JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Surfaces, a flooring business that has been in the Roanoke Valley since 1992, sits on land that has been condemned by the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

As Carilion Clinic's medical complex rose up around a small flooring business on Reserve Avenue, officials with the health care system took a keen interest in both the property and a controversial effort to have it taken by eminent domain.

E-mails obtained Friday and Saturday show that Carilion wanted to build roads on the land at one point, and that it inquired about efforts to condemn the 3-acre tract.

The e-mails seem to contradict Carilion's statement that it was never interested in the property -- a position it took after a Roanoke judge approved the land's condemnation last month by the city's Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

In a message sent to city officials in August 2006, Curtis Mills, a senior vice president for Carilion, wrote that access roads planned for the Riverside Center complex would bisect the property in question, currently the site of the Surfaces flooring business.

"We really need to know now ... that the Surfaces property will be available when we need to start road construction," Mills wrote in an e-mail to City Manager Darlene Burcham.

Housing authority officials, who provided the e-mails in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Roanoke Times, said the e-mail and other correspondence indicate to them that Carilion had plans all along for the property.

"Carilion is trying to run away from the controversy, making people believe they were never interested in this," said Gilbert Butler, a member of the authority's board of commissioners.

"It leaves us standing there holding the bag, and people are asking, 'Why are we doing this?' "

Eric Earnhart, a spokesman for Carilion, stuck by the health system's earlier statements on Saturday.

"In the e-mails, there is no statement from anyone from Carilion indicating that we have a plan for the B&B property," Earnhart said, using the corporate name for property owners Jay and Stephanie Burkholder.

When the housing authority sought to condemn the property in 2007, it was at the direction of the Roanoke City Council, which struck a deal with Carilion a decade ago to develop Riverside Center.

Pitched as a boon to the local economy, the complex at South Jefferson Street and Reserve Avenue today hosts a large clinic building, a second office building and a parking garage. A hotel and medical school are currently under construction.

As part of the plan, the housing authority spent more than $20 million in taxpayer dollars provided by the city to buy up land in an area designated as blighted, where aging industries and businesses once operated.

When the Burkholders and a second property owner balked, the housing authority filed legal papers to obtain their parcels through eminent domain, which allows the taking of private land for a public use.

The housing authority has said that condemnation of the Surfaces property was intended to further the redevelopment plan, regardless of whether Carilion put up another building on the lot. Although a contract with the city obliges Carilion to buy the land from the housing authority once the condemnation goes through, the land could be passed on to another developer.

Nonetheless, the housing authority was under the impression that Carilion had plans for the property, if nothing more than for roads.

"That was certainly news to me when I read that they said they weren't interested," said Daniel Karnes, chairman of the authority's board.

In his 2006 e-mail to Burcham, which was forwarded to the housing authority, Mills wrote that there were no "current plans" to construct buildings on the Surfaces property.

But, he said, the approaching completion of the clinic building and parking garage added urgency to Carilion's plans to build roads on the Surfaces property.

"The roads are very important to avoid congestion and traffic flow issues within the park," he wrote.

In the end, Carilion routed the roads around the Burkholders' land once it became clear it would not be available, Earnhart said.

But officials with the health care system continued to ask for updates in 2006 and 2007 on the housing authority's efforts to acquire the land, either by voluntary purchase or condemnation. The Burkholders have refused to sell, saying the city's offer of just more than $1 million was less than the property's true value.

The next step in the condemnation process will be for a jury to determine a fair price.

Earnhart discounted the significance of Carilion's interest in the process.

"Given that the property is right next to ours, it seems reasonable that we would want to keep abreast of the situation," he said.

Another e-mail provided by the housing authority raises the possibility that Carilion was once interested in purchasing the Surfaces property. Carilion denies that, saying it steered clear of the land because the owners wanted to develop it themselves.

The Burkholders said they tried to drum up interest for a medical building of some kind, but never found a developer.

In addition to e-mails, the housing authority released a map, prepared in 2007 by a Roanoke architect, that shows a large building on Reserve Avenue in roughly the spot where Surfaces now stands. The map is labeled "Riverside Center; Carilion Redevelopment Plan."

Earnhart said the map was intended to show what the Burkholders might do with the land, rather than indicate Carilion's plans.

But Glenda Edwards, executive director of the housing authority, said the maps and Carilion's stated interest in building a road led her to take a different view than Earnhart's.

"It is fair to say that we believed Carilion was interested in acquiring that property and developing it," Edwards said.

When Carilion first said it was never interested in the Burkholder property, officials with the housing authority held their tongues.

But that changed as controversy over the taking of the land grew, and several state legislators pointed to the case as reason to further tighten Virginia's eminent domain laws.

Butler said there's no truth to the perception by some, created at least in part by Carilion, of "the overzealous, greedy housing authority that is gobbling up people's land."

"We're not going to sit still and be beaten up over this." Butler said.

In fighting the condemnation, the Burkholders have argued that the redevelopment plan called for Carilion to get their property all along. Stephanie Burkholder said she believes that Carilion is now trying to protect its public image by backing away.

"This is all part of a political, PR campaign to distance themselves from what was always the plan," Burkholder said. "From Day One, this was created for them. So for them to act like it was anything else, it can't be."

Staff writer Mason Adams contributed to this report.