A circa-1912 building in Roanoke that once sheltered streetcar trolleys stands destined to house software and hardware engineers employed by a California-based, publicly traded technology company with a global reach.
JDS Uniphase Corp plans to move its regional office and about 75 employees in December from a site in a Roanoke County business park to become the first corporate tenant at The Bridges, a mixed-use development unfolding along South Jefferson Street and Walnut Avenue in Roanoke.
Bob Dierk, site manager for JDSU’s regional office, said that the company is excited to be part of the building’s historic renovation that is already under way.
“We really could not have found anything better than this,” Dierk said Wednesday during a news conference at the trolley barn, which the company will lease.
He said renovations planned for the building will create an open, collaborative work environment in an impressive space. He said the site’s proximity to the Roanoke River reenway and other amenities planned for the mixed-use development seem sure to help the company’s efforts to recruit young professionals.
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Dierk said JDSU will adjust its plans for the building to prepare for the possibility of flooding from the river although he said he feels the river’s flood control project has reduced that threat.
JDSU will move from the Valleypointe business park off Peters Creek Road to the 24,643-square-foot building in the shadow of the Walnut Avenue bridge once renovations are complete.
According to JDSU’s website, the company “innovates and collaborates with customers to build and operate the highest-performing and highest-value networks in the world.” Dierk said JDSU’s customers include telecommunications companies.
WVS Companies, the Richmond-based developer of The Bridges, has said that the $150 million, 10-year project will feature apartments, offices, restaurants and small shops in buildings both new and historic. Current plans call also for a Roanoke River promenade with a kayak launch.
Bern Ewert, a former Roanoke city manager, is an investor in The Bridges. On June 9, he and his son, Aaron, project manager for the development, said designation of the Roanoke River & Railroad Historic District in December by the National Register of Historic Places provided access to a key source of funding through federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits.
As envisioned, The Bridges project, through WVS Companies’ Roanoke River Investments LLC, will inhabit about 23 acres of the historic district’s 47 acres and include seven of its buildings. The development’s most visible element to date is a new apartment complex with 157 units under construction along South Jefferson Street opposite the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.
Construction of the apartment complex and renovation of an adjacent historic warehouse building slated to house a coffee shop and restaurant will involve an investment of about $15 million, according to Richard Souter, an executive vice president for WVS.
According to a history of the trolley barn compiled by Hill Studio, the Roanoke Railway & Electric Co., first organized in 1887, built the streetcar barn and a repair shop near Walnut Avenue in 1912. The barn featured pits to allow under-car inspections and could accommodate about 56 streetcars.
At Roanoke Railway & Electric Co.’s peak in 1925, it operated about 50 streetcars over more than 30 miles of track, the history reports.
The Hill Studio history reports that the trolley barn “retains a high level of integrity with its siting, form, detailing and materials intact.”
In a transaction that closed June 16, Roanoke River Investments purchased the trolley barn and two nearby buildings within the historic district from Carilion Clinic Properties.
Tax records show Carilion sold the trolley barn to RRI/Trolley Barn LLC for $138,966. Souter said the trolley barn project is ultimately expected to require an investment of about $4.8 million.
A performance agreement negotiated in 2012 between the Roanoke Economic Development Authority and Roanoke River Associates, predecessor of RRI, holds that EDA grants to the development for infrastructure costs could ultimately total as much as $10 million, depending on how much the developers spend in the years ahead.
Souter said the development has already received a $2 million grant from the EDA.