An advocacy group supporting Roanoke’s 19th-century Washington Park Caretaker’s Cottage has worked to raise about $20,000 to save the building, which has been falling further into disrepair for years.
The group now has almost eight times that amount of funding to move forward with plans for partial restoration of the property to turn it into an amphitheater — an idea that multiple people within the Friends of Washington Park Caretaker’s Cottage recently said they support as a feasible compromise to keep the property standing.
On Monday night, the Roanoke City Council voted unanimously to allocate $150,000 toward the restoration of the cottage.
The building, constructed in 1840, has been at the center of local activism since the early 1960s when a city landfill was built in Washington Park, which is surrounded by predominantly Black neighborhoods.
The final vote came after multiple amendments and a tense conversation among council members. The original resolution, written by Councilman Phazhon Nash, would have allocated $400,000 for the project. It also said that if additional funding wasn’t secured by October, the cottage would be torn down. That requirement was not in the final version.
As passed Monday, the resolution directs the city to greenlight a condition survey of the structure within 90 days and authorizes City Manager Valmarie Turner to write a letter of support to include in future grant applications.
Next steps: A conditions survey and a fundraising campaign
A structural engineer looked at the house last year to make sure that it was still salvageable, Nash said Tuesday. The upcoming survey will provide a cost estimate for turning the space into an amphitheater.
Chris Sanchez, executive director with the Christiansburg Institute, who is consulting the Friends of Washington Park Caretaker’s Cottage group, said the group took a board vote and had a majority support for Nash’s amphitheater idea before Monday’s council vote.
The Christiansburg Institute is a nonprofit organization that focuses on education, empowerment and stewardship of African American history and culture in Southwest Virginia, according to its website.
Sanchez said Tuesday that the National Trust for Historic Preservation gave the Christiansburg Institute a $5,000 grant last fall to help pay for a conditions survey for the building. Friends of Washington Park Caretaker’s Cottage has raised another $5,000 for that purpose, he said, and additional funding for the study has come from the Christiansburg Institute and from Southwest Restoration, a contracting company that focuses on historic preservation. In total, about $18,000 has been raised, Sanchez said.
It’s not clear yet when the survey might be completed.
Sanchez said the Christiansburg Institute is consulting with Southwest Restoration, which will perform the work for the conditions survey.
Once the survey is completed, Sanchez said, the Christiansburg Institute will organize a kickoff meeting with all stakeholders — the Roanoke Valley Preservation Group, the Friends group, the Christiansburg Institute and the city — before launching a public fundraising campaign.
Until the conditions survey is completed, it’s unclear how much more money would be needed to complete the project.
He said that the fundraising will include public giving campaigns and direct requests for donations from cultural heritage institutions and other organizations that are “aligned thematically” with the project.
He said the Friends group has raised about $20,000 already; about $5,000 went toward the 2025 engineering study, and another $5,000 paid for contracting consultation services through the Christiansburg Institute.
The Friends group and the Christiansburg Institute will also work together to apply for grant funding again.
The institute last year unsuccessfully applied for an $800,000 grant through the Virginia DHR’s Black, Indigenous and People of Color Historic Preservation Grant Program. But judges’ comments from last year said there wasn’t a clear end use for the building, and that it didn’t seem the project had adequate support from the city government, Nash said.
The BIPOC grant program was established by the General Assembly in 2022 to “protect and support Virginia’s historically underserved and underrepresented communities and the cultural and historic sites associated with them,” according to the Department of Historic Resources’ website.
The city council resolution was an opportunity to demonstrate the city’s support in order to acquire grant funding, and to establish a clear end use, Nash said.
“I feel confident with the updates we now know that we have a very strong proposal going forward,” Sanchez said of upcoming grant applications.
Alison Blanton, chair of the advocacy committee with the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, which acts as a fiduciary agent and advisor to the Friends group, said an amphitheater was “nobody’s first choice,” but it’s better than full demolition, which she said “was very much on the table at this point.”
She also said it’s worth noting that an amphitheater would incur minimal maintenance costs at a time when the city’s parks and recreation budget is being cut again.
“Friends of Washington Park Caretaker’s Cottage and the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation have been asking for financial help since before the city realized they didn’t have any money,” Blanton said.
Nash said that if additional money is not raised for the project, it’s unclear what the cottage’s future would look like.
Eleven community members came to the Monday council meeting to speak on the cottage’s future, with most in favor of Nash’s resolution, and some voicing concerns about the funding of the project.
“Please know there are so many people who are out there in the public who are feeling the same way I am, that this is a rushed decision and that it’s not viable,” former city councilwoman Anita Price said. “The cottage does not measure up as a need, not at this time.”
Christian Burnett, president of the NAACP Youth Council and a student at Patrick Henry High School, said the city risks “erasing a piece of history” by tearing the building down. He said the issue isn’t just about funding, but about trust too, and that he “wants to grow up in a place that preserves its past” and “respects its people.”
Where the $150,000 is coming from
Much of Monday evening’s discussion was centered upon where the city’s contribution to the project was coming from and how much the city can afford to allocate, as it is in the middle of another extremely tight budget season.
Council members considered a series of amendments to the initial resolution, which had called for providing $400,000 for the project, before settling on a $150,000 contribution.
“I’m really worried about putting money out there that we don’t know we have,” Councilwoman Evelyn Powers said.
Nash said in an interview before the meeting that funding was available for the project from sources including the Roanoke City Public Schools’ fund balance that was returned to the city and $2 million set aside for debt interest payments for the Riverdale project.
During the meeting, Councilwoman Vivian Sanchez-Jones said she was concerned about money for the project coming from “funds previously taken from our schools,” and said she thought those funds should be returned to the schools for after-school transportation.
She later asked Turner if the money for the cottage would come from the schools’ fund balance.
“That would depend,” Turner said. She reiterated Nash’s statement that money is available from the school division’s fund balance, from savings from the Riverdale project, and from an E911 center, but did not provide further details.
Councilman Peter Volosin took issue with the amount and source of the funding, too, and said he’d rather use the $150,000 to fund a study to decide what to do with the building. He said “unfortunately” the money is “going to come from our children” and that the council doesn’t yet know how much an amphitheater would cost. Volosin said in a text message on Tuesday that the project is worthy of investment, but his concern is that “right now, the city has more priorities than money.”
Vice Mayor Terry McGuire spoke in support of the resolution, stating that the cottage is an “incredibly important historic asset” to the city, and that Nash had done a lot of research and community outreach before writing the resolution.
“I don’t know why for decades the city council let that building sit there and dilapidate and become a liability, and an embarrassment and an eyesore,” McGuire said. “I don’t know why they did that, but what we’re trying to do today is change that and move forward.”
