Month: December 2003

The ’Fraidy cat Award for Music Appreciation
–UVA President John Casteen For his apology regarding the Cavalier Pep Band

Despite holding three degrees in English, UVA President John Casteen must have never learned the definition of the word “joke.” Maybe he’s never seen the “Award-Winning Virginia Fighting Cavalier Indoor/Outdoor Precision Marching Pep Band,” either.

But humor has always been at the heart of UVA’s 29-year-old, student-run pep band, from their taste in funky vests to their penchant for mocking opposing teams with silly skits. Yet when the pep band teased West Virginia University during halftime of the December 28, 2002 Continental Tire Bowl, Casteen and UVA officials claimed they were shocked and mortified by the gag. On January 3, the administration fell over itself apologizing not just to WVU (which lost the game 48-22), but to the entire state of West Virginia.

The offending skit featured a female member of the pep band, wearing pigtails and overalls, trying to woo a UVA man in a take-off of the TV show “The Bachelor.” Fans showered the band with boos, and West Virginia Governor Bob Wise penned a cry-baby letter to Casteen.

Some high UVA officials, such as Rector John P. Ackerly III, defended the pep band, which is one of the last student-run “scramble” bands (as opposed to marching bands) among major colleges. It was to no avail. In April, UVA benefactors Carl and Hunter Smith gave UVA a $1.5 million gift to pay for an official marching band, complete with uniforms and cheesy renditions of “Louie, Louie.”

That gesture was the beginning of the end, as Athletic Director Craig Littlepage followed up with an announcement that the pep band would not perform at athletic events in 2004. To top it off, he locked the pep band out of their instrument room for a week. Many ‘Hoos had found the pep band a hilarious––if occasionally tasteless––example of student autonomy that made UVA unique among ACC schools. Too bad Casteen and UVA’s big donors missed the punch line.

 

The Tipper Gore Free Speech Award
-Albemarle County School Board For banning a middle-schooler from wearing an NRA t-shirt

Thirteen-year-old Alan Newsome likes to shoot paper targets with a rifle. Not a particularly violent sport––not compared to, say, tackle football. But when Newsome walked into Jack Jouett Middle School wearing a National Rifle Association t-shirt, administrators claimed it was too much for other teenagers to bear.

The shirt in question, emblazoned with the letters NRA, depicts people holding hunting rifles. When Jack Jouett’s vice-principal saw the shirt, she claims, it reminded her of Columbine. To protect other students, she ordered Newsome to turn the shirt inside out. Newsome complained to the NRA, and when the group contacted the school, Jouett administrators added a provision to the school dress code banning any clothing that depicts weapons of any kind. That made not only an NRA shirt off limits, but even clothing depicting the Virginia State seal (it includes a spear) or UVA’s sabres.

In September, the NRA and the Newsome family sued the County school system for $150,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. In U.S. District Court, Judge Norman K. Moon found the new Jouett dress code acceptable, but in December a three-judge panel from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Norman and said Jouett’s dress code was too broad. The School Board isn’t backing down, and has asked the entire 4th Circuit to review the case. The NRA has vowed to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

 

The “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” Award
-Kay Slaughter For playing the gender card

Republican State Senators had any number of reasons for blocking Governor Mark Warner’s appointment of Kay Slaughter to a seat on the State Water Control Board, and her gender probably wasn’t one of them.

Warner nominated Slaughter, a former Charlottesville mayor, to the State Water Control Board in July 2002. As an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, Slaughter had represented Indian groups and landowners suing that very State board to stop construction of a reservoir on the Mattaponi River in King William County. Although Slaughter withdrew from the case a month before she was to join the board, the SELC remains the plaintiffs’ chief council.

In January, the GOP Senators blocked Slaughter’s appointment, citing an obvious conflict of interest. Democrats suggested Republicans also opposed Slaughter because of her record as an environmental activist.

Speaking to The Daily Progress, however, Slaughter claimed she had “an intuitive feeling” that Republicans were “afraid” of strong, powerful women. As a lawyer, Slaughter probably knows that feelings are not evidence; as a strong, powerful woman, she should know that crying wolf dilutes authentic claims of gender discrimination.

In February, the Senate reversed itself and voted 23-13 to confirm Slaughter’s appointment, after environmental lobbyists and Governor Warner’s political team convinced the General Assembly that she had no conflict of interest. Slaughter promised to remove herself from the reservoir issue, but she resigned her seat in early October after Republicans questioned her meeting with Environmental Protection Agency officials regarding the project.

 

The Susan Smith Award for Racial Harmony
-Steve Shiflett and Ed Robb For creative use of “a black guy” in a criminal investigation

When Susan Smith drowned her children in 1994, she exploited racial prejudice by blaming the crime on a fictional black man before finally admitting her guilt. This year, Albemarle County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Shiflett tried the same trick, and Sheriff Ed Robb bought the story hook, line and sinker.

In March, Shiflett showed up at the Sheriff’s office with bullet holes in his cruiser, claiming to have been shot by an African-American man in a big coat. Before an investigation could be launched, Albemarle Sheriff Ed Robb fanned the racial flames by calling the incident a “hate crime.”

Oops. In July, County police claimed Shiflett lied about the shooting, prompting Robb to apologize to the African-American community. Despite the conclusions of County officers, Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos declined to prosecute Shiflett for filing a false police report.

 

The Kenneth Lay Award for Business Ethics
-Ivy Industries CEO John Reid For a $2.4 million check-kiting scheme

We’re trendy folk here in Charlottesville, fearlessly embracing fads like specialty cocktails, metrosexuality and Friendster. In 2003, shady business executives were as fashionable as chocolate martinis, so naturally Charlottesville jumped on the corporate-scandal bandwagon.

In March, former Ivy Industries CEO John Reid admitted to fraudulently manipulating more than $2.4 million at Albemarle First Bank through a check-kiting scheme that had begun two years earlier. Check kiting is a neat little trick––Reid would write checks from an account at Albemarle First that exceeded the available balance. Reid would then deposit the checks into another account at Sun Trust Bank, from which he’d write another check to cover the overdraft at Albemarle First.

To date, Reid has yet to face criminal charges in the scandal that bankrupted his company. Ivy Industries had manufactured wood moldings for picture frames and employed about 150 people in Charlottesville and Beverly, West Virginia. All those people lost their jobs, and the company’s collapse opened a 65,000 square-foot vacancy in the factory’s former site on Monticello Road. Now owned by developer and music mogul Coran Capshaw, that building’s future occupant is rumored to be fitness leader ACAC.

 

The “Hey, Where are the Naked Chicks?” Award
-OUR proliferating tapas bars For a homophonic confusion of food and sex

Dude, we thought you said we were going to a new topless bar!

 

The Crack Reporting Award
-Channel 29 For the Jesse Scheckler fiasco

Those magic words, “I’m sorry,” can solve so many problems—they might have saved NBC television affiliate WVIR a lawsuit and a load of money. But it’s hard to admit you’re wrong.

Channel 29 had plenty of chances. After Jesse Sheckler was indicted, along with four other men, on a charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine, WVIR rookie reporter Melinda Semadeni erroneously reported that 50 grams of crack and 500 grams of powder cocaine had been found in the Greene County mechanic’s garage. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Semadeni had been new to courtroom reporting, and the charge against Sheckler, who loaned money to one of his co-defendants, referred to legal “threshold weights” of 50 grams of crack and 500 grams of powder cocaine. Perhaps that’s where she got confused.

After the broadcast, at least two lawyers called the station on Sheckler’s behalf, demanding a retraction. But Benjamin Dick, a Charlottesville attorney and one of the two who called the TV station, claims station general manager Harold Wright gave him the blow-off. In court, Dick testified that Wright told him: “We have the greatest lawyer in the world and all the money in the world to fight this, so if your client wants to sue, tell him to bring it on.”

