Opinion: Roanoke Rapids entertains exciting future


In case you missed it, the Henderson of Interstate 95 — Roanoke Rapids — has been rewarded for its economic development efforts with an entertainment complex that organizers hope will produce 2,600 jobs in its first phase.

As we read the details of this long-rumored project, we couldn’t help thinking about how it all reflects on what we’re doing in Henderson.

Randy Parton, Dolly’s brother and fellow entertainer, is building a $9 million, 1,500-seat theater in Roanoke Rapids as the first step in what the Halifax County city hopes will be the development of 700 acres into an entertainment district to rival Branson, Mo.

Parton’s music venue and a separate, $14 million “ocean-themed” theater are expected to open in 2007.

Private developers are handling the rest of the land in the entertainment district and talked at a news conference Thursday about interest from people who could put amusement parks, hotels and restaurants on the site.

Did we mention the private part? No state money — not even in the form of those dastardly economic incentives the governor loves to throw around — has been spent or committed to the Roanoke Rapids project, and the local incentives will be phased in as the much larger private investment takes off. (Note: The previous sentence was updated for accuracy July 7.) Private interests are building the theaters because they are based on profitable business models, and private interests will operate them. (Rep. Michael Wray, who represents Henderson as well as Northampton County, which could see economic benefits spilling over from Roanoke Rapids, got $750,000 in promotional money included in the House version of the state budget, but it’s not in the Senate version.)

Roanoke Rapids’ good news probably isn’t so good for us. Yes, we’ll have some more entertainment options within driving distance in the future. Yes, it’s possible such a sprawling enterprise will exceed the local water capacity and come calling to buy our greatest resource, Kerr Lake water (such sales were discussed briefly at the April meeting of Regional Water System partners, and they even have the benefit of keeping the water in the Roanoke River Basin). Yes, it’s possible quality performers on their way to or from Roanoke Rapids will stop for a show at the future 1,000-seat Embassy Square theater, and maybe Wray can help facilitate some kind of affiliation between Henderson’s venue and the entertainment complex one interstate over.

More likely, we fear, is that the Branson of eastern North Carolina will nullify any economic development advantage we might have gained from the Embassy cultural center. If businesses are going to be drawn by the entertainment and social life envisioned at Embassy Square, won’t they be even more excited by what they see in Roanoke Rapids? When representatives of the new Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership are out recruiting prospects, will they even bother pulling out Embassy brochures if Roanoke Rapids has already been there with visions of Randy Parton and friends bringing top country, pop and (shudder) beach music acts to town, possibly including Parton’s famous sister?

We need to study Roanoke Rapids’ example to help us move forward. Why did a city of roughly Henderson’s size (each has a population between 16,000 and 17,000), transportation advantages (each is at the intersection of a major north-south interstate with east-west U.S. 158 just south of the Virginia border) and recent economic troubles (each has lost thousands of textile jobs) land such a prize, while we got Sonic and Chick-fil-A?

It’s hard to compare the cities’ budgets because Roanoke Rapids doesn’t have its own water and sewer plants, so it lacks those enterprise funds, which boost expenditures, revenues and debt. For example, in fiscal 2003-04, Henderson spent $4.2 million on debt service to Roanoke Rapids’ $608,000, but $3 million of Henderson’s debt service was tied to water and sewer (so our other debts cost us roughly double what Roanoke Rapids’ did). And we could pick on the higher amounts we spend on city administration and the governing body, but why be negative? You can check the Local Government Commission’s wealth of numbers for Henderson and Roanoke Rapids yourself.

A few of those numbers do jump out from June 30, 2004. Henderson’s property tax rate was 61 cents per $100 valuation (as of today, it’s 67 cents, plus 92 cents for Vance County), while Roanoke Rapids’ was 50.9 cents (it’s 49.9 cents now, plus 86.5 cents for Halifax County). Henderson’s fund balance, under the LGC’s generous calculations, was 5.36 percent, to Roanoke Rapids’ 31.83 percent. And Henderson spent $2,900 that was classified for economic development, while Roanoke Rapids spent $2.4 million.

That economic development push reflects a direct commitment Henderson has lacked. Correcting that error is one of the best arguments for the Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership: The city needs to play the game to win.

But Roanoke Rapids does more than talk and recruit. As the Clean Up Henderson Committee has found, Roanoke Rapids has thrown itself into the effort to remove abandoned houses, and it has redeveloped a once-run-down mill village into an area the city can be proud of. Those are things businesses and, no doubt, Randy Parton notice.

The David Street project that just was awarded $653,000 in Community Development Block Grant money could be a good first step for Henderson. For one thing, it involves homeowners, not just renters and landlords. If Mayor Clem Seifert’s housing task force can build on the David Street project with a comprehensive redevelopment plan for the northeastern corner of the city, we could really have something. And if we let the Code Compliance Department have the $100,000 a year it’s supposed to get from the sanitation fee, we could make real progress in demolishing the abandoned houses that blight our city.

There’s no reason we should have to look at Roanoke Rapids with jealousy. We’ll always have something they can’t match in Kerr Lake, but we need to build on that advantage. If we put our money in the right places — and the Embassy theater isn’t one of them — we should be the jewel of rural North Carolina.

By the time Roanoke Rapids is in full Branson mode, we could be in a position to benefit as the perfect location to live and work if you want to be an easy drive from both Music City, N.C., and the big-city pleasures of the Triangle. Or we could become little more than a stop for food and gas for people driving to places they’d rather be.