Grandin Village — The Neighborhood That Feels Like a Town

The streetcar made this place, and then the streetcar left. What remains is three blocks of independent shops on Roanoke's west side that survived by accident — by not being demolished for a parking lot after July 31, 1948, when the city abandoned streetcar service altogether and Grandin Village lost its reason for existing. In 1906, the Virginia Heights Land Corporation started developing the area after the Memorial Bridge opened, connecting southwest Roanoke to downtown. The Roanoke Street Railway Company completed a streetcar line by 1911, and the T intersection at Grandin and Memorial became a retail and service area. Most of the structures went up between 1917 and 1945, built for foot traffic that came by rail. When the streetcar died, the village declined, remade itself for the automobile, and spent decades as the kind of place people drove through on their way somewhere else. The Grandin Theatre opened in 1932 as Roanoke's first suburban movie house — designed by Eubank & Caldwell with elements of various revival styles. It operated continuously until November 11, 2001, when it closed because the building was falling apart. The Grandin Theatre Foundation raised enough money to renovate and reopen it on October 20, 2002. The neon sign anchors the entire west side visually. It is the lone historic movie theatre left in the Roanoke Valley. The district rebounded. It has been noted as one of Roanoke's best examples of a mixed-use urban village and has been used as a local model for future mixed-use developments. Home to a community cinema, a co-op grocery, and sidewalk cafés that actually fill up. Park on Memorial Avenue and walk — most of the village spans four blocks, and it was built for walking.