Sheckler brought it. Having been acquitted, he sued in March, and after testifying that his ordeal with Channel 29 caused him “pain in his heart,” a Charlottesville jury awarded him $10 million, the largest libel award in Virginia history. In November, Judge Edward Hogshire reduced the sum to $1 million, which Sheckler accepted. In subsequent media reports, however, Sheckler claimed that if WVIR had admitted its mistake and apologized, he never would have sued.

 

The McHistory Award
-Downtown law community For rejecting designs for a modern courthouse

How many Charlottesvillians does it take to change a light bulb? Three—one to screw in the new bulb and two to fondly reminisce about the old one.

The history surrounding Charlottesville and Albemarle is important to our local identity, but does that mean we have to remain stuck in the past? Apparently some like to think so, judging by the design for the new Charlottesville-Albemarle juvenile courthouse.

In 2000, the City and County appointed a design committee to plan for a new juvenile and domestic relations courthouse that would relieve the dangerous overcrowding in the current High Street building. Preservationists also demanded that the new courthouse retain the century-old jail that remains on site.

Two years later, the committee came back with a design that kept the old jail and satisfied space demands, but to architect Mayor Maurice Cox’s eyes, it was downright ugly. He proposed hiring one of his favorite firms, Philadelphia’s Wallace, Roberts and Todd, to give the new courthouse a more modern façade.

But then-Councilor David Toscano, echoing the sentiments of the influential community of Downtown lawyers (of which he is a member), advocated that a “traditional” design be put forward, too. In this case, “traditional” means something that looks more like the bricks-and-columns Albemarle County courthouse, a genuine relic of the 18th century. Each got his way, and this year Council put WRT’s “modern” design alongside the “traditional” design. Cox argued that a modern design reflects a city looking to the future, rather than the past. The traditionalists argued that a modern design just didn’t “fit in.”

The City put both designs on its website and asked people to vote for their favorite. Unfortunately for buffs of authentic history, the traditional design handily won out. On December 16 the Board of Architectural Review approved the faux-historical design. Given that the BAR’s mission is to preserve real history and separate it from the pretenders, one has to assume outside pressures—or fatigue—influenced the decision.

It has to be said that WRT’s strange mix-and-match contemporary design might have silenced some modernists or artificially swelled the ranks of tradition-lovers. But a new building that looks like an old building will cheapen the real value of its authentic twin. Shouldn’t the courthouse that heard the arguments of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe have a look all its own to match its unique place in local and national history?

The Better Living Through Science Award
-Herman Stanley For setting up a crystal meth lab in the Marriott Hotel on W. Main Street

The Marriott Hotel on W. Main Street is best known as the former target of Living Wage protests, not a place to get geeked on bathtub coke.

Use of methamphetamine, an addictive synthetic drug that produces feelings of energy and euphoria, spread throughout middle America in the late ’90s. More recently, crystal meth has shown up in Southwest Virginia, a trend the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration blames on an influx of Mexican immigrants. Meth is usually manufactured in rural areas, but on July 23 it showed up in one of the City’s swankiest hotels.

On that day, police evacuated about 40 guests from the hotel and busted a clandestine methamphetamine lab in one of the guest rooms. Officers learned of the lab from a Fluvanna County Sheriff’s deputy who, while investigating a suspicious car parked on Route 616, discovered a meth lab in the woods. The car’s driver, 36-year-old Herman Bradford Stanley of Alabama, gave a tip that led officers to the Marriott. He was arrested and charged with manufacturing a controlled substance and felony endangerment of life and property.

That’s good news for the cops, but bad news, we fear, for hotel employees who must not have detected the meth lab in their midst even though the manufacturing of the drug can lead to strong odors similar to cat urine.

 

The Better Shopping Award
-Supporters of Target For missing the point

When the Albemarle Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on whether to approve the 165-acre Hollymead Town Center on Route 29N, the question at hand should have been “How will the County manage its explosive growth?” But the many Target supporters there seemed to miss the point completely.

Speaker after speaker—many of them Realtors and small business owners—trotted before the Supes to plead and moan that there just are not enough places to shop in Albemarle. How long, they asked the sympathetic Board, would they have to drive to Short Pump or Tyson’s Corner? How long must they suffer without a Target of their own?

Sprawl-buster Stratton Salidis says he heard rumors that key Hollymead developer Wendell Wood hired a public relations firm to drum up support for Target and, by extension, the Hollymead project. Salidis notes a surge in television commercials around the time of the July hearing and that many of the project supporters showed up at the public hearing wearing red-and-white target buttons.

“Both the Observer and The Hook had Target logos on their covers,” Salidis points out, referring to a couple of small community newspapers. “In part, the Hollymead Town Center got passed because a lot of people thought it was just about a Target store.”

Wood denied hiring a P.R. firm. The support for Target and the Hollymead project were, he claims, strictly grassroots. “We got phone calls from people saying they supported it, asking what they could do,” says Wood. “Target gave us those buttons, and we gave them out so people could show their support.”

Leaving aside the absurd notion that we “need” a Target, or any other chain retail store, the real question before the County and its residents is whether we will continue to pave over precious (and rapidly vanishing) countryside every time a new chain comes knocking. When Target finally opens, the first thing we’re going to do is pick up a discounted copy of that Joni Mitchell record. You know, the one with that song about paving over paradise to put up a parking lot.

 

The Eight Days a Week Award
-The all-Beatles radio station For staying on the air all of three days

Spinning through the radio dial in early September, we stumbled across a station playing Beatles hits 24 hours a day. For one Indian summer weekend, we cruised around Charlottesville tripping on the Fab Four’s blissful pop psychadelia. Sadly, it was not to be strawberry fields forever. Turns out all the love was just a publicity stunt.

When media behemoth Clear Channel decided to switch the format of Charlottesville’s 102.3 WFFX to “classic hits” from “classic rock,” local manager Regan Keith decided to bridge the change by spinning tunes from what is arguably the most beloved rock band ever. The all-Beatles format began on Friday, September 5.

“It was always going to be a transition. We were surprised that people thought we were going to stick with it,” says Keith. By Tuesday, September 9, Keith had successfully fixed the hole. He says he was surprised to hear people lamenting the Beatles’ disappearance.

“Playing all Beatles is like playing Christmas music,” says Keith. “It’s nice for a while, but pretty soon you’re sitting at your desk blowing spit bubbles, waiting for it to end.”

 

The Black Lung Award
-UVA For burning coal in a residential area

As a liberal academic institution, UVA preaches the latest theories in the arts and sciences. As a multi-billion-dollar corporation, however, UVA can be surprisingly slow to embrace change.

In spring 2002, when UVA applied for a permit to burn more fuel and increase the emissions from its coal plant near the Corner, people were shocked to discover the plant already emits more than a ton of sulphur dioxide each day. UVA attempted to dodge Federal emission regulations by appealing to its nonprofit status.

Then, in January 2003, the boilers fired up and barfed black soot all over the Venable neighborhood. Neighbors awoke to find dark dust all over their cars. Councilor Kevin Lynch spearheaded an effort to convince UVA to stop burning coal and spewing pollution in the residential area. UVA claimed it has a plan to make the plant cleaner, but there’s a catch––the improvements would cost $50 million that UVA doesn’t have.

Hmmm. A public entity currently in the throes of a billion-dollar construction spree can’t find $50 mil? Maybe that’s because while deep-pocket donors don’t mind writing checks to get their name on a new sports arena or theater, they just don’t see the appeal in underwriting the “Carl Smith Smokestack.”

