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Since September, Blacksburg Town Council and the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors have held multiple closed sessions to discuss the two projects proposed for the former Blacksburg Middle School site downtown. Councilman Don Langrehr, in an e-mail to his council colleagues, described a proposal by Branwick Associates, a Virginia Beach-based consulting and development firm, to build an estimated $160 million shopping mall on the property. The e-mail was obtained Thursday through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request by The Roanoke Times.

Another proposal is for a high-density luxury housing development to be built by another Hampton Roads developer, W.M. Jordan Co., said Bill Aden, president of the Blacksburg Partnership, a private development organization made up of business leaders and town and Virginia Tech officials.

There was strong reaction to the mall proposal Thursday.

Kay Moody, who lives near the school in the Miller-Southside neighborhood, worries that a mall would exacerbate traffic problems and harm the quality of life.

"We need to take the time to look at what it will do to neighborhoods," she said.

Virginia Tech YMCA Director Gail Billingsley laid out a third proposal Monday night at a public meeting on the future of the old school, saying the YMCA could use the property for its programs and thrift store.

Any proposal would need the approval of three governing bodies. The school board would have to declare the land surplus through a public resolution. The county or the school board would then have to sell or lease the land. And the town council would have to rezone the property for any development other than low-density residential or civic use.

Blacksburg officials have fretted since the 1980s as department stores such as Leggett moved out of downtown and into Christiansburg. The town hired Branwick Associates years ago to help recruit retail stores for downtown.

"We're constantly trying to recruit good businesses to town," longtime Councilman Al Leighton said, noting that he was speaking generally, not about either proposal. "We don't have a department store, and we badly need one, even if it's not on the middle school property."

Supervisors held a closed meeting Wednesday night with W.M. Jordan president John Lawson, Blacksburg Mayor Roger Hedgepeth and Blacksburg Town Manager Gary Huff, Aden said. Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Politis said he met with School Board Chairwoman Tacy Newell-Foutz and Hedgepeth on Tuesday to discuss the property.

Yet, school board member Wat Hopkins said Tuesday that the board had not heard any proposals for the school.

Aden, of the Blacksburg Partnership, said he did not hear about the mall proposal until two days ago.

"I don't think the left hand knows what the right hand is doing sometimes. It seems like everybody's going off in their own direction," he said.

County and town officials have been reluctant to discuss details of the proposals, some saying it could jeopardize any deal and others saying they don't know enough yet. Langrehr's e-mail to council, dated Sept. 16, expressed concerns about keeping the 620,000-square-foot mall proposal secret.

"Are we willing to reinforce the existing impression that 'it's business as usual' in Blacksburg, with private financial profit prioritized over resident and taxpayer concerns?" he wrote in the e-mail.

He also cautioned council to go more slowly.

"A growth and development proposal of this magnitude ... begs for slower, cautious decisionmaking. ... We have dickered over road medians for thrice as long," he wrote.

Politis stressed that talks are very preliminary and said the county did not solicit the proposals.

"If we had something concrete, we'd have something to talk about, and we don't," Politis said.

Developers of other new retail projects around town were skeptical about the prospects for a new mall. Bob Pack noted his new $15 million Kent Square facility, about a block from the middle school, is a little less than three-quarters full.

"That's the damndest thing I've ever heard of ... it almost sounds like a joke," he said.

Jeanne Stosser, who for a year has been planning a retail project on South Main Street six blocks from the middle school, said "There's no way on God's earth that the amount of square footage they'd be talking about in a mall area could be supported."

Bill Ellenbogen, who is planning to expand University Mall, about a mile from the middle school, said "My first question would be, 'How are people going to get there and back? The roads aren't sufficient.'"

South Main Street has two travel lanes at the middle school.

A new mall in Blacksburg probably would not have a huge impact on business at Roanoke's Valley View Mall, said Roger Elkin, vice president of operations with Hall Associates, a commercial real estate firm in Roanoke. The mall could feed "a very large shopping demand" from Virginia Tech students who often do not travel to Roanoke to shop, he said.

Branwick President and CEO Robert Smithwick declined to comment on the mall proposal. The company has built Branwick centers for economic development in Radford, Floyd and Pearisburg. Branwick is also responsible for MacArthur Mall, a Norfolk retail development of more than 1.2 million square feet, built in 1999.

Aden said the proposal for a housing development at the middle school began in an informal discussion with John Lawson, president of W.M. Jordan Co. and a member of Tech's board of visitors who donated $1 million to the university's Lane Stadium expansion three years ago. Aden emphasized that Lawson "is just exploring right now."

Whatever is ultimately considered for the site "has got to be compatible with Blacksburg and its neighborhoods," Aden said. "Otherwise we won't get behind it."

Contacted at his office in Newport News, Lawson declined to comment Thursday. W.M. Jordan does work across Virginia. Current projects include an 800,000-square-foot expansion to a Richmond retirement community, a 20-story Hilton hotel in Virginia Beach and what The Daily Press newspaper in Newport News described as a 400,000-square-foot log cabin in Williamsburg.

The question of what to do with the middle school property has weighed on local politics since students moved into a new middle school in 2002. Many of about 70 residents at a Monday meeting of Blacksburg's Townscape Committee were members of Citizens First. The citizens group helped Langrehr and two other council members to landslide victories in May's elections because they ran on a platform of controlled growth and open government.

Lindsay West, a former Montgomery County supervisor and Citizens First organizer, said Thursday that she didn't like the nature of the closed sessions.

"I think this is the kind of thing that needs to be discussed publicly and openly," she said. "And it troubles me that something that has this kind of impact on the community is being done behind closed doors."

Staff writer Jenny Kincaid and news researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this report.