Albemarle Place wins preliminary approval

Already six years in the making, Albemarle Place jumped one of only a few remaining hurdles on the path to becoming a 65-acre assortment of 700 residential units and roughly 40 new stores, along with a stadium-seating movie theater, a hotel and a relocated Whole Foods. The County Planning Commission approved the preliminary site plan, with conditions, at their August 15 session before a sparse audience.
    Most of the meeting was spent mired in the details of road connections, retaining wall height and storm water drainage, but in the end commissioners trusted the judgment of Community Development staff and unanimously gave their approval.
    “I want to thank the applicant for your patience because this was a complex issue—it’s huge,” said Planning Commission Chair Marcia Joseph. “It’s going to make a big impact on this community and it is going to be important in the future to make sure all of these roads connect and this is successful.”
    “We’re obviously very pleased,” says Steve Lucas, senior vice president of Landonomics, the primary developer. “We’re anxious to move forward.” Lucas says they hope to win final site plan approval in the next few months and to start mass grading as well this fall. “We’ll probably go vertical next year.”
    “The County has been very helpful,” says Frank Cox, Albemarle Place master planner. “This is new to everyone who’s involved with the New Urbanism process in Albemarle County and we’ve been learning along the way.”
    One sticky issue that has yet to be addressed is the intersection between Route 29 and Hydraulic Road. Despite a study completed in 2004 that recommended a grade-separated interchange, Virginia Department of Transportation has neither a final plan nor funding for construction. Albemarle Place designers have reserved land in the event that such improvements are made in the future.