The Pet Rock Award for Stupid Trendiness
-Middle-class 20somethings For aping blue-collar style

It used to be that you had to join a union or hang at the VFW to see guys in mesh John Deere caps and gas station shirts drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon from cans. Now, you just have to go to the more upscale watering holes or the UVA campus.

Maybe it has something to do with trust-fund guilt or nostalgia for this nation’s lost manufacturing era, but the trend of white-bread suburban hipsters dressing up as blue-collar heroes has swept the nation. The fashion emerged from the irony-drenched indie-rock culture of the early ’90s, and has since become a bona fide fad––Pabst Blue Ribbon posted a 12 percent sales gain last year, the beer’s best showing since 1978. Local bars have caught the fire, with hip joints like Mas and The Shebeen peddling PBR on tap.

Pabst drinkers have one excuse––it’s usually the cheapest beer in the bar. But can that rationale really apply to people with champagne budgets? Retail companies like Von Dutch now charge a whopping $42 for trucker hats (truck not included) or $119 for something called a “machine shirt.” We bet wherever you might find people in Charlottesville drinking loads of cheap beer, listening to Johnny Cash and complaining about the “boss man” with complete sincerity, they didn’t pay that kind of money for their clothes.

In valuing the image of authenticity over actual honesty, Generation X embedded irony so deeply into youth culture that Generation Y can’t even tell the difference between real and fake anymore. It’s all cool or uncool, ironic or sincere, or, like, whatever, you know? We’ll leave it to the semiotics professors to puzzle the whole thing out and focus instead on one burning question: You don’t really like the taste of PBR, do you?

The John Ashcroft Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement
-Albemarle County For fighting the War on Drugs, er, Terror at home

Since September 11, it’s been hard to discern the priorities of local law enforcement.

Both the Albemarle and Charlottesville Police departments have lapped up big Federal Homeland Defense grants to purchase gas masks and high-powered rifles, even as both groups remain understaffed. While both departments pay lip service to the value of community-based policing—where officers try to make friends with neighborhood residents—the images of police officers arming themselves with military equipment sends a different message.

The war mentality among local police extends from the not entirely proven belief that the drug trade is intimately tied to international terrorism. While it is known that the Taliban made money off Afghanistan’s poppy crops, there’s no evidence that teenagers selling bags of reefer are part of a vast Al Qaeda sleeper cell.

But Albemarle Police Captain Crystal Limerick insists that the War on Drugs is part of the War on Terror, because, she says, “Someone could rob a house to buy drugs, and the money could go to terrorists.” That’s a lot of speculation for an official trained to deal with facts and evidence. It’s this kind of reasoning, though, that keeps the Federal money flowing.

In the City Hall offices of the multi-jurisdictional Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force, the fascination with warfare reaches fetish levels. Judging by all the 9-11 iconography in that office, it’s hard to tell whether JADE is tracking crack dealers or Osama bin Laden.

Drug raids are necessary and dangerous, but around here they’re relatively rare. Most local police work requires officers to imagine themselves as social workers, not soldiers. In recent years there have been numerous examples of Albemarle officers applying excessive force under questionable circumstances. In some casses, you have to wonder why these guys were hired in the first place. Most recently, Officer James Michael Fields shot unarmed French citizen Raimond Riviere twice on August 16, landing him in the hospital for weeks with an injury to his liver. After an investigation by Goochland Commonwealth’s Attorney Edward Carpenter, Fields was cleared of any wrongdoing and Riviere pleaded guilty to drunk driving, obstructing justice, eluding police, escape and assault. In October, Albemarle Police Chief John Miller fired Officer Carl Graves after Graves was charged with assault and battery on his girlfriend. Previously Graves had been charged in 2000 with threatening family members with a gun.

But perhaps no agency reaches further to connect itself to the War on Terror than the Albemarle Sheriff’s Department. Recently reelected Sheriff Ed Robb declares that fighting terrorism is his office’s No. 1 priority, even though his deputies are only authorized to guard prisoners and deliver court papers. Robb’s mission to ferret out evildoers should be a little worrisome for local Arab-Americans, given Robb’s history of jumping to racially charged conclusions, as in the Steve Shiflett case.

The “Whose Side Are You On, Anyway?” Award
-Meredith Richards, Blake Caravati and Rob Schilling For trying to give away nine acres of McIntire Park

Three Councilors, eager to get pavement flowing on the long-delayed Meadowcreek Parkway, tried by year’s end to force the highly controversial road through a legal loophole.

State law protects public space by requiring a supermajority—in this case, four-fifths of City Council—before a locality can sell parkland. Since the three pro-Parkway Councilors don’t have that supermajority, they’re maneuvering to grant the land outright to the Virginia Department of Transportation—State constitution and potential lawsuits be damned.

Even though the triumvirate could reach a supermajority if they would work harder to appease ready-to-compromise Councilor Kevin Lynch, they seemed at recent Council meetings hell-bent on squandering the political capital that the parkland represents in City-County relations.

Perhaps the fuel in their drive lies with the Chamber of Commerce, whose members—powerful and well-off City and County businesspeople—support the road. Indeed, the long reach of the Chamber has been felt before in MCP matters. Caravati, a building contractor who campaigned against the road in 2000, was probably trying to play ball with the Chamber when he switched sides in the Parkway debate. And Republican Schilling is clearly aligned with that group.

But Richards is the one side of the triangle that’s harder to solve. The Democratic Vice-Mayor has sought the advice of Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore on the parkland question, and pledged to abide by his opinion—a possible prelude to the run for statewide office she’s expected to announce in the coming year. To win outside the City, Richards needs to make friends with conservative County voters, so is it far-fetched to think her actions on the MCP might be a signal to Albemarle Republicans?

The MCP has been a political litmus test for the past 30 years, so it’s no shock that it now reappears on the agenda. The surprise, rather, is in the exposure the Parkway question gives hidden agendas—possibly at taxpayers’ expense.

An auction barker’s drawl and a musty smell fill the cathedral-like main room of the Boxer Learning building on the Downtown Mall. Two years before this bright Thursday afternoon, during the dot-com’s heyday, Gen-X employees could be found in the building breaking up the workday with a game of ping-pong. But in the lean days since the bubble burst, Boxer Learning, which deals math-teaching tools over the Internet, has shed employees and traded its swanky digs for a Court Square suite.

The auction crowd works its way through the large office, snapping up file cabinets, computers, chairs, desks—even artificial fruit and a refrigerator. Though not particularly gaudy by dot-com standards, Boxer Learning’s old haunts contain massive amounts of office equipment. More than 400 lots hit the blocks by the end of the day, some of them containing multiple items.

The former bank building appeared cleaned up on the day before the auction, but evidence of a hasty exit persisted. Half-erased on an ink board was the phrase “Fix Bogus Time-Spent Values.” Various desk drawers contained such things as notepads, tea bags, pill packs, candy, body lotion, and one contained a thank-you card. One former employee came by to claim the contents of his desk. Upstairs, a window stood open in a second-floor office containing only two trashcans and a piece of paper, which sat in the middle of the floor. The page was a February printout of “help wanted” ads from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Though Boxer Learning and colossal Internet bomb Value America’s old spaces have a ghost-town feel, there is still life in the dot-com community. At least a dozen local Internet-based companies are still clicking along, begging the question: What separated Charlottesville’s Web survivors from its pretenders?

 

The Internet thrust Charlottesville into the sphere of other second-tier Web meccas, such as Austin and Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, but only briefly.

“The bubble came to Charlottesville really late, and it left really early,” says local Internet vet John Paul Ashenfelter.

