It’s Capshaw’s world …we just live in it
Real estate mogul Coran Capshaw may not be the biggest developer in town, but he’s the glitziest
A whiff of development was in the air on a recent gusty spring afternoon. As it blew across W. Main Street, a stiff breeze carried the smell of freshly cut sawdust from the Walker Square apartments, which were rapidly rising on land adjacent to the train station. The new buildings are one of the latest projects of Coran Capshaw, the local real estate magnate, owner of Musictoday.com and manager of Dave Matthews Band.
Many Charlottesville residents, even those outside of real estate and City planning circles, would likely finger Capshaw if asked who was the brains and bucks behind Walker Square. In fact, Capshaw’s name is often whispered as the suspected developer behind projects that have nothing to do with him. This is because Capshaw has become the public’s imagined puppeteer behind Charlottesville’s growth; he’s the developer people think of first when they see Tyvek panels and construction crews.
Yet Capshaw is hardly the only major developer at work in and around Charlottesville. Both Wendell Wood’s United Land Corporation and Dr. Charles Hurt’s Virginia Land Company own massive swaths of Charlottesville and Albemarle County and have stakes in controversial projects such as the Hollymead Town Center—the Martian landscape that will soon be home to Target and other big-box retailers. But despite their holdings, Hurt and Wood seem to slide under peoples’ radar screens.
Capshaw’s visibility doesn’t stem from any effort on his part to seek the spotlight. In fact, he has created a bevy of Limited Liability Corporations with generic names under which he holds his properties. When Mayor Maurice Cox and other local officials refer to Capshaw for the record, it’s almost always as “a developer.” But despite attempts to keep his business ventures on the down-low and away from public scrutiny, Capshaw is the most exposed local player in real estate.
“I’m not sure why I’d be singled out for discussion,” Capshaw tells C-VILLE of his public prominence. Pressed for a reason, Capshaw offers that perhaps his visible properties and “primary job” as manager of DMB “all ties together” in peoples’ minds.
Capshaw certainly owns many attention-grabbing buildings, such as the former ConAgra and Ivy Industries properties and the SNL building, the deal for which has not yet been finalized. He also holds the keys to several popular restaurants, including the Blue Light Grill and the Mas tapas bar, though he does not own the buildings that house most of the restaurants. Perhaps most importantly, Capshaw is rock ’n’ roll. He’s not just putting up townhouses off of Cherry Avenue, he’s taking a chance on huge former factories like the Technicolor plant in Ruckersville, building swanky condos within a quick stroll from the Mall and booking bands at Starr Hill—all facets of the hip side of local business.
With 15 of Capshaw’s local properties (by no means a complete list) weighing in at an assessed value of almost $50 million, Capshaw has become, in essence, Charlottesville’s version of The Donald.
Are we lucky to have him as a big winner on the Charlottesville Monopoly board?
Yes, if you’re a fan of the City’s and County’s ideas about how this place should grow. Capshaw is working on two giant residential developments on the south side of town, the City’s targeted growth area, which, some hope, will bring prosperity to primarily blue-collar neighborhoods.
“I think there’s a theme about smart reuse around town,” Capshaw says, explaining how he’s embraced the strategy, championed by local leaders, of purchasing and rehabilitating old warehouses, office buildings and garages, many of which would likely have stood vacant for years.
“The community lost a lot of hard-to-replace jobs at these buildings,” Capshaw says of the dormant industrial sites of Technicolor, ConAgra and Ivy Industries. “I’d like to put jobs back in them.”
Capshaw also has an unassailable record of philanthropy, having kicked in big money for the Music Resource Center, which caters to aspiring high school-age musicians at the old Mt. Zion Baptist Church, as well as through the initiatives of Bama Works, a charitable giving organization he runs with Dave Matthews Band.
But not everyone is happy about Capshaw’s growing number of holdings around the region, particularly locals who loathe the sound of belt saws or the sight of trees going down for new housing. Maybe the old coal tower is an eyesore, but some will definitely roll their eyes at yet another high-end, yuppie den that seems likely to rise soon on the land around the structure.
However, both those who grumble about Capshaw’s developments and those who buy into them can agree on one thing: He gives us all something to talk about. If Capshaw took his wheeling and dealing elsewhere, perhaps moving on up to the big city, little Charlottesville would lose a bit of its glamour, for better or worse.
Getting inside Capshaw’s world:
The Method
The following list of properties was compiled using information from the Charlottesville and Albemarle County assessors’ offices. Capshaw confirms ownership or “interests” in most of these sites and buildings. The listed properties not explicitly confirmed (or denied) by Capshaw—the former Elite Electrical building, two parcels on Avon Street Extended, and the garages on W. Main Street and Ninth Street SW—are owned by companies linked to him through public records from the assessors’ offices and the State Corporation Commission.
Capshaw’s real estate holdings extend well beyond this compilation. According to a statement to C-VILLE from the developer himself, these unlisted properties include five commercial sites outside of the City, an interest in the Earlysville Business Park, a building on the Mall, and interests in six County residential sites, “with an emphasis on sites in the growth areas.”
Capshaw has also acquired four County properties “for the purpose of protecting them from further development by placing open space easements on them. Two of the easements are complete and two are in process.”—P.F.