Southeast Industrial Sites Head Endangered List

This old steam train engine was one of the RVPF's successes. It was salvaged in 2009>

The Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation’s 2009 list of endangered sites and buildings this year is causing a special level of angst among its members because so many of the buildings are either being used or easily could be with minimal care.

(I will mention here that I am a member of the RVPF board of directors.)

The Foundation each year lists buildings it considers to be an important part of our heritage that are threatened with being erased from the landscape. This year an entire neighborhood of industrial buildings and facilities in the southeast section of the city is on the list. That grouping includes sites within the new Carilion Clinic expansion area, as well as buildings moving on toward downtown.

Among he threatened within this grouping are Virginia Scrap Iron & Metal Company, the Adams, Payne & Gleaves livery stable, Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works and street car barn, and the old Heironimus warehouse, which has been targeted for renovation for some time. Money has not been available for the Heironimus work.

Foundation spokesmen George Kegley and Mike Kennedy say the RVPF would like to see these facilities renovated and brought back as a commercial center.

The other sites are:

• Roanoke Fire Station No. 7 on Memorial Avenue. It was built in 1922 and is being considered for demolition.
• The former Roanoke Photo Finishing (RoPho) and a movie theater, most recently Downtown Learning Center on Luck Avenue and Second Street. It is owned by the Methodist church next door and could be torn down.
• An 1888 parsonage on the Hollins University campus.
• A bridge in Montgomery County built of steel truss, dating to 1917.
• Daleville’s Boaz-Denton House, dating to the 1870s.
• A Victorian home on Union Street in Salem, built in 1801.
• Mountainsides that include 12 O'Clock Knob, the Dixie Caverns area, Fort Lewis Mountain, Stewart's Knob and Buck Mountain some of which are being logged.

The RVPF, which was founded more than 20 years ago, has seen the preservation more than 20 percent of he properties on its lists in past years, most recently the Patrick Henry Hotel and a group of steam train engines at Roanoke Scrap Iron and Metal.