The Roanoke Times | File 2008

Renovations to the Roanoke City Market area over the next two years will disrupt many of the businesses established in the area. Officials say the plans have been in the works for years.

Downtown Roanoke's heart will undergo intensive surgery for much of the next two years, and it's unclear whether the vendors who rely on it for their livelihoods will survive.

In January, Church Avenue will become a two-way street between Williamson Road and Jefferson Street, just in time for the Market Garage to reopen from two years of renovations in March.

The Roanoke City Market Building will close down July 1 and remain closed for renovations for the next year to 18 months. The city promised vendors access to its economic development staff to find a new space, but has offered no guarantee or funding to help fill the gap.

During this same period, Center in the Square also will undergo extensive renovations that will result in some sidewalk closings and the relocation of a number of farmers market vendors.

The first phase, which Center officials estimate will last from January to November of 2010, will affect only its building on Church Avenue. The bigger disruption will come in 2011, when the west half of Market Square will close to the public for 10 months or more to house construction equipment.

That doesn't include work on Market Square by Downtown Roanoke Inc. that will likely begin after the Center's renovation is complete and could last until the fall of 2013.

"There's a lot that's going to be going on for the next two, two and a half years," said Assistant City Manager Brian Townsend.

Vendors in the market building and farmers market are concerned and upset. They communicated that to representatives of the city, DRI and Center in the Square during an often-contentious meeting at the Science Museum Planetarium on Tuesday.

"You spend 20 years building a downtown, and we're just going to start over?" said John Peery, an employee of Zorba Restaurant in the market building. "Right now you're kicking 12 built-from-the-ground-floor local businesses to the curb. They're done. In the middle of a recession. That's amazing to me."

"What's going on here is not right," said Adel Eltawansy, owner of Zorba Restaurant. "I'm against everything."

Bruce Feldberg of Riverside Nursery said he's seen his business steadily decline over the past 15 years.

"If you disrupt the market area for three to five years, which is what I see, by the time it's over, there ain't going to be any vendors," Feldberg said. "The ones that are going to be here are going to be a lot different than what you see now."

Anita Wilson, a market building vendor who with her husband, Louis, has opened a second "Burger in the Square" location in Southwest Roanoke County, said city officials should not expect vendors to relocate for the renovation and then come back.

"There's no temporary relocation," Wilson said. "You're not going to spend $35,000 to $40,000 on a hood and restaurant equipment and be temporary. ... Wherever these people go, that's where it's going to be. It's not going to be back to the market building."

Aside from DRI's plans for Market Square, which have gone through substantial revisions in recent months, most of the plans for downtown Roanoke have been in the works for some time. What's been unclear is how they'll work together. And although officials say the projects will come in phases, the market will essentially become a construction zone for the next two to three years.

"One of the benefits of having a very walkable, compact downtown like Roanoke's is that it makes for a great urban space," Townsend said. "But when it comes time to do redevelopment or development in that urban space, it's kind of crowded."

Townsend said the changes are necessary because the city has done few major improvements to the market area since Design '79 -- which helped remake the Center in the Square building as a cultural center and brought retail business and improvements to downtown.

"Now it's time for these buildings to go through what we call a generational investment -- a time for an investment for the next 25 to 30 years," Townsend said.

But he and others were questioned whether the revitalization projects are worth potentially killing the real downtown draw for city residents and visitors -- the vendors in the market building and nearby farmers market stalls.

"We built downtown," Eltawansy said. "People come from all over the city to see something good and something nice happen to downtown. And now we destroy downtown. I don't know what's going to happen."