Charlottesville’s run as a Web player lasted roughly from the spring of ’99 until the fall of ’01, and included some spectacular highs and lows, most notably the implosion of Value America and the roller coaster rides of Kesmai and Boxer Jam. Today, Charlottesville’s Web herd has been seriously thinned. Local insiders say companies with vacuous business plans and questionable expertise have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Among Web survivors, many have had to dramatically scale back their operations. But most local Internet companies say business is good, perhaps even better than it was during the faux bonanza of the boom.

During those heady days, Charlottesville was an ideal venue for Internet startups. The Kesmai Corporation, a computer game pioneer, had given the City a techie toehold since the mid ’80s. UVA and Darden provide a steady stream of graduates looking for work, but the City lacks major corporations or other big employers besides the University. Dot-coms gave UVA grads a means of staying in Charlottesville.

Ashenfelter came to Charlottesville in 1995. He left a post as co-director of the Teaching+Technology Initiative at Darden to give dot-coms a whirl in 1998. After a stint at one startup, he hit the job-hunting circuit the following year. He was in high demand, and got about seven job offers in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. “It was just crazy,” he says. Ashenfelter eventually interviewed with Boxer Jam, a web-gaming company that had been founded in part by Julann Griffin, the then 70-year-old ex-wife of Merv Griffin and grandmother who conceived of the television quiz show “Jeopardy.”

After the job interview, Ashenfelter was asked if he wanted to report to work the next morning. On his second day of work, he says he worked on a risky new venture.

“We spent a quarter of a million dollars on [an executive’s] hunch and my tech analysis,” he says. “Boxer Jam, they burned through an enormous amount of money.”

A few months later, more cash found him, in the form of $500,000 in venture capital. Ashenfelter says he didn’t pursue the money, and that it came through “sort of a family-friend connection.” He quickly put together a tech firm called TransitionPoint and hired a couple of employees.

The new company’s plan was to offer programming and database expertise to Internet-based companies. They secured several clients, including a few in Charlottesville, but primarily focused on two large companies. As was common during the boom, the two big fish paid Ashenfelter’s firm in part with equity. This form of payment could be shares of stock in the company, or stock options, which are the option of buying a number of shares in the dot-com at a certain time and price.

“We were really rolling the dice on those two companies,” Ashenfelter says.

The gamble didn’t pay off, and about a year later, “things were really drying up,” Ashenfelter says. He tried to help his employees find other jobs, placing one at Value America. Now solo, Ashenfelter took work elsewhere, including stints at Capital One, the credit card company, and Darden, and wrote two books. But his company weathered the storm, and Ashenfelter says “the phone still rings.”

Ashenfelter’s experience follows the hackneyed dot-com storyline: Get a cash infusion, hastily hatch a business plan, spend like crazy, rely on uncertain revenue and wait for the inevitable crash. But while most dot-commers either made a killing by selling before their company completely fizzled (as did many of Value America’s brass) or walked away with nothing, Ashenfelter is still working in the field. He says his Internet experience has been the equivalent of an extremely expensive MBA.

“The bubble taught me a lesson that it taught a lot of people,” Ashenfelter says. “You really need a good business model. We’re still around, but the original model didn’t work out that well.”

Ashenfelter also echoes a common refrain among Charlottesville’s Internet survivors when he makes the surprising claim that more money was not necessarily a good thing back in the days of irrational exuberance.

“The money let me do stuff, but it also complicated things a bit,” he says, explaining that the venture capital cash cushion “made it easier to not plan as thoroughly.”

“I would’ve had to do things very differently if I had had to bootstrap it,” Ashenfelter says.

 

The most widely cited story of a delusional confidence boost from big venture capital was Value America’s CEO Craig Winn’s plans to buy a lavish private jet and build a corporate campus with hiking trails, all while the company hemorrhaged money and struggled with basic customer service. Indeed, several local Internet companies now in the black say they never scored high-dollar seed money, and instead kept their eye on profits, slow growth and landing a broad range of clients.

Rick White, a CPA and partner at Hoffman, White and Company, has worked with local Internet companies since 1993. In that time, he’s seen much of what works, and what doesn’t. White agrees that simple business virtues such as flexibility played a role in Charlottesville’s dot-com success stories. However, he says many failed local ventures were poised at the edge of making their ideas workable, but didn’t get the last necessary nudge. White say local investors were particularly cautious during the boom, and waited until they saw big money being made in Northern Virginia before timidly jumping into the Internet game. Many insiders echo this sentiment, and say investment in local dot-coms often came from Richmond, Washington or elsewhere.

The former vice-president of multimedia at Value America, Rusty Speidel, is one local Web vet who is still taking a chance on high-tech ventures. Speidel recently launched a foray into wireless entertainment, and says local money is of the “dribbing and drabbing” variety. “We need one more push to get over the top,” Speidel says of his company, Labrador Communications.

White cites local dot-bomb CubeCard as an example of a profitable idea that came close to getting off the ground—to provide a prepaid Internet purchasing card. He says CubeCard “had a lot of dominoes lined up” and that “if any domino had fallen” they would’ve made a bundle. Of course, investors in Value America and other colossal dot-com failures might argue that Charlottesville’s investors were wise to be cautious. And resentment certainly persists in the Charlottesville area over the massive dot-bomb layoffs that occurred while top executives reaped big stock-sale paydays.

Despite its recruitment of many skilled workers, White says Value America “did more to hurt the technology community in Charlottesville than it did to help it.”

According to Value America alum Speidel, who also worked for Kesmai and The Museum Company’s online component, dot-coms tried to become “the biggest and baddest” company in their field while failing to deliver their products. He says Boxer Learning is a great example of a good idea that wasn’t good enough.

“[Boxer Learning] got all big, but they didn’t think about profit. They thought about stock price,” Speidel says.

Musictoday.com is a local company that connects musicians and fans through Internet sales of tickets and gear, as well as by running online fan clubs. Though the middleman strategy of the privately held company is reminiscent of Value America’s corporate plan (see sidebar), Musictoday.com has managed to stay afloat.

“We are the tortoise. We did not have a lot of venture capital,” says Ford Englander, chief operating officer of Musictoday.com, which is owned by local developer and musical giant Coran Capshaw, also known as the manager of Dave Matthews Band. “We built our business in a more traditional sense. We had hard goods that we were selling.”

Local dot-commer Jack Smith also attributes part of the survival of his company, PeopleSpace, Inc., to the fact that he never got major venture capital. Also a Kesmai alum, Smith started PeopleSpace in 1997. The company develops games, polls and other interactive devices to help websites attract visitors.

“I never had a huge influx of money, so I’ve never been able to go nuts on a budget,” Smith says. However, his company still grew fast. By 2001 he had a monthly overhead of around $25,000. But when the economy took a nosedive after September 11, Smith lost several major clients, and came close to throwing in the towel. He says his frugality kept him afloat. An art collector, Smith “stripped the walls” and sold off his art to pay the bills. He also claims he stayed in New York City on business trips for as little as $20.

Though he has no employees, relying instead on two regular contractors, Smith says his client list is better than ever before. But he says he’ll avoid the profligate spending of the dot-com gilded age. Citing a dot-com insider cliché, he says he’ll never buy the expensive Aeron chairs that were popular during the boom.

“My conference chair is from Wal-Mart, with the canvas and the beer-holders,” Smith says.

Before the boom, Smith founded a regular meeting for local Internet workers. The group, which calls itself the Neon Guild, meets twice monthly and has about 350 members.

