Tuesday, January 04, 2005
School Board may turn property over to Montgomery County
The 20-acre site of the former Blacksburg Middle School has attracted the interest of developers.
A Montgomery County School Board meeting tonight may remove at least one obstacle to a proposal to build a 620,000-square-foot mall on the site of the old Blacksburg Middle School.
Tonight, the board may vote on a resolution to relinquish control of the 20-acre property in downtown Blacksburg, leaving it to the county supervisors to deal with developers.
Branwick Associates, a Virginia Beach-based development and consulting firm, proposed the mall to Blacksburg Town Council during a closed meeting in September. Montgomery County supervisors also discussed it in a closed meeting in October.
Details of the proposal came to light in November through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Roanoke Times. Branwick president and chief executive officer Robert Smithwick declined to comment on the proposal then and again this past week.
During a Nov. 27 joint meeting between supervisors and the school board, both boards agreed that proposals for the middle school property should be first addressed by the school system, which owns the property.
Some time after Thanksgiving, Montgomery County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Politis, school board Chairwoman Tacy Newell-Foutz and County Administrator Clay Goodman met with Branwick to discuss the mall proposal.
"It was an informational pitch, the same type of information that's been reported," Newell-Foutz said.
Politis said, "We weren't in a position to do anything ... We don't have any property available, but hopefully that'll soon be solved."
During the school board's last meeting Dec. 7, members began talking about the resolution to dispose of the property if supervisors meet certain conditions. Stipulations included that the old school's athletic facilities must be replaced, that space must be found for Price's Fork Elementary students during future school renovations or construction and that proceeds from any sale must go to reduce school debt or pay for school building projects.
The school board has been trying to find an educational or civic use for the building since it closed to Montgomery County students in 2002. Currently, an independent Catholic academy and numerous nonprofit organizations and groups rent space in the old school.
Blacksburg Town Council would have to approve rezoning for most commercial uses of the property. Councilman Don Langrehr said he has heard nothing about the proposal since November. Councilman Paul Lancaster said he's had no contact with Branwick since September. No other council members returned phone calls seeking comment.
Two other proposals announced in November for the property are still on the table.
Gail Billingsley, executive director of the YMCA at Virginia Tech, has discussed a proposal to buy the school building and part of the property at two meetings of the citizen-led Blacksburg Townscape Committee.
Eastern Shore developer John Lawson is also still interested in developing a luxury housing project, but "he's not in any hurry," said Blacksburg Partnership President Bill Aden. The partnership, a nonprofit economic development group, helped bring Lawson's proposal before local officials in other closed meetings this fall.
The proposal for a Blacksburg mall has much in common with Smithwick's most successful economic development project, the 1.2 million-square-foot MacArthur Mall in Norfolk.
That mall was built on a piece of taxpayer-owned land that had stood vacant for years. Smithwick persuaded Norfolk City Council to invest about $100 million in the project and persuaded retail giant Nordstrom to anchor the retail center, which is often credited with revitalizing the city's then-decaying downtown.
News researcher Belinda Harris
contributed to this report.
