Centerbrook designed a revitalization plan for Roanoke's central business district. The plan concluded that a rundown area of six square blocks at the center of the city could be the key to downtown revitalization. The area at one time enclosed a fine urban space known as "Market Square," named for the 1924 neo-Georgian Market Building at its center. Unfortunately, a 1965 urban renewal plan had compromised the square by filling it in with bus shelters, planters, fountains, and sidewalks.
Saved in 1970s by preservationists, the Market Building was still left without viable economic function. The goal of Centerbrook's design was to return the Market Building and its square, along with the many surrounding nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century retail buildings, to their vital role as the heart of the city.
The butchers and fishmongers remaining from the many who years before had filled the Market Building were moved to low-rent spaces nearby so that farmers' stalls could be built lining Market Square and the adjoining First Street. The square was then renovated from the ground up. All structures from the 1965 urban renewal plan were removed, and the square was returned to a clean, unencumbered form. New streetscape in the form of street lights, benches, and street signs were introduced. Roofs of several buildings around the square were outfitted with stanchions for permanent stage lights focused on the facade of the Market Building, where a portable stage was placed for special events. A warehouse on a prominent corner of the square was renovated into an arts center, and storefronts were systematically upgraded. Now, as many as 50,000 gather regularly for celebrations staged in what has become the official "party room" of the city.
With so many activities now arrayed around the Market Building, the building's interior has been returned to the format of a traditional market, but one that incorporates a modern retailing philosophy.
Photography © Norman McGrath