The Neon Guild’s first and only “Guildmaster” is Debra Weiss, who runs a Web design company called drw Design. With the aesthetic of an orderly housewife, Weiss hardly fits the slacker chic stereotype of the Web set. A silver scooter would look woefully out of place in her tidy home on Hedge Street, which serves as her office. Despite her mild-mannered appearance, Guildmaster Weiss doesn’t pull her punches when decrying the foolishness of dot-bombs, saying that many of them had a “business model based on air” and that often, “the idea was stupid, and unworkable.”

One particular failure cited by Weiss and other techies is NeigborhoodFind.com. Founded by local real estate agent and business owner Kenneth Clarry, the company strove to give the specs on the nation’s neighborhoods (schools, businesses, weather and more) to people looking to make a move. Clarry secured big dollars for the website, hired dozens of employees and hoped to have real estate agent sponsorship from all over the country. According to Smith and Weiss, Clarry’s vision was too rigid for the capricious nature of Internet commerce. Clarry’s company hit the skids, and he later died when the small plane he was piloting crashed near the Shenandoah National Park.

“[Clarry] didn’t bend as things changed in the market. I think initially it was a good idea, but he didn’t let it evolve,” Smith says.

In addition to flexibility, Charlottesville’s dot-com survivors highlight diverse clients as a key factor in keeping them afloat. And one of the ways local programmers and Web designers have found work over the years is through the Neon Guild, despite the fact that the group’s members are all competitors.

“We figured out a long time ago that this is a small town, and it’s better to collude than compete,” Weiss says. “It’s not who you know in Charlottesville, it’s who knows you.”

The Neon Guild has seen more than 1,000 members come through the doors over the years, and besides its networking payoff, Weiss says the Guild became a support group when the boom went bust. The group also spun-off a more formal organization for tech workers called the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council.

Smith says that beyond the Guild, other members of Charlottesville’s business society helped Internet workers when they fell down on their luck. For example, he says developers Gabe Silverman and Allen Cadgene and even local banks could be forgiving when money was tight.

“Charlottesville really is a community town,” Smith says.

Weiss says her Web design company has had some slower years, but claims she’s always managed to make a living. Rather than looking for the big score, she says she’s always worked with small and mid-size businesses. She currently has 50 to 60 clients, most of whom she’s worked with for more than five years.

Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell is a 1996 graduate of UVA who, along with three partners, founded her Web design company, Category4, in October 1998. She says her company has always worked with a broad variety of clients from among nonprofits, government agencies and educational institutions, rather than with a few big budget, but more volatile ventures. Tidwell says the decision wasn’t necessarily based on wisdom, saying that the company chose these projects because they were the ones in which she and her partners had the most interest.

But even colleges and government agencies demand a good product, and Tidwell says many other dot-coms just couldn’t deliver. She says many dot-coms were “trying to do too much” but were only competent at some of their work.

“A lot of people call themselves designers who had no business doing that,” Tidwell says.

Another crucial mistake cited by several dot-commers is one that almost tanked Ashenfelter’s company: the nonexistent paycheck. The massive stock payoff seemed just over the horizon for many in the business, so tech companies often offered stocks or options en lieu of actual payment. Weiss resisted this chimera.

“I wanted to be paid for my work,” Weiss says. “I don’t work on spec, and I don’t work on sweat equity.”

Category breaker
How Category4 resisted the Web’s excesses

The financial chart for most dot-coms looks like the profile of Mount Fuji—a steep climb followed by a precipitous decline. Category4, a Charlottesville-based Web hosting and design firm, has bucked this trend with steady growth. In 2001, Caegory4’s worst year, the company grew by 15 percent, according to founder and president Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell.

Tidwell, a 1996 UVA graduate, and three other UVA grads started the company in October 1998. They cobbled together $50,000, bought a printer and some hardware at Sam’s Club and began running the company out of a den in one of their homes. They hired their first employee the following spring, and now have 13 people on the payroll.

“We were just thinking, ‘We’re probably better as a group,’” than as freelancers or being unemployed, Tidwell says of the company’s founding philosophy.

During the boom, Tidwell and her partners thought the company would have as many as 25 employees by 2003, and that it would continue to almost double its size every year. When reality and the dot-com fantasy collided, Category4 focused on profitability instead of growth and worked on building a broad list of clients.

“It was just a matter of riding it out,” Tidwell says. “We knew the Web wasn’t going to go away.”

Over the past five years, Tidwell says Category4’s staff members have stuck to their specific skills of creative design or programming, rather than being jacks-of-all-trades. She says some of their competitors tried to do it all, “but it just wasn’t good.”

Tidwell sees a promising future for Category4, which will soon move into the new SNL Financial building on Seventh Street. Though successful in a turbulent field, Tidwell, who was an English major, says it wasn’t a path she envisioned.

“I never saw myself as a business owner,” she says.—P.F.

Valuable lesson
How one local dot-com company flamed-out big time

Perhaps no company embodied dot-com audacity better than Charlottesville’s own Value America, which sought to revolutionize retail by forging partnerships with manufactures and then selling goods online to consumers—all without any inventory of its own.

Value America managed to garner early high-dollar support from Fed Ex bigwig Fred Smith and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. On the day it went public in April of 1999, the company raised $145 million and the share price hit $74.

Value America’s founder, Craig Winn, was a billionaire on paper, but only for a day. Less than 16 months later, on the day when Value America went bankrupt, its stock was trading at 72 cents per share, 185 of its employees were let go, and its website was dormant.

In the aftermath of Value America’s flame-out, former executives and employees decried the company’s massive overspending and literal failure to deliver the goods.

“[Value America] couldn’t figure how to deliver products reliably,” says Rusty Speidel, a former company executive. He once ordered a washing machine from Value America, and says it was dumped on his driveway—hardly a sterling example of customer service.

While Value America’s rank-and-file were getting their walking papers—about 300 employees were laid-off just days before the holidays in 1999—several of the company’s top executives were reportedly making a mint on the company’s hollow value. Business Week reported that Winn made over $50 million on Value America, and C-VILLE Weekly found that several other senior company execs filed for stock sales valued at as much as $3.2 million.

“[Value America] is one of the great tragedies of this town,” says local Web designer Debra Weiss. “When they folded, they did it in such a rude, horrible way.”

For further reading on Value America, both Winn and Value America’s former flack, J. David Kuo, published books on the company’s saga. Ironically, Kuo’s book, dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath, received a favorable review on Amazon.com, Value America’s former nemesis.—P.F.

 

With the spring 2004 start of construction on Albemarle Place, the big box conquest of 29N marches on. The complex, slated for the northwest corner of Hydraulic Road and 29N, will be a 1.9 million-square-foot retail behemoth. Once it’s completed, shoppers will be able to literally live on the development’s grounds, which could include a hotel, a cinema and apartments, as well as high-end retailers like J. Crew and Pottery Barn.

But while development continues on 29N, many existing structures remain vacant in and around Charlottesville. A scan by C-VILLE of empty buildings in the area found 1,199,088 square feet of unused space—nearly equivalent to that aforementioned whopper of a space filler. With abundant real estate in locations like the former supermarket across from the Omni Hotel and the Boxer Learning building on the Downtown Mall, why are developers skipping the empty spaces and choosing to break new ground on 29N?

The answer, according to Ivo Romenesko, a professional real estate agent, president of the Appraisal Group, and chairman-elect of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, is population and job growth in Albemarle County.

“Over 80 percent of all major retailing is located along that 29 corridor,” Romenesko says. “We’re going to see a continuation of that trend.”

Additionally, the most practical means of development along roads like 29N is to merely knock down an existing Radio Shack or Home Depot and erect a new building, since strip mall and big box retail spaces are relatively cheap and simple to bulldoze and build.

