Support for a cap on retail buildings that could affect the siting of big-box stores such as a Wal-Mart is growing among neighborhood groups and Blacksburg's Citizens First political action committee.

The town council recently voted to fast-track an ordinance proposed by Councilman Don Langrehr that would cap the size of retail buildings at 80,000 square feet. Any larger building would require a special use permit approved by the council.

Depending on the timing of the ordinance -- it's scheduled for a public hearing and vote before the planning commission May 1 and then for a council vote May 8 -- it may affect the Boulevards at Blacksburg, a 40-acre redevelopment project along South Main Street. Plans to redevelop the old Red Lion Inn and 50 acres of Virginia Tech land, both along Prices Fork Road, may also be affected.

Since Monday, e-mail lists across town have been swamped with calls for residents to support the ordinance. The e-mail blitz was prompted by a rumor that Fairmount Properties, the Ohio-based company behind the Boulevards project, is courting Wal-Mart to fill a 175,000-square-foot building along Country Club Drive.

An online petition sponsored by downtown business owners Margaret and Daniel Breslau has garnered more than 900 signatures. The Breslaus have posted a Web page at home-body.net, their company Web site, that compares site plans for Wal-Mart supercenters in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Monument, Colo., with the Boulevards project.

Margaret Breslau said Monday the footprint for the building on Country Club Drive matches the normal footprint for a supercenter. She worries about the effects of such a project on small, independent downtown businesses such as hers.

Two downtown businesses -- a florist shop and an outdoors retailer -- have closed in the past three months. Several other storefronts also stand empty.

It's disheartening, Breslau said, "but I'm a fighter."

Members of the Miller-Southside Neighborhood Association, which includes the Country Club Drive area, have expressed concerns about traffic congestion and the safety of students at Margaret Beeks Elementary, which sits adjacent to the Fairmount development.

Fairmount Principal Adam Fishman could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. Last month he told The Roanoke Times, "When you lease a project like this, you talk to just about every local, regional and national retailer, you can, and we've done that, including every big-box retailer you can think of. But at this point, that's all we can say there."

Other developers, such as Bill Ellenbogen, have said that a Wal-Mart or other big-box store can help Blacksburg draw the smaller retail outlets that council members and marketing studies have said can help shore up the town's tax base and provide more shopping and entertainment for Blacksburg residents.

Citizens First, the political action committee to which a majority of council members have ties, has called for residents to lobby the planning commission and the town council to pass the ordinance quickly. Breslau said opponents of big-box stores will speak at tonight's council meeting.