Just about everyone agrees the Roanoke City Market building needs to be renovated.

A debate over the best way to do that, however, turned into a courteous spitting match during the Roanoke City Council's meeting on Monday.

On one side, a coalition of downtown business owners and groups headed by Downtown Roanoke Inc. wants to pursue a $7 million plan that would involve shifting the building's focus from a lunch-driven food court to more of a classic market with retail options.

On the other side, city administrators pushed to spend $160,000 for a process that would involve a Washington, D.C.-based consulting group -- a group that would come up with three different options for the council to peruse.

Council members seemed just as split. Mayor David Bowers, Vice Mayor Sherman Lea, David Trinkle and Gwen Mason voted in favor of the city administration's proposal. Alvin Nash, Anita Price and Court Rosen voted against it. The 4-3 vote was enough to move the process forward, but one vote shy of actually putting it into action immediately. Instead, the council plans to revisit the issue for a second vote at a meeting on Jan. 20.

"This is the priority in terms of capital projects for the city the next couple of years," Trinkle said. "If we can renovate this building in the next year, then we need to start."

The 87-year-old building that many consider the heart of downtown Roanoke has been on the council's radar for years as problems have arisen over its upkeep. The closure of the facility in September due to a mouse infestation, however, brought a new immediacy to the discussion.

Much of Monday's debate centered on the relative importance of past studies on the market building that were paid for with taxpayer dollars.

The city paid $100,000 for Miami-based and internationally known Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. to produce a 2006 plan that called for a number of changes to the market building and the downtown historic district as a whole. The council identified five concepts from that plan for further exploration, but has so far not followed through.

Many of the Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. plan's concepts, however, were borrowed earlier this year by a DRI-led group called the Coalition for the Roanoke City Market when it responded to a city request for proposals on the market building. Among other things, that plan would have eliminated the building's mezzanine level and shifted the market vendors to a more retail-focused business model.

DRI President Bill Carder and board Chairman Cal Johnson each argued the city should have its consultants begin their work with the coalition's plan rather than start from scratch with a meeting to collect public input -- one of several public meetings that would be part of process with the newly selected consultant.

Duany Plater-Zberk held a series of public meetings as well.

"The point is that we don't have to start the process over," Johnson said.

Assistant City Manager Brian Townsend replied that the consultants should instead start from the ground up to form three concepts that would encompass a wide variety of ideas and which could be mixed and matched to find something the public supports.

The debate, which lasted more than an hour, left at least one market building food vendor -- Burger in the Square co-owner Anita Wilson -- feeling confused. She said the coalition's plan has some good points in it, but she worries the vendor spaces will be too small. Leaving her fate to consultants who have yet to propose ideas, however, is not quite a tempting prospect either.

And although several council members said they want to do what's best for the existing food vendors, their split vote indicates they continue to disagree on the best way to do that.

DRI, which is not affiliated with the city and is operated using a special downtown tax, is charged with running the historical market area.