, with its suites of offices overlooking the New River, was set to become a center for innovation and economic development. It was called an ideal setup for a business incubator. For a while, the property was called Radford University's Business Technology Park, and it was promoted as something similar to Virginia Tech's Corporate Research Center -- but different.

"Tech's park is focused on high-tech research firms, where our strengths will be our academic programs, health services and performing arts," David Burdette, the university's vice president for business and governmental affairs, said early in 2004.

"Good things can happen at both places without detracting from each other," said Aric Bopp, executive director of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance.

City leaders thought the increased traffic would be good for Radford, drawing students, faculty and staff away from their campus corner of the city.

"The more traffic we have going back and forth across the bridge, the better it will be for us and Pulaski County," Basil Edwards, Radford's economic development director, said when big plans were circulating in 2004.

"The park is extremely important to Fairlawn's future," Bill Cunningham, whose family owns the nearby Radford Shopping Center, said then. "We all feed off of each other and companies want to go where things are happening. Fairlawn is an area poised for growth and the park is a key part of that future."

Plan and retreat

There was a lot of talk about what would eventually fill the land that used to be St. Albans. Everything from the Southwest Virginia Governor's School to a not-yet existent university pharmacy school was suggested along with a business incubator and a collection of business assisting programs and organizations.

Money poured in to help with planning: $10,000 from state government; $99,900 from federal programs; $2 million from Carilion's St. Albans Foundation.

As part of the initial agreement, the university's Real Estate Foundation was to contribute $4 million toward development and marketing of the new campus. Mylott said the foundation has met its obligations.

A "University Park" master plan unveiled in 2004 called for the university's colleges of business and economics, information and technology, and its graduate school to move to the West Campus. The plan also included upscale housing, retail space, office space, entertainment venues, trails and a recreational park. It called for 1.2 million square feet under roof to be built over five to 10 years. That was just more than three years ago. Nothing has been built.

The first major glitch may have been the reaction to then-president Douglas Covington's plan to build a performing arts building at RU West and move the university's music department there.

Eugene Fellin, the department's chairman, wrote a letter to Covington saying, "The proposed move across the river would create hardship, inconvenience, divisiveness, and ultimately a greatly reduced role of the arts in the Radford University community."

The Douglas and Beatrice Covington Fine and Performing Arts Center is scheduled to open this fall -- at the corner of Adams and East Main streets on the university's main campus -- not at RU West.

But the plan for RU West didn't evaporate with that setback, or with the end of Covington's presidency. In September 2005, current university President Penelope Kyle spent much of a board of visitors meeting talking about what was known by then as West Campus. It was a cornerstone of the university's future, Kyle said then. But now, not so much.

"I think it's a plan that's been considered, and it's not going to be pursued," Mylott said recently.

Hachtel said neither the faculty nor the students supported putting part of the university across the river from the current campus. And the university's consultants said there was no need to do it. Contrary to what has been conventional wisdom for years, Hachtel said the most recent set of consultants decided the main campus has "more than sufficient" space to accommodate the university's needs.

So the former cornerstone in Fairlawn may soon be on the auction block. Mylott said she expects the sale to be completed "certainly within the year."