Bus station on the move as Roanoke City Council grants approval in face of stiff opposition

ROANOKE, Va. – Roanoke City Council has put the gears in motion to move forward with the downtown bus station relocation project and it could be one of the most controversial decisions in Roanoke City Council's recent history. It's one part of a three-part project to relocate the station, build a new Amtrak station, and redevelop the old bus station site.

The city approved buying the parking lot in front of the Virginia Museum of Transportation Tuesday night to build the new bus transfer station and tear down the old Campbell Court. The old facility is reaching the end of its useful life and the city will give the land to Hist:Re Partners to build a mixed-use development with retail, commercial and residential space. City staff refered to that part of the project as an "economic development catalyst" for the area.

"We think we made the best decision after two years of working and trying to make this come to fruition; we think that's the best location right now," Roanoke Mayor Sherman Lea said. "There are some things we're going to have to do, but we think this is the best location for what we're proposing to do."

This was to the displeasure of a room full of people, who were upset that they had never been involved in the process and who said they are only opposed to the location of the new station, not the rest of the plan. About a dozen people spoke, and all of them were against the proposed location, citing crime statistics at the current bus station as the primary motivating factor.

We also got a first hint of what the station could look like, with the council saying it would be a small building for waiting, bathrooms and some office space, with an open space area for buses similar to what was just built in Lynchburg. Council suggested this type of design would help reduce crime as the current bus station by some accounts encourages it because of its cave-like design. Some in attendance say that claim is phony, and claimed this type of open-air station was previously used in Richmond where it created more crime, not less.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation was chief among those upset. The museum is right across the street from the parking lot where the station would go and has a litany of concerns. The parking lot where the station will go is privately owned, but the museum relies on it for its guests to use as the museum itself has limited parking running along the front of its building. Throughout the museum's history, it has also rented out the entire lot on special event days to provide more free parking for museum guests and provide additional exhibit space. 

The museum said it is Roanoke's top cultural draw for out-of-towners and that many of its guests are families and those of retirement age. In addition to those folks, it also serves thousands of students from across Southwest Virginia. It's for those reasons why it cites increased traffic on Norfolk Avenue, which at this point has the traffic characteristics of an alleyway rather than a street, and the possibility of unwanted visitors spilling over from the station, as deterrents to people visiting.

"We want an opportunity to have this museum continue to grow. I think (this proposal) has a significant opportunity to diminish the museum tremendously," Virginia Museum of Transportation Board of Directors Executive Vice-President Tom Cox said. "We bring in over 50,000 unique visitors to the transportation museum every year, we have 16,000 students who go through there, all of whom are going to be impacted."

Cox added the museum is skeptical of the council's view on the station's level of crime, which is the opposite of the way the museum feels. He said the museum already has had issues with trespassers in the museum and its outdoor railyard out back. The museum is concerned about more people being in the area to hang out under the 3rd Street and 5th Street bridges flanking the museum on either side.

"This is just going to accentuate the problem," Cox said. "Now whether or not we can actually work with the city planners and if they're in earnest in trying to work with us, then that's an entirely different matter."

Signs depicting a circle with a line through it over a magnet with a clenched fist, a syringe and a silhouette of an intoxicated person were held high from the gallery seats before council Tuesday night, most of them by people who live residential spaces adjacent to the site. Many of them were tenants of developments by Bill Chapman and were encouraged to attend.

Chapman is the developer of West Station, which by the council's own account is a Roanoke success story. It started as a smaller grouping of apartments and condos, Beamer's 25 restaraunt, and space shared with Habitat for Humanity in an older office and warehouse building. Chapman's company took a substantial risk investing in the corner of Salem Avenue and 5th Street when it did that. It's on the western fringe of downtown, and at the time, while only a few walking blocks away, might as well have been miles away from Market Square, the traditional thought of the downtown center because of the activity gap between the two.

The project was successful and Chapman then doubled down on that success, renovating the rest of the building. He added more apartments, welcomed Big Lick Brewing Company into the fold, and also had a stake in opening a Mexican restaurant, Tuco's, across the street, as well as adding even more residential space behind it. It's fair to say he's one of the original investors in downtown Roanoke residential projects, which have completely transformed downtown as we know it. Now, a project two years in the making behind closed doors, has him reconsidering Roanoke's investment appeal, after becoming de facto new neighbors to what he said is the "epicenter of crime in Roanoke."

"The idea that we can invest $22 million in an area and that the city would take a step to take the biggest crime magnet in town adjacent to where we are is deeply concerning," said Chapman. "If I want a job, I put in my resume, if my resume shows I've been arrested 79 times in the past year, I'm probably not getting the job, we're being asked to have a blind leap of faith that they’re going to turn their way around just by something new, a criminal in a new shirt is still a criminal."

