Q: My mind’s a little foggy these days, but if my memory serves me true, I believe that the upscale housing development of Mill Creek out on Avon Street Extended is located on what was once a city dump. With prices soaring for a Mill Creek home, say these poor folks aren’t getting royally duped!—Miss Carbonne Leek
A: Let Ace assume you are using the term “poor” ironically and ease your troubled mind, Miss Leek: Our social structure remains intact (at least until the revolution comes). Upscale is upscale and Mill Creek is no dump.
When stymied by Judith Mueller, director of the City’s Public Works Administration, who, when asked about a former City landfill out Avon Extended, said flatly, “I don’t have any idea. I don’t know,” Ace did some sleuthing. Following clues from Sam Craig, the owner of Craig Builders (which built Mill Creek), who had mentioned he’d “heard something…about a landfill [that was] just south of the interstate,” Ace steered the Acemobile over to the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.
Poring over pages clipped from The Daily Progress in 1972 and 1973, Ace confirmed Craig’s suspicions. Sure ‘nuff, back in the 1960s there was a city landfill out Avon Extended, but Mill Creek, with homes currently selling for as much as $255,000, is not its geographical legacy. No, what was once the City dump is about a mile up the road from Mill Creek, and known fondly to all as the Albemarle Charlottesville Nelson Regional Jail.
Phew. For a second Ace thought some true controversy had been unearthed and that Mill Creek property values would plummet as residents started an Erin Brockovich-style crusade to discover how they were poisoned by decomposing batteries circa 1968. But the development, known not for McMansions but for modest earth-toned houses, can keep its enviro-friendly appeal intact.
Built in 1988 on approximately 400 acres of land, Mill Creek used to be a farm belonging to a family named Reynolds, according to Craig. And by the calculations of Kurt Illig , the vice-president of the Mill Creek Homeowners Association, the subdivision now is the site of about 220 units, with only one plot still undeveloped.
This is a far cry from the regional jail and our former City dump, which closed in the wee hours of 1973. The new jail welcomed its first batch of residents in 1974. By the end of last month it housed 496 inmates, thus giving Mill Creek’s “neighborly feel” a run for its money.