The city of Salem announced Tuesday that it plans to build a community amphitheater, just a little more than a week after the Roanoke City Council voted to move forward with its own amphitheater in downtown's Elmwood Park.

Salem spokesman Mike Stevens downplayed the amphitheater announcement, which will be made formally today at a news conference scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at Longwood Park, where the facility will be located.

"In no way will this structure compete with any of the plans Roanoke City is still pursuing," Stevens wrote in an e-mail.

The announcement, however, quickly drew a mixed reaction from Roanoke council members, with Mayor David Bowers using it as a rallying cry for the Roanoke project.

"I would say that all those who want the amphitheater in downtown Roanoke, stand up and be counted," Bowers said. "Now's the time."

The Salem amphitheater will be a cooperative project between the city and an as-yet-unnamed civic group, Stevens said.

"The amphitheater will be fully functional for everything from one of the library's summer reading programs to a concert," Stevens wrote. "Most big name concerts that come to Salem would still end up in the Salem Civic Center, Salem Memorial Ballpark, or Salem Football Stadium."

Aside from that, few details were available as of Tuesday afternoon.

The Roanoke City Council voted 4-3 last week to add plans for a commercial amphitheater in Elmwood Park to its five-year capital spending plan, reversing course from a 4-3 vote two weeks earlier to remove the project. The Roanoke council has been trying to decide whether to build an amphitheater for going on a decade now.

The current Roanoke plan includes spending $1.2 million in fiscal 2010 for architectural and engineering renderings, as well as a business plan. It also includes a proposed $13 million to build the amphitheater in fiscal 2013, assuming that a future council approves the project.

Two Roanoke council members, David Trinkle and Court Rosen, each said that at first blush Salem's project appears to be different enough from Roanoke's that they won't compete.

"It doesn't sound like it's a threat," said Trinkle, who's been one of the Roanoke amphitheater's biggest advocates. "They're talking about a community amphitheater whereas we're talking about a professional amphitheater that will probably bring significantly different acts."

Rosen said that if Salem can make the project work financially, it will be a good thing for the entire Roanoke Valley: "What's good for one city hopefully will be good for the other and for the region. We need to start working together more instead of everything being by locality."

But memories are keen in the Roanoke Valley, and many still remember the race between Roanoke and Salem to open a civic center.

Roanoke officials considered building a coliseum starting in 1947, and the effort picked up momentum after the American Legion Auditorium burned down in 1957, but it took four tries to get Roanoke voters to approve a bond issue to finance the project.

Salem and Roanoke considered a cooperative agreement at one point, but it fell apart. Salem then approved its own bond sale -- no referendum necessary -- and opened its civic center in 1967. That was four years before Roanoke opened its facility in 1971.

Bowers is among those who haven't forgotten.

"Had there been only one coliseum in Roanoke 30 years ago, we'd probably be talking about expanding it," Bowers said.

"The question is: Can the Roanoke Valley have two amphitheaters?" Bowers said. "We succeed with two of a lot of other things. But from my standpoint, I'd have to say that it's important for Roanoke and for downtown Roanoke to be the entertainment mecca of the valley."

News researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this story.