Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Montgomery County considers procedure for offers
The two Montgomery County boards agreed that the school administration should be first notified of any proposals for the old Middle School property.
"I think what we're talking about here is protocol," Montgomery County School Board member Wat Hopkins said in a joint meeting between the school board and the board of supervisors. "I don't know of any school board member who is opposed to selling the building." The two Montgomery County boards agreed Monday that the school administration should be notified of any proposals for the property first. After the school board discusses a proposal, it would go to the county administrator and then to the board of supervisors.
That process is in contrast to what happened when two developers came forward with different proposals for the property this fall.
Branwick Associates, a Virginia Beach-based consulting and development firm, proposed building a 620,000-square-foot mall on the property. Then Hampton Roads developer W.M. Jordan Co. proposed building a luxury housing development there. Blacksburg Town Council began discussing the first proposal in closed meetings in September, and the board of supervisors discussed the proposals in closed sessions in October and November.
"I felt really uncomfortable in the two closed meetings we had because I thought, 'Why are they coming to us?'" supervisor Mary Biggs said. "I understand that the school board has the school, and if the developer comes, why am I listening to that developer?"
No one went to the school board to discuss purchasing the land, Hopkins said. He didn't know there was interest in the property until a few weeks ago, when The Roanoke Times published two stories about the county and town's discussions with developers.
Before the land can be sold, the school board has to declare it surplus. The county would handle the sale, and Blacksburg would have to rezone the land for anything other than low-density residential or civic uses.
The school board and county began discussing what to do with the 19.9 acres of land in downtown Blacksburg in November 2001, a year before a new middle school opened. Montgomery County Administrator Clay Goodman gave a presentation Monday that provided rough estimates about the annual financial impact for different uses of the land. A retail/commercial development would generate about $1.6 million, a retail/residential development about $1.1 million and a tax-exempt community use about $444,000. Goodman stressed the figures didn't apply to any specific proposals. The two existing proposals are still on the table but have not advanced beyond the discussion stage, Goodman said.
Supervisor Annette Perkins referred to the current proposals as "pie in the sky." Supervisor Gary Creed said that unless the school board declared the land surplus, no one would make any concrete offers.
"Nobody's going to spend money on development plans ... if they don't know if it's for sale," he said.
But Hopkins said there are other things the school board must consider before declaring a property surplus. For example, the football stadium on the property is used by Blacksburg High School. Also, there is the possibility that the building will be used when Prices Fork Elementary is renovated. Creed said the county could agree to address those types of issues in negotiating with developers if the school board requested it.
Whatever comes of proposals in the future, Perkins suggested both boards discuss them publicly to encourage communication between boards.
"It's all out in the open now," she said.