Yet some developers are willing to roll the dice on what’s called “adaptive reuse” of existing buildings. A notable example is the 324,626 square feet of the Frank Ix building, which served as a textile mill for 70 years. Located just south of Garrett Square, the huge complex was purchased by local developer Bill Dittmar and partners for $5.3 million in 2000.

“It’s a unique location. It’s the largest tract of developable property near Downtown,” Dittmar says of the Ix building. “You couldn’t afford to build that core structure today.”

The historic facades of buildings such as the Ix factory and the Jefferson School—and the stories behind them—might even draw some local residents to future ventures. Romenesko says the vacant buildings near Downtown could house boutique hotels, restaurants, specialty retail shops and high-end office space. So while Target or Best Buy probably won’t be moving into the Ix building, Dittmar and other optimistic developers might have reason to hope that vacant buildings around town can one day find new tenants. Below is a list of some of the properties waiting for a second—or sometimes third or fourth—act.

Four corners
Wachovia buildings

Address: 101, 105, 107 and 111 E. Main St.

Area: 19,900 square feet (estimate)

Empty since: Various dates

Owner: Woodard Properties

Price: Not for sale

The story: The four buildings have housed numerous businesses and storefronts, including Gleason’s Bakery, which opened in 1953, became Dough Boy Bakery in 1976 and later Antojito’s. Also operating out of the buildings were Cato’s Dress Shop, Gitchell’s Studio, Daisy Shoe Center, Stacy’s Music Store and a bookstore. Beginning next year, Woodard Properties plans to renovate and rehabilitate the buildings, which sat empty the past four years while the former owners, D&R Development, battled City officials and each other. With that behind them, the buildings now house, on the ground-floor level, Mountain Air Gallery and the leasing office for Walker Square and Riverbend Apartment Homes.

Smart investment
Boxer Learning

Address: 200 E. Main St.

Area: 20,115 square feet

Empty since: June 2003

Owner: Lee Danielson

Price: Assessed at $1,650,000

The story: Citizens Bank built the original structure in 1931, on the site of an old bookstore. A 1966 renovation gave the building the marble and glass façade it has today. Recently, the building was home to an Internet company, Boxer Learning, and owned by the now-defunct D&R Development Company (see “Wachovia Buildings” above). When that company dissolved in a bitter lawsuit in 2000, a judge put 200 E. Main in the hands of receiver Gaylon Beights. In July 2002, the “D” of D&R, California developer Lee Danielson, purchased 200 E. Main and 108 Second St. SE from Beights for a combined $3.3 million. On December 4, The Daily Progress reported that Lee Danielson wants to build a nine-storey hotel on this site, and that on December 16 he will present plans to the Board of Architectural Review. Given the California developer’s tumultuous history with the BAR, the presentation promises to be spirited.

Class act
Jefferson School

Address: 201 Fourth St. NW

Area: 70,000 square feet

Empty since: Preschool program vacated in January 2002; still houses some classes

Owner: City of Charlottesville

Price: Assessed at $4.5 million. The City says Jefferson School will need a major overhaul, at an estimated cost of about $10 million, although State and Federal tax credits will cover 45 percent of the rehab cost.

The story: The 100-year-old Jefferson School building was the center of black education in the days of racial segregation, and one of the few structures to survive the “urban renewal” of Vinegar Hill. In January 2002, the Charlottesville School Board voted to move the City’s preschool program out of Jefferson School, and City Council prepared to sell the building to developers. A group of citizens fought the sale, so Council created the Jefferson School Task Force to decide the building’s fate. In December, the Task Force will likely recommend Jefferson School become the new home for the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library or a social service and education center.

Shaping up
Ivy Industries

Address: 111 Monticello Ave.

Area: 64,378 square feet of warehouse space currently available

Empty since: April 2003

Owner: 111 Monticello Avenue, LLC

Price: Previously listed at $6.2 million

The story: Built in 1983, the site was most recently home to picture frame-maker Ivy Industries, which went out of business after CEO John C. Reid was nabbed in a check-kiting scheme earlier this year. New owner Coran Capshaw is shopping for tenants, and the real estate rumor mill says the fitness club ACAC is likely to move in soon.

Money talks
SNL Building (and annex)

Address: 321 E. Main St.

Area: 53,643 square feet

Empty since: August 2003

Owner: SNL Financial

Price: $3,750,000

The story: The building was constructed in 1955 and originally housed a department store. Later, Jefferson National Bank & Trust Co. bought the space and used it as an operations center. Wachovia eventually acquired Jefferson National Bank. In 1998, SNL purchased the building and renovated it at a cost of about $2 million. It then became the SNL Financial headquarters. Around five years later, in August 2003, SNL fully vacated the building. It is currently assessed at $3,887,700.

Travel plans
Lakeland Tours

Address: 2000 Holiday Dr.

Area: 24,279 square feet

Owner: Holiday Drive, LLC (Andrew Dondero, CEO)

Price: For sale at $2,400,000, with an additional two acres of land for an extra $500,000. For lease at $13 per square foot.

The story: General Electric built this faux colonial building in 1966. Since then it has been owned by a now-bankrupt petroleum company from Mississippi and Lakeland Interstate Tours, Inc., hence the building’s nickname. The building was fully renovated in 1985, and sold to its current owners in 1998 for $2.6 million. The building now is owned by Keswick’s Andrew Dondero, and a portion of it is home to 1st American Mortgage and the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Bargain shopping
Save-A-Lot grocery

Address: 243 Ridge-McIntire Rd.

Vinegar Hill Shopping Center

Area: 24,500 square feet

Empty since: 2000

Owner: Piedmont Land Trust

Price: Lease for $9 per square foot

The story: The original King’s Market grocery store was built in 1978. It was eventually purchased by the Richmond-based Richfood, and finally closed for good as Save-A-Lot in 2000. The building operated as a grocery store throughout its 22-year lifetime.

Deals loom large
Frank Ix building

Address: 601 E. Market St.

Area: 324,626 feet

Empty since: November 1999

Owners: William D. Dittmar, Gabe Silverman, Allan Cadgene and Ludwig Kuttner

Price: Lease for $7 per square foot

The story: Frank Ix & Sons was a textile company that produced dress fabric, as well as material used in sailing equipment, backpacks and bathing suits. Its Charlottesville plant, a 17-acre facility, was the largest of the company’s six mills, and the last to shut down (in 1999). Construction began on the textile mill in 1925, and it opened in 1929. In June of 1973, The Daily Progress reported that Ix & Sons added 60,000 square feet to the factory and hired 150 new employees, bringing the total number of workers to 650. But the company’s boom subsided, and it began a gradual decline that lasted throughout the ’90s. Ix eventually filed for Chapter 11, and the Charlottesville textile mill stopped production on October 29, 1999. The building has hosted several art events since closing. Developer Bill Dittmar and partners bought the site in 2000 for $5.3 million. Though the site is currently assessed at $4,589,700, the buildings appear dilapidated, and are missing many walls. Still, several tenants, including CK Courier, Stafford Insulation, Telephone Services, AIDS Service Group, and JADE (Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement) are already in one portion of the building—pioneering the landscape for the retailers, professionals and City dwellers that Dittmar and associates hope will follow.

Blue light special
K-Mart Plaza

Address: 1801 Hydraulic Rd.

Area: 41,414 square feet

Empty since: Food Lion closed in September 1999

Owner: Peyton Associates Partnership

Price: Vacant building sites recently assessed at $2,836,000

The story: A company called Charlottesville Plaza, Inc. built the K-Mart building in 1964 for $600,000. The building included the space later occupied by Food Lion and Brown’s Cleaners. The Terrace Theatres cinema was added in 1974. In 1997, the buildings’ owners, Peyton Associates Partnership, wrote the City assessor’s office in the hopes of getting a lower tax assessment. Willard N. Clayton, the city assessor, responded that the space was located in “the hot spot” for commercial development in Charlottesville, and the request for an eased tax rate was nixed. The Food Lion closed in September 1999 and the space remains empty. Brown’s Cleaners and the Terrace Theatres are also vacant.

