Highest and Best Use in Downtown Roanoke
Posted on August 30, 2009
Everyone’s talking about downtown development. From the new flats popping up, to new restaurants, Roanoke’s downtown is experiencing what a lot of urban areas have already seen. Investors are snapping up property on the fringes of downtown and extending the walkable neighborhood. Properties that had deteriorated over the decades, since residents fled the inner city for the more comfortable planned community, are being rehabbed into shiny new upscale condos and businesses.
The Jefferson Center has become the epicenter of this fringe development. Within a block, the Cotton Mill Lofts and Fork in the City just opened. Those properties were developed by Ed Walker and David Trinkle, respectively. Go a few blocks further, developer Bill Chapman converted an old car dealership into the Fulton Motor Lofts. That property has sold out.
As new residents seek more comfort in downtown living, new businesses will sprout up to serve them. That’s exactly the dynamic that led Trinkle to expand his successful South Roanoke restaurant, Fork in the Alley, to the downtown area. If early traffic is any indication, the move was a good one. On weekdays, downtown workers and residents crowd the patio for lunch. On evenings and weekends, the location is quickly becoming a first stop before seeing a show at the Jefferson Center of attending another event downtown.
In June, Walker and Trinkle invited young professionals out to the new restaurant for a discussion about downtown development. The pair see their type of developments as a critical element to attracting and retaining this desired demographic. Attracting well-educated young professionals to Roanoke takes a music scene, a food scene and a party scene. With the Jefferson Center’s eclectic concert series, the Fork’s casual, sophisticated menu, and the Cotton Mill’s entertainment amenities, it’s hard to miss the direction the area is heading. To top it off, the new YMCA is at your doorstep as well.
It will take a few more clusters of developments like this to make the downtown districts more contiguous. But, as long as residential developments keep selling out, the businesses to support these new residents will not be far behind. It’s only a matter of time before a full-service grocery store shows up. Whatever makes it possible to live downtown without having to drive a few miles for necessities will appear downtown.
Eventually, the trolley may begin running laterally across town to connect the Civic Center with the Jefferson Center and beyond. There will be more workers who venture out on their lunch hour to discover parts of downtown they haven’t experienced. The art and music scenes will become more coordinated, as will retail.
If you drive around and look at everything that’s evolved, you’ll quickly realize that the same old Roanoke is being replaced. You’ll notice a few buildings that are in shambles too. But those are the flats and restaurants and stores of tomorrow. The law of highest and best use of real estate will always hold true. For Roanoke, that means there’s a lot of opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and turn downtown into something we can’t wait to share with the world.
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