By MEREDITH BARKLEY
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO — Starmount Co. plans to demolish Burlington Industries' landmark headquarters building when Burlington vacates later this year, and create a retail, residential and office community tied to adjacent Friendly Shopping Center.
   Coolidge Porterfield, Starmount's president, said the 400,OOO-square-foot glass-and steel building will have to come down because no one wants to lease it.
   "We don't see a use for that building," Porterfield said Monday. "We've taken some people through to see what they thought of it as office space, and no one likes it."
   He said the building is too spread out for conversion to other uses. What's more, removing hazardous asbestos would cost millions.
  "It's a corporate headquarters, nothing else," Porterfield said. "It would be real difficult to redo that building for speculative office."
    Starmount filed a request Friday with the Greensboro Zoning Commission to rezone the 33-acre tract at West Friendly Avenue and Hobbs Road.
   The tract is zoned for offices and single-family homes. Starmount wants the zoning changed for business use. That zoning change is in keeping with the city's comprehensive plan, which calls for a mix of commercial uses at the sale.
   The 1971 building, dominated by a six-story glass tower, was designed by A.G. Odell and Associates of Charlotte. Odell also designed the

old Ciba-Geigy building along Interstate 40 in west Greensboro, now occupied by Syngenta, and the old Wachovia building downtown. 
  Its innovative design won recognition from the South Atlantic Regional Council of the American Institute of Architects, American Association of Nurserymen, Inc., the Lincoln Foundation of Cleveland, Ohio, and the American Institute of Steel Construction.
  "In my eyes, I'd love to see it retained and combined into a new use and taken into the next century," said Benjamin Briggs, Preservation Greensboro's executive director. But, he said, "there's really nothing that can be done. The owners have full control of that property."
   Starmount's preliminary layout for the more than $50 million development shows 260,000 square feet of stores covering most of the tract, with' 100 homes - probably condominiums - at Hobbs Road and Northline Avenue.
   Office space could go on the first floor of the condominium building.
   The plan, which could change, calls for up to 325,000 square feet of retail and office space.
   "We've looked at about 15 drawings, and pretty much come down on the side of one," Porterfield said. "But even that's premature because we haven't gone out into the market to see how many tenants we could put in it"   City Councilwoman Florence Gatten, whose district includes Friendly Center, said the council