Chapman is disappointed in the city for not inviting him to be a stakeholder in the process. The timelines of the projects show he was right in the middle of working on his major expansion at West Station at the same time city leaders were meeting behind closed doors planning the neighboring project of their own.

"I don't know the due diligence they put into their plan but all we have to go by is what the past is at this current bus transfer station and the (police statistics) aren't pretty. The idea of we're going to somehow trust them to manage this in a much better capacity than they have already is hard to believe," Chapman said. "We'll wait and see what the plans are and take the next steps."

Many of Chapman's tenants as well as Virginia Museum of Transportation board members, staff and supporters were in council chambers. They, along with others, asked why not other sites, or switching to a public transit layout that uses a number of smaller transfer stations across the region instead of one centralized location.

The air in council chambers became even more contentious when the public comment period ended and it was the city's turn to speak. Roanoke City Manager Bob Cowell said numerous other downtown sites were considered but the parking lot site won out. The city is set on the hub-and-spoke model, and he said no other site is realistic in downtown Roanoke because of the price it would cost to acquire the land and usage conditions that would come along with them make it a non-starter. It also said the transfer facility must be downtown to facilitate the most effective usage of a public transportation system of its size and because many of the riders are destined for downtown when they board the bus.

"The location of the civic center would put it much more remote from any of those locations, there was discussion of possibly putting it in an industrial site which obviously would not be conducive whatsoever to actually accommodating any of those particular visits or trips," Cowell said. "It's essential that it be located downtown."

In response to concerns of crime, Cowell confirmed that 270 calls for police were made for Campbell Court, as stated by some of the speakers. He said about a quarter of the calls were alcohol-related, just less than a quarter of them were medical emergencies, about 20 percent of them were spread across harassing behavior, disorderly conduct, criminal activity such as malicious wounding, assault, or a drug offense, about 18 percent for trespassing, parking violations and other minor reasons, and 10 percent of the calls were general requests for services.

There were 68 arrests and summons issued and only three of them for criminal activity. Of those three, two of them were for assault and the other one was for larceny. Cowell said the remaining 65 arrests were associated with alcohol-related calls like public drunkenness or open container.

Cowell said that any time you have a large number of people in any area you are going to end up having a high number of calls, asking people to consider places like malls that typically employ their own security. He also said there are 307 operational days for Valley Metro, which equals out to less than one call per day. 

"The number of 911 calls are accurate as reported, but I would say the characterization of all those calls all being criminal related or even the percentages that were provided (by those opposed) is not accurate," Cowell said. 

Councilwoman Djuna Osborne attempted to level with those in attendance, stating she, not too long ago, was just a regular person like them and not on the council, and would have probably had similar thoughts on this project too, but asked those in attendance to see the other side of the coin that this is the best option.

"My biggest concern today was what I heard from a lot of the folks which is don't put the bus station in my backyard, don't put it where those people will be and for me that is a challenge to hear," Osborne said before members of the crowd interjected saying no one said that. "The words 'that element' were used in this room tonight and I just want to say that the people who ride the bus, much as Mayor Lea said, are deserving of dignity and respect like every single person in this room."

Roanoke Vice-Mayor Joe Cobb asked of the room who rides the bus regularly, and only a few hands went up. That backed up council's implication that the wants of those with better means don't outweigh the needs of those with less who depend on those services.

"People who ride the buses and ride them on a regular basis we need to think about them and we need to make sure that they are considered," said Lea. "Also, that we give them an opportunity to improve their conditions. We know we've got homelessness, we know we've got a lot of things down there and we're working to improve that, but it's important that we consider the riders of the buses and that's so important to us."

Vice-Mayor Cobb was encouraged by the passionate opinions of those who spoke and suggested some sort of community advisory type panel be established to help make the project work for everyone and continue to let those voices be heard.

The move frees up the Campbell Court station to be developed as a new mixed-use development by Hist:Re Partners, who despite being in attendance at the meeting, had no comment on the bus station location controversy. However, in a previous interview with 10 News when the plan was announced, Lucas Thornton of Hist:Re Partners said he saw the proposed location for a new bus station as a good fit with transportation of today paired with transportation of yesteryear right across the street.

With this major hurdle out of the way, council and city staff now direct their attention toward the design phase of the station project. While a new bus station is still years away, Hist:Re has stated it wants to move quickly on the site at Campbell Court and the city has proposed a temporary bus station at the new location to bridge the gap.