Long-distance operator
Comdial

Address: 1180 Seminole Trail

Area: 454,900 square feet

Empty since: Late 2002

Owner: Seminole Trail Properties, LLC.

Price: Sold for $11.4 million in March 2001

The story: The facility was built in 1954 and originally housed the manufacturing operations of the United States Instrument Corporation, which produced telephone parts. Comdial Corporation, also a telecommunications company, purchased the site from military-industrial giant General Dynamics in 1982. In 2001, Comdial moved its corporate headquarters to Sarasota, Florida, and sold the manufacturing plant. Comdial leased some of the site to house a small numbers of engineers. Those straggling employees left the building about one year ago. The property is currently assessed at $11,820,100.

Material gains
Institute of Textile Technology

Address: 2551-2555 Ivy Rd.

Area: 28,033 square feet

Empty since: Late 2002

Owner: Ivy Road Properties, Inc.

Price: Sold for $6,600,000 in August 2003

The story: The Institute of Textile Technology (ITT) and the North Carolina State University College of Textiles formed an alliance in November 2002, and all of ITT’s operations were subsequently moved to the NC State’s Centennial campus in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Under Valued
Hollymead Professional Center

Address: 1522-1560 Insurance Ln.

Area: About 5,300 square feet

Empty since: Late 2000

Owner: Charles Hurt, Virginia Land Company

Price: Lease for $15 per square foot

The Story: The Hollymead Professional Center comprises five buildings, each about 6,000 square feet. It was built four years ago for notorious dot-bomb Value America, which all but vacated the premises two years later. A small portion of the site is currently home to a collection of offices for companies like Remax Properties, Dr. Wesley Haddix, Old Dominion Equine, Edward Jones and Associates and Larry Miller, attorney.

Off-campus campus
Town Center One in the UVA Research Park

Address: 1000 Research Park Blvd.

Area: About 18,000 square feet

Empty since: 2001

Owner: UVA Foundation Real Estate Foundation

Price: Full service lease for $19.25 per square foot

The story: UVA built Town Center One in September 2000 for Qual Choice, an insurance company now called Southern Health. When Southern Health downsized two years ago, it vacated 30,000 square feet, and new high-profile tenants, such as TIAA-Cref, Northrop Grumman IT and Angle Technology, moved in to some of the space.

Not too late
Earlysville Professional Center

Address: 395 Reas Ford Rd., Earlysville

Area: 50,000 square feet in warehouse, 15,000 in office

Empty since: Technicolor moved out in December 2002

Owner: 4F, LLC

Price: Lease for $4 per square foot for warehouse space, $7-10 per square foot for office

The story: The Earlysville Professional Center was built in stages between 1960 and 1985 by Murray Manufacturing Company. The building, currently home to Earlysville Medical Practice, Downtown Athletics, Crutchfield and National Linen, is three miles from the airport, and is wired for high-speed Internet.

With the spring 2004 start of construction on Albemarle Place, the big box conquest of 29N marches on. The complex, slated for the northwest corner of Hydraulic Road and 29N, will be a 1.9 million-square-foot retail behemoth. Once it’s completed, shoppers will be able to literally live on the development’s grounds, which could include a hotel, a cinema and apartments, as well as high-end retailers like J. Crew and Pottery Barn.

But while development continues on 29N, many existing structures remain vacant in and around Charlottesville. A scan by C-VILLE of empty buildings in the area found 1,199,088 square feet of unused space—nearly equivalent to that aforementioned whopper of a space filler. With abundant real estate in locations like the former supermarket across from the Omni Hotel and the Boxer Learning building on the Downtown Mall, why are developers skipping the empty spaces and choosing to break new ground on 29N?

The answer, according to Ivo Romenesko, a professional real estate agent, president of the Appraisal Group, and chairman-elect of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, is population and job growth in Albemarle County.

“Over 80 percent of all major retailing is located along that 29 corridor,” Romenesko says. “We’re going to see a continuation of that trend.”

Additionally, the most practical means of development along roads like 29N is to merely knock down an existing Radio Shack or Home Depot and erect a new building, since strip mall and big box retail spaces are relatively cheap and simple to bulldoze and build.

Yet some developers are willing to roll the dice on what’s called “adaptive reuse” of existing buildings. A notable example is the 324,626 square feet of the Frank Ix building, which served as a textile mill for 70 years. Located just south of Garrett Square, the huge complex was purchased by local developer Bill Dittmar and partners for $5.3 million in 2000.

“It’s a unique location. It’s the largest tract of developable property near Downtown,” Dittmar says of the Ix building. “You couldn’t afford to build that core structure today.”

The historic facades of buildings such as the Ix factory and the Jefferson School—and the stories behind them—might even draw some local residents to future ventures. Romenesko says the vacant buildings near Downtown could house boutique hotels, restaurants, specialty retail shops and high-end office space. So while Target or Best Buy probably won’t be moving into the Ix building, Dittmar and other optimistic developers might have reason to hope that vacant buildings around town can one day find new tenants. Below is a list of some of the properties waiting for a second—or sometimes third or fourth—act.

Four corners
Wachovia buildings

Address: 101, 105, 107 and 111 E. Main St.

Area: 19,900 square feet (estimate)

Empty since: Various dates

Owner: Woodard Properties

Price: Not for sale

The story: The four buildings have housed numerous businesses and storefronts, including Gleason’s Bakery, which opened in 1953, became Dough Boy Bakery in 1976 and later Antojito’s. Also operating out of the buildings were Cato’s Dress Shop, Gitchell’s Studio, Daisy Shoe Center, Stacy’s Music Store and a bookstore. Beginning next year, Woodard Properties plans to renovate and rehabilitate the buildings, which sat empty the past four years while the former owners, D&R Development, battled City officials and each other. With that behind them, the buildings now house, on the ground-floor level, Mountain Air Gallery and the leasing office for Walker Square and Riverbend Apartment Homes.

Smart investment
Boxer Learning

Address: 200 E. Main St.

Area: 20,115 square feet

Empty since: June 2003

Owner: Lee Danielson

Price: Assessed at $1,650,000

The story: Citizens Bank built the original structure in 1931, on the site of an old bookstore. A 1966 renovation gave the building the marble and glass façade it has today. Recently, the building was home to an Internet company, Boxer Learning, and owned by the now-defunct D&R Development Company (see “Wachovia Buildings” above). When that company dissolved in a bitter lawsuit in 2000, a judge put 200 E. Main in the hands of receiver Gaylon Beights. In July 2002, the “D” of D&R, California developer Lee Danielson, purchased 200 E. Main and 108 Second St. SE from Beights for a combined $3.3 million. On December 4, The Daily Progress reported that Lee Danielson wants to build a nine-storey hotel on this site, and that on December 16 he will present plans to the Board of Architectural Review. Given the California developer’s tumultuous history with the BAR, the presentation promises to be spirited.

Class act
Jefferson School

Address: 201 Fourth St. NW

Area: 70,000 square feet

Empty since: Preschool program vacated in January 2002; still houses some classes

Owner: City of Charlottesville

Price: Assessed at $4.5 million. The City says Jefferson School will need a major overhaul, at an estimated cost of about $10 million, although State and Federal tax credits will cover 45 percent of the rehab cost.

