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Andrew Svec | The Roanoke Times

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Victory Stadium

• Share your Victory Stadium memories in this special section

As Victory Stadium is being razed and hauled away, a new Roanoke City Council will begin its tenure Monday with a discussion of what to do with the soon-to-be-vacated property.

Mayor Nelson Harris and Vice Mayor David Trinkle, who officially takes office today, will ask their colleagues to embark upon a master planning process for the area off Reserve Avenue. That would include an attempt to expedite the removal of other existing buildings from the general vicinity, including the National Guard Armory, a city Parks and Recreation office and a school maintenance facility. The general concept of removing those other buildings has been in play for some time, but Harris and Trinkle, in a joint letter to their colleagues this week, propose that the council ask all the parties involved to move forward on clearing the property.

Getting rid of the stadium and the other buildings would clear a swath of land that lies south of Reserve Avenue along the Roanoke River between Franklin Road and Jefferson Street. The council already has announced a short-term plan to use the land for five multi-use athletic fields.

However Harris and Trinkle -- the new vice mayor as a result of being the leading vote-getter in the May 2 election -- are ready to embark upon a broader longer-term process to discuss such uses as river access, park facilities, a memorial to Victory Stadium, a music venue and other urban festival possibilities.

"Development of the location formerly home to Victory Stadium and the surrounding vicinity is vitally important to the progress of the city," Harris and Trinkle wrote in a joint letter to other council members.

In an interview this week, Trinkle said he believes it would be a mistake for the city to sod the area in and around where Victory Stadium stood and leave it for a long period of time.

He said he believes the council can help energize a community divided by the Victory Stadium demolition by employing "bold and innovative" leadership on the future use of the property.

Trinkle said city leaders who decided to build Victory Stadium 64 years ago had it. "Now this council needs to show the same kind of vision," he said.

Also, the joint letter requests that the council commit to a public use for the land south of Reserve Avenue as a guiding principle of the master plan. That's a move prompted by a long-generated rumor among some that a council majority voted to tear down Victory Stadium because Carilion Health System wants the land.

Carilion officials, who are involved in a new biomedical park across the street from the stadium site, have repeatedly denied they have any interest in that land.

The council will get a chance to discuss the master plan proposal Monday during its 2 p.m. meeting in the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building.

Meanwhile, the demolition of the stadium is progressing. The crew tearing it down is off until after the July Fourth holiday, but most of the stadium's stands have been demolished.

The rubble is being hauled to a private landfill off Virginia 24 outside Vinton, said Charles Anderson of the city engineer's office. Steel rebar salvaged from the concrete is being recycled at a scrap metal business in Vinton, the demolition crew's superintendent said.