The Roanoke Times: Victory Stadium

City leaders are as determined as ever to build a new high school football stadium and amphitheater complex near the Roanoke Civic Center, even in the face of a new round of skepticism.

So determined, in fact, that Roanoke City Manager Darlene Burcham threw a dash of spice in the stew last week by guaranteeing that the stadium would be built within its $18 million budget. "That's what I've been told to do, and that's what I'm going to do," she said.

Detractors are certain the project, to be finished by 2004, will cost much more and are puzzled by the city's selection of the 25-acre site, bordered by the already congested Interstate 581, Orange Avenue and Williamson Road corridors.

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge's decision in December to overturn a council rezoning of the stadium site opened an unexpected, 11th-hour opportunity for some to try to derail or slow down the city's plans. The judge ruled that the city erred by voting twice on the rezoning during the same meeting in May.

Since the ruling, Farrell Properties has stepped up its complaints about possible parking and traffic problems with the site. Businessman Bruce Farrell owns Berglund Chevrolet near the proposed stadium property, and Farrell Properties, along with the Williamson Road Area Business Association, filed the successful circuit court appeal.

Nearby Magic City Ford also has concerns, as does Roanoke consultant Brian Wishneff, who has been involved in a number of major city projects in recent years. Even Richard Burrow, the embattled former director of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and a former city engineer, has weighed in with concerns.

But it appears that the city will proceed with the project.

The city council is set to approve an amended rezoning petition Jan. 21 after a 7 p.m. public hearing on the matter in the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building.

A majority of council members remain committed to the site. Mayor Ralph Smith, who initially favored a cheaper renovation of the 60-year-old Victory Stadium, is the only council member still open to revisiting the city's options.

Smith, who did vote in favor of the initial Orange Avenue rezoning, said it appears the stadium project is a done deal.

Said Councilman Bill Carder: "You could go out right now and ask a hundred people their opinion on this, and you'd still get 35 different answers. At some point, you've got to vote on something and move on."

"There's been enough public input on this to choke a horse - a very large horse," Councilwoman Linda Wyatt added.

The complaints

Some architects, arena managers and economic development consultants wonder why the city didn't conduct a market and financial feasibility study of the stadium / amphitheater. It could have assessed the local market for concerts or other entertainment at the complex, as well as how events there would compete with existing indoor venues such as the Jefferson Center, Mill Mountain Theatre and the civic center.

Former Boston Garden manager and arena consultant John "Jack" Nicholson said a feasibility study provides important guidance.

"Otherwise it's a little bit like operating in the dark, especially when it's a smaller market," he said.

Wishneff, a former Roanoke economic development director and former city school board member, said a facility that competes for concerts and other events should not be built without such analysis.

"Otherwise, how would you know whether to build or what to build?" he said.

Burcham said the city did not do such a study, but it has calculated operating expenses and revenues for the new facility based on civic center and Victory Stadium business, as well as through consultation with event promoters.

Projected annual expenses are $391,500; projected revenues are $399,750 - figures based on five concerts with an average attendance of 7,500 and the spending of $4 per person on concessions.

Farrell Properties maintains that the city hasn't done enough homework on parking and traffic. Burcham presented Farrell this month with a traffic study the city commissioned, but the company's leaders remain skeptical.

The city's traffic plan is a start, they said. But it should be accompanied by infrastructure improvements, such as widening Wayne Street to become an attractive main entrance for the facility. Farrell owns land adjacent to part of that street.

Burcham said the city's traffic management plan for the stadium complex does not call for Wayne Street's widening.

Farrell and representatives from the Williamson Road association have emphasized repeatedly that they support a stadium / amphitheater at the proposed site.

But they are equally emphatic about the project's potential to hurt businesses along Williamson Road and adjacent neighborhoods.

Bill Tanger, a Farrell spokesman, described the city's process to date as "government by stealth."

Wendy Jones, the association's president, said she had a heated conversation with Carder about the group's objections to the stadium's parking plan and another proposal to calm traffic along Williamson Road. During that conversation, she said Carder reminded her that the association's primary funding source is a special-service tax district.

"He told me, 'You know, you only exist by statute,' " Jones recalled.

"I said, 'Bill, let's not be threatening anyone,' " she said.

"And then he said we could be taken away by statute."

