Victory Stadium - Controversy

Controversy

The future of Victory Stadium was on the city of Roanoke's agenda from the early 1990s until 2006. Some residents favored the stadium's replacement with another facility or facilities to provide home football fields for the city's high schools and to provide a venue for outdoor concerts and events. Arguments in favor of this alternative were that the stadium was far too large for high school football games, which rarely drew more than a few thousand spectators after the early 1970s, and was ill-suited for concerts. The site had few parking spaces and is vulnerable to flooding, which necessitated costly clean-ups and repairs. Proponents of the stadium's renovation cited the stadium's contributions to the city's history. They also argued that a venue of Victory Stadium's capacity was a relatively rare asset for a city the size of Roanoke, which does not have a major university, and could regularly have drawn large events, such as the Dave Matthews concert, with aggressive and creative marketing. Other alternative events suggested were hosting a biannual football game between VMI and The Citadel and hosting gravity games. Some also alleged that the city wants to transfer the property to Carilion, a Roanoke based company which operates nearby Roanoke Memorial Hospital and is also establishing a biomedical institute and small medical school in the area. Both sides promoted their alternative as being more cost effective.

The matter was controversial in part because debate about the stadium often widened in broader disagreement about economic growth or the lack thereof, the preservation of historic structures, and the resistance to or acceptance of change in general. A generational divide between older Roanokers who remembered when the stadium was filled on a regular basis and younger ones whose experience was only with occasional large crowds for special events and small crowds for high school football games provided another dimension to the disagreement. In the early 2000s, Roanoke's city manager Darlene Burcham supported a proposal to build a hybrid stadium near the Roanoke Civic Center which would have served both as a football stadium and a concert venue. Ground was broken before supporters of Victory Stadium's renovation persuaded Roanoke's city council to halt the project. Momentum appeared to shift towards a renovation until the 2004 flood resulted in an increase in support for replacement. In 2005, a proposal emerged to build small stadiums on the campuses of the two high schools. Whether or where an amphitheatre for concerts would be constructed was not specifically addressed. This proposal met generally positive receptions, although some residents who live near Patrick Henry High School opposed the construction of a stadium there because of concerns about traffic and other disruptions.