City Council members have prosposed building amphitheaters at Elmwood Park and Reserve Avenue in Roanoke.

The council voted in 2007 to go with the Reserve Avenue site, but reconsidered in September and asked a Charlottesville-based company to include the Elmwood Park location in a study of amphitheater proposals.

What's your take? Do you favor one of the two locations? Should Roanoke be looking into the possibility of building an amphitheater? Is there something else the council ought to consider?

 With all the additions to downtown (revamping Center in the Square, Trolley Buses, apartments, etc.) it seems that a movie theater would be a great addition to downtown. At one time there were at least 5 theaters and three of those operated well into the 60's. Wouldn't it be nice to come downtown to shop, eat and take in a movie? I know this has been mentioned before, but perhaps it's time again? Even if Mill Mountain makes a comeback, you could still cater to those who would like to spend an evening downtown, or a Saturday afternoon shopping and then a movie. I can see all around new businesses and older ones revisiting the 40's and 50' decor to attract the present generation. Drive-in theaters ( a thing of the past) are becoming popular in certain areas across the land, so why not a movie theater in downtown again?

Gasp4gh 

 So now the City has spent another $120,000 to get the same answer the group from Knoxville told them several years ago.  I guess we could spend another $100,000 hoping to get a group to push for the Reserve Avenue site.  This is government spending gone crazy and it is hard to sympathize with budget shortfalls with this mentality.  I'll be the first to admit that I was for the demolition of Victory Stadium.  Primarily, because it was an eye-sore and the City was not going to keep it up.  Now we have a state of the art museum that is only 6 months old and already laid off several of its staff and a big box attached to the Civic Center that gets used very sparingly. 

Our City leaders need to sit back and look at the underutilization of what we have before committing to any new large projects.  As a Roanoke City resident, my family's life is not going to be any better if we build this venue.  Let's focus on fixing our current infrastructure before we commit to any more studies and surveys for projects that simply are not feasible.

 I like the proposal to build such a venue downtown. It makes good financial sense with the spin off business generated to the market area. Since it is a short walk to the new Art museum perhaps a yearly arts festival would integrate the museum with performance options. I think this proposal has great potential for downtown but I am afraid the citizens and city council will be near sighted and focus on Countryside, swimming pools or whatever the current council considers relevant. If we wait to build this project the costs will only increase in the future and it may never become reality. The article about Portsmouths' money losing amphitheatre has nothing to do with whether Roanokes' would be successful. Portsmouth does not have the potential as we do. Roanokers will love an amphitheatre almost as much as they cared about Victory Stadium. Build now!!

why in the world is roanokee asking a charlotte-based company anything at all...ask a roanoke company, there are several to choose from and the monies would stay in our city..no brainer people, rke city council is really showing how stupid they are, get people in with common sense and stick the ex-first union banker fraud guy in jail !!