The story: The 100-year-old Jefferson School building was the center of black education in the days of racial segregation, and one of the few structures to survive the “urban renewal” of Vinegar Hill. In January 2002, the Charlottesville School Board voted to move the City’s preschool program out of Jefferson School, and City Council prepared to sell the building to developers. A group of citizens fought the sale, so Council created the Jefferson School Task Force to decide the building’s fate. In December, the Task Force will likely recommend Jefferson School become the new home for the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library or a social service and education center.

Shaping up
Ivy Industries

Address: 111 Monticello Ave.

Area: 64,378 square feet of warehouse space currently available

Empty since: April 2003

Owner: 111 Monticello Avenue, LLC

Price: Previously listed at $6.2 million

The story: Built in 1983, the site was most recently home to picture frame-maker Ivy Industries, which went out of business after CEO John C. Reid was nabbed in a check-kiting scheme earlier this year. New owner Coran Capshaw is shopping for tenants, and the real estate rumor mill says the fitness club ACAC is likely to move in soon.

Money talks
SNL Building (and annex)

Address: 321 E. Main St.

Area: 53,643 square feet

Empty since: August 2003

Owner: SNL Financial

Price: $3,750,000

The story: The building was constructed in 1955 and originally housed a department store. Later, Jefferson National Bank & Trust Co. bought the space and used it as an operations center. Wachovia eventually acquired Jefferson National Bank. In 1998, SNL purchased the building and renovated it at a cost of about $2 million. It then became the SNL Financial headquarters. Around five years later, in August 2003, SNL fully vacated the building. It is currently assessed at $3,887,700.

Travel plans
Lakeland Tours

Address: 2000 Holiday Dr.

Area: 24,279 square feet

Owner: Holiday Drive, LLC (Andrew Dondero, CEO)

Price: For sale at $2,400,000, with an additional two acres of land for an extra $500,000. For lease at $13 per square foot.

The story: General Electric built this faux colonial building in 1966. Since then it has been owned by a now-bankrupt petroleum company from Mississippi and Lakeland Interstate Tours, Inc., hence the building’s nickname. The building was fully renovated in 1985, and sold to its current owners in 1998 for $2.6 million. The building now is owned by Keswick’s Andrew Dondero, and a portion of it is home to 1st American Mortgage and the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Bargain shopping
Save-A-Lot grocery

Address: 243 Ridge-McIntire Rd.

Vinegar Hill Shopping Center

Area: 24,500 square feet

Empty since: 2000

Owner: Piedmont Land Trust

Price: Lease for $9 per square foot

The story: The original King’s Market grocery store was built in 1978. It was eventually purchased by the Richmond-based Richfood, and finally closed for good as Save-A-Lot in 2000. The building operated as a grocery store throughout its 22-year lifetime.

Deals loom large
Frank Ix building

Address: 601 E. Market St.

Area: 324,626 feet

Empty since: November 1999

Owners: William D. Dittmar, Gabe Silverman, Allan Cadgene and Ludwig Kuttner

Price: Lease for $7 per square foot

The story: Frank Ix & Sons was a textile company that produced dress fabric, as well as material used in sailing equipment, backpacks and bathing suits. Its Charlottesville plant, a 17-acre facility, was the largest of the company’s six mills, and the last to shut down (in 1999). Construction began on the textile mill in 1925, and it opened in 1929. In June of 1973, The Daily Progress reported that Ix & Sons added 60,000 square feet to the factory and hired 150 new employees, bringing the total number of workers to 650. But the company’s boom subsided, and it began a gradual decline that lasted throughout the ’90s. Ix eventually filed for Chapter 11, and the Charlottesville textile mill stopped production on October 29, 1999. The building has hosted several art events since closing. Developer Bill Dittmar and partners bought the site in 2000 for $5.3 million. Though the site is currently assessed at $4,589,700, the buildings appear dilapidated, and are missing many walls. Still, several tenants, including CK Courier, Stafford Insulation, Telephone Services, AIDS Service Group, and JADE (Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement) are already in one portion of the building—pioneering the landscape for the retailers, professionals and City dwellers that Dittmar and associates hope will follow.

Blue light special
K-Mart Plaza

Address: 1801 Hydraulic Rd.

Area: 41,414 square feet

Empty since: Food Lion closed in September 1999

Owner: Peyton Associates Partnership

Price: Vacant building sites recently assessed at $2,836,000

The story: A company called Charlottesville Plaza, Inc. built the K-Mart building in 1964 for $600,000. The building included the space later occupied by Food Lion and Brown’s Cleaners. The Terrace Theatres cinema was added in 1974. In 1997, the buildings’ owners, Peyton Associates Partnership, wrote the City assessor’s office in the hopes of getting a lower tax assessment. Willard N. Clayton, the city assessor, responded that the space was located in “the hot spot” for commercial development in Charlottesville, and the request for an eased tax rate was nixed. The Food Lion closed in September 1999 and the space remains empty. Brown’s Cleaners and the Terrace Theatres are also vacant.

Long-distance operator
Comdial

Address: 1180 Seminole Trail

Area: 454,900 square feet

Empty since: Late 2002

Owner: Seminole Trail Properties, LLC.

Price: Sold for $11.4 million in March 2001

The story: The facility was built in 1954 and originally housed the manufacturing operations of the United States Instrument Corporation, which produced telephone parts. Comdial Corporation, also a telecommunications company, purchased the site from military-industrial giant General Dynamics in 1982. In 2001, Comdial moved its corporate headquarters to Sarasota, Florida, and sold the manufacturing plant. Comdial leased some of the site to house a small numbers of engineers. Those straggling employees left the building about one year ago. The property is currently assessed at $11,820,100.

Material gains
Institute of Textile Technology

Address: 2551-2555 Ivy Rd.

Area: 28,033 square feet

Empty since: Late 2002

Owner: Ivy Road Properties, Inc.

Price: Sold for $6,600,000 in August 2003

The story: The Institute of Textile Technology (ITT) and the North Carolina State University College of Textiles formed an alliance in November 2002, and all of ITT’s operations were subsequently moved to the NC State’s Centennial campus in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Under Valued
Hollymead Professional Center

Address: 1522-1560 Insurance Ln.

Area: About 5,300 square feet

Empty since: Late 2000

Owner: Charles Hurt, Virginia Land Company

Price: Lease for $15 per square foot

The Story: The Hollymead Professional Center comprises five buildings, each about 6,000 square feet. It was built four years ago for notorious dot-bomb Value America, which all but vacated the premises two years later. A small portion of the site is currently home to a collection of offices for companies like Remax Properties, Dr. Wesley Haddix, Old Dominion Equine, Edward Jones and Associates and Larry Miller, attorney.

Off-campus campus
Town Center One in the UVA Research Park

Address: 1000 Research Park Blvd.

Area: About 18,000 square feet

Empty since: 2001

Owner: UVA Foundation Real Estate Foundation

Price: Full service lease for $19.25 per square foot

The story: UVA built Town Center One in September 2000 for Qual Choice, an insurance company now called Southern Health. When Southern Health downsized two years ago, it vacated 30,000 square feet, and new high-profile tenants, such as TIAA-Cref, Northrop Grumman IT and Angle Technology, moved in to some of the space.

Not too late
Earlysville Professional Center

Address: 395 Reas Ford Rd., Earlysville

Area: 50,000 square feet in warehouse, 15,000 in office

Empty since: Technicolor moved out in December 2002

Owner: 4F, LLC

Price: Lease for $4 per square foot for warehouse space, $7-10 per square foot for office

The story: The Earlysville Professional Center was built in stages between 1960 and 1985 by Murray Manufacturing Company. The building, currently home to Earlysville Medical Practice, Downtown Athletics, Crutchfield and National Linen, is three miles from the airport, and is wired for high-speed Internet.