Carder said his statements were prompted by the association's threat of a second lawsuit opposing the city's traffic calming plan, issued by Jones. Carder said he wanted to let Jones know that her organization does have something to lose if it continues to sue the city.

"I was only trying to help and protect them," he said. "I support WRABA [the Williamson Road association]. I always have. It's just unfortunate that the politics of this have sunk to this level."

City leaders maintain that traffic can be adequately managed at the new facility through the use of signs, shuttle buses, police involvement and some minor improvement to roads - even when there are simultaneous events at the stadium and the civic center.

Overflow traffic can use the nearby civic center parking lots, and people will be able to cross Orange Avenue to the new stadium using a pedestrian bridge that will be built as part of the project, Burcham said.

The city is looking forward to occasions when big crowds attend events at the stadium and civic center on the same night.

"If you consider that a problem, then what a wonderful problem to have," Burcham said.

Just last week, Burrow, the former D-Day Memorial director, entered the debate. Burrow's trial on federal fraud charges associated with his D-Day Memorial fund raising ended last month when a deadlocked jury led the judge to declare a mistrial.

Burrow said he's now trying to re-enter community life and wrote the letter to council members of his own accord. "The question that simply jumps out at me is this: Why has this location been selected for the stadium / amphitheater?" he wrote. Under the city's current plans, there will be no "sense of arrival to an exciting place," Burrow said, adding that he believes the inconvenience of arrival and departure from the proposed site might outweigh the desire to attend functions.

Why the city likes the site

Victory Stadium lacks access and visibility, Burcham said. She also said she's never understood why Roanoke has such a large stadium so close to a major hospital where sick people could be bothered by noise and traffic.

Those are the main reasons she initially pushed the council to look at other sites.

At first, the council balked at the idea and decided to either renovate Victory Stadium or tear down a portion and renovate it using a joint football field-amphitheater concept - options some opponents of the new site still favor.

However, consultants, in public presentations during 2001, told the council that the Victory Stadium site just wasn't conducive to the hybrid project, which at the time also included a competition-size track.

Steve Angelucci, senior vice president of International Sports Properties, did consulting work for the city in 2000. At the time, he said a new multiple-use facility built on the existing Victory Stadium site would be a tough sell because of the lack of infrastructure and entrance and exit issues. Angelucci did not offer an opinion on the Orange Avenue site.

Likewise, Ken MacDonald, a concert promoter, worked as a consultant on the Roanoke project and said the Victory Stadium site had too many problems. He believes planning and design will address traffic concerns at the new site.

"If it could not handle the traffic, we wouldn't be this far into the process," said MacDonald, former executive director for Clear Channel Entertainment in Virginia Beach.

Before the council settled on the site near the civic center, it studied a dozen other sites, including land at the airport and properties in the Deyerle and Valley View areas. Those sites had drawbacks the proposed site didn't, including major neighborhood opposition and more private land to acquire. The city already owned most of the land that makes up the proposed site.

The council also considered building smaller stadiums at both city high schools - an idea some preferred - but it later learned there wasn't enough land on the campuses to do it.

Council members who first approved the Orange Avenue site, including Carder, Wyatt, Vice Mayor Nelson Harris and Bill Bestpitch, are comfortable that they've made the right decision. Even if the amphitheater hosts only one event a year, it will produce some revenue to help offset the city's annual operational costs of the facility - something it can't accomplish at Victory Stadium, they have said.

They also believe the new facility, when built near the civic center, will create synergies between the two with parking, manpower and marketing.

Council members also say the new stadium will give a needed shot in the arm to the Williamson Road-Orange Avenue communities and create spinoff businesses and opportunities.

The council put another stamp on its stadium decision recently when it decided it would concentrate on a redevelopment of land on the south side of Reserve Avenue along the Roanoke River, including the current Victory Stadium site. Carder said the council wants to create a mixed-use area that will include residential, commercial and recreational opportunities.

While council members haven't yet taken a public vote, some of them confirm that their decision to redevelop the property would include the demolition of Victory Stadium.

All of the existing stadium's property is in a flood plain, which the city administration mentioned as a reason for moving to a new site. When asked if the same problem wouldn't apply to the city's future development plans along the river, Burcham and other city officials said it would be easier to build in flood-control measures with other kinds of new construction.

Burcham said the proposed stadium project, on which the city has already spent more than $2 million, must proceed.

"I think we need to get off the dime and do it," she said. "We have to do something different, something bold, if we want to be successful."