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Hotel Roanoke

 Organization

Dates

  • Usage: after 1994?

Historical Note

The original Hotel Roanoke was built in 1882 by the Norfolk Western Railroad for $60,000. The hotel started with 34 rooms and quickly grew to 94 rooms in 1890. It was severely damaged by a fire in 1895 and was rebuilt. It continued to expand through wars and the depression. By the 1950s, it had over 384 rooms within its distinctive half-timber English Tudor style facade.

As the public began to use interstate highways rather than passenger rail for travel, the Hotel Roanoke experienced a decline in business. Unable to compete with the national hotel chains located near the interstate highway, the Norfolk Western Railroad decided to concentrate on the transportation aspects of their corporation and closed the Hotel Roanoke in the fall of 1989. James McComas, then president of Virginia Tech, was approached by city leaders to accept the hotel as a gift and develop a first class hotel and conference center. The Virginia Tech Foundation accepted and renovated the Hotel Roanoke, while the City of Roanoke constructed the adjacent conference center.

The $27.8 million renovation of the Hotel Roanoke was financed through a mixture of funding sources: a consortium of local financial institutions loaned the project $6.5 million, a $6.0 million loan through section 108 HUD loan program with the City of Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority for the creation of 300 new jobs, $3.0 million from the sale of land surrounding the hotel, $4.0 million loan from the Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc., $1.3 million loan from Doubletree hotels, $1.0 million loan from a local Roanoke foundation, and $6.0 million from local citizens and companies in a local fund drive to save the historic hotel. The Hotel Roanoke is privately owned by a for-profit subisidiary of the Virginia Tech Real Estate Foundation, Inc.

Since reopening in the spring of 1995 as the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, the 332-room facility has received many historic preservation and architectural awards. It was placed on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places and on the Virginia Landmarks register, and it received the 1996 National Trust for Historic Preservation Honor Award for restoration and preservation.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Postcards from Appalachia,

 Collection
Identifier: Ms-2015-032
Abstract

Postcards from Appalachia contains postcards depicting various landmarks, locations, and scenery in the Appalachian region during the first half of the 20th century.

Dates: c.1900-1970s