Melrose Plaza Grand Opening Marks New Chapter in Community Investment in Virginia

ROANOKE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 6, 2025--

Melrose Plaza, a first-of-its-kind community resource center, officially opened its doors with a grand opening celebration. This milestone comes with many firsts for the Roanoke community and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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More than a neighborhood milestone, Melrose Plaza represents a new model for addressing the social determinants of health in historically underserved communities. What began as a resident-led food access initiative has become a $30 million anchor of opportunity – creating new jobs and strengthening the local economy. Melrose Plaza was made possible by Goodwill Industries of the Valleys and a diverse network of civic, business, nonprofit and philanthropic partners – including the City of Roanoke and Carilion Clinic.

“Today marks a turning point, not just for Northwest Roanoke, but for how we think about community investment in Virginia,” said Richmond Vincent, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Valleys. “Melrose Plaza proves what’s possible when you bring the right partners together to build opportunity into the foundation of a neighborhood.”

The grand opening ceremony drew civic leaders, business partners and state officials, including Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, who highlighted the project’s historic and statewide significance.

“Melrose Plaza isn’t just a building, it’s a hub for hope, access and opportunity,” said Lucas. “It’s the kind of transformational first that will change generations, and it belongs in every corner of our Commonwealth.”

In a surprise moment during the grand opening ceremony, Richmond Vincent was honored by the community with the inaugural Sankofa Award, which recognizes an individual whose leadership has made a lasting and transformational impact on community, cultural, and generational change.

“Richmond Vincent is a visionary and a humanitarian,” said Stan Hale, editor of the Roanoke Tribune and lifelong resident of Northwest Roanoke. “Melrose Plaza has transformed our community through a collective vision that Mr. Vincent has shepherded into reality.”

Designed to directly impact the core social factors that influence community well-being, Melrose Plaza brings together coordinated services that address core community needs:

The realization of Melrose Plaza was powered by local, state and private investment, and guided by input from neighborhood residents.

“It took a coalition of the willing to make this vision real,” said Aaron Boush, chair of the Goodwill Board of Directors. “What started with a conversation became a campaign, and is now a living, breathing space where transformation happens every day – creating jobs, fueling local pride and expanding what’s possible for this community.”

To learn more about Melrose Plaza and how it’s shaping the future of Roanoke, visit https://melroseplazaroanoke.com/

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About Melrose Plaza

Melrose Plaza is a first-of-its-kind resource center and cultural hub located in Northwest Roanoke, a neighborhood affected by urban renewal. A community partnership initiative launched by Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, Melrose Plaza aims to rejuvenate the community by addressing health disparities, educational opportunities, financial empowerment, and access to affordable healthy foods. The four anchor initiatives of Melrose Plaza will provide jobs and resources to uplift the entire community.

About Goodwill Industries of the Valleys

Goodwill Industries of the Valleys serves 35 counties and 14 cities throughout Central, Southwest, and Southside Virginia. Our vision of eliminating poverty is fueled by our mission of empowering individuals, strengthening families, and inspiring communities. Your donations and shopping allow Goodwill to provide skills training, job placement, and support services to help people achieve their fullest potential. Visit goodwillvalleys.com for more information.

Richmond Vincent, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, shares the vision of Melrose Plaza to attendees at the Grand Opening.

LONDON (AP) — Laws that will make it illegal to create online sexual images of someone without their consent are coming into force soon in the U.K., officials said Thursday, following a global backlash over the use of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok to make sexualized deepfakes of women and children.

Musk's company, xAI, announced late Wednesday that it has introduced measures to prevent Grok from allowing the editing of photos of real people to portray them in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the move, and said X must “immediately” ensure full compliance with U.K. law. He stressed that his government will remain vigilant on any transgressions by Grok and its users.

“Free speech is not the freedom to violate consent," Starmer said Thursday. “I am glad that action has now been taken. But we’re not going to let this go. We will continue because this is a values argument.”

The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI and freely accessed through his social media platform X, has faced global scrutiny after it emerged that it was used in recent weeks to generate thousands of images that “undress” people without their consent. The digitally-altered pictures included nude images as well as depictions of women and children in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses.

Critics have said laws regulating generative AI tools are long overdue, and that the U.K. legal changes should have been brought into force much sooner.

A look at the problem and how the U.K. aims to tackle it:

Britain's media regulator has launched an investigation into whether X has breached U.K. laws over the Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed. The watchdog, Ofcom, said such images — and similar productions made by other AI models — may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.

The problem stemmed from the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall cited a report from the internet Watch Foundation saying the deepfake images included sexualization of 11-year-olds and women subjected to physical abuse.

“The content which has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal,” she said.

Authorities said they are making legal changes to criminalize those who use or supply “nudification” tools.

First, the government says it is fast-tracking provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act making it a criminal offense to create or request deepfake images. The act was passed by Parliament last year, but had not yet been brought into force.

The legislation is set to come into effect on Feb. 6

“Let this be a clear message to every cowardly perpetrator hiding behind a screen: you will be stopped and when you are, make no mistake that you will face the full force of the law,” Justice Secretary David Lammy said

Separately, the government said it is also criminalizing “nudification” apps as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

The new criminal offense will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images. Kendall said this would “target the problem at its source.”

The investigation by Ofcom is ongoing. Kendall said X could face a fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation’s outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site.

Starmer has faced calls for his government to stop using X. Downing Street said this week it was keeping its presence on the platform “under review."

Musk insisted Grok complied with the law. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he posted on X. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”

FILE - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)