Month: January 2010

$2.5 billion merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation approved

Yesterday, in what Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff called "a great win for fans" and many fans will surely contend, the Department of Justice approved the $2.5 billion merger of the Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the live music business that purchased Coran Capshaw’s Musictoday for a total $26.5 million between 2006 and 2007.

As part of the merger, Ticketmaster must license its ticketing software for use by other ticketing companies. It will also, according to the Los Angeles Times, divest a ticketing company called Paciolan, Inc., the sports arm of its ticketing empire. (Comcast-Spectator will reportedly acquire Paciolan.) Both companies neared their 52-week market highs yesterday; this morning, Live Nation shares continue to rise in value while Ticketmaster holds at the 15 percent increase it notched yesterday.

As for that "great win for fans"? Well, roughly one year ago, Ticketmaster caught a lot of attention for forwarding Bruce Springsteen fans to Ticketsnow—a website owned by Ticketmaster that allowed for the marked-up sale of tickets. While apologies were made to The Boss and his crew, one wonders what fans may go through now that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are set to become one and the same.

 

 

Categories
Living

Fry's Spring Service Station takes shape

First the bad news, Buddhist Biker Bar & Grille on Elliewood Avenue has closed.  No word yet on new tenants—we’re just heartened to hear that Charlottesville Comedy Roundtable’s monthly Buddhist gigs have found a new venue at the 12th Street Taphouse. As for the rest of it, neighbors The Biltmore and Coup DeVille’s can certainly serve up similarly tasty burgers, cheap beer and Corner charm and likely would love the overflow. Elliewood has had quite a chaotic year with The Biltmore changing ownership and Martha’s Café, Sublime and Zydeco closing in 2009 and being replaced by Cantina, an outpost of Marco & Luca (coming soon) and Sushi Love, respectively. Kudos to newbie Para Coffee and old-timer Take It Away Café for keeping up during the recession. 
 

Robert Sawrey, co-owner of Fry’s Spring Station, and its general manager, Caroline Oliveira, stand outside the restaurant, which will seat approximately 100 people inside and will include some patio seating, too.
Now the good news. After renovations over the holidays, La Taza Coffeehouse in Belmont will reopen soon as Roast, “a gourmet eatery and espresso bar.” As of press time, Roast’s debut scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, was delayed due to last-minute construction issues. When it opens, Roast will boast the same worldly and socially responsible beans as La Taza, plus an expanded menu of sandwiches on bread baked fresh daily, salads and soup.  
 
Also, Fry’s Spring Service Station at 2115 Jefferson Park Avenue is close to becoming the restaurant that’s been rumored to be going in there for almost a year now. Well, maybe not the restaurant. At one time, former Just Curry owner and now Jefferson Theater Restaurant executive chef Alex George was involved in the project and even applied for an ABC mixed beverage license for the location over the summer. Shortly after the Jefferson Theater Restaurant opened in December, however, George told us he was no longer involved in the Fry’s Spring venture. 
 
All the while, property owner Terry Hindermann, along with architect Dave Ackerman of Wolf Ackerman Design, have been negotiating renovations to the property with the city’s Board of Architectural Review—a notoriously prolonged process even when a site is not listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register as the 70-year-old gas station is (with its unique blend of Spanish, Jeffersonian and Art Deco architecture). With the adaptive reuse nearing completion, a new tenant has emerged. Robert Sawrey and his partner, Steve Parry, owners of the Downtown Grille on Main Street, are planning to serve individual pizzas, pastas, entrees and salads under the name Fry’s Spring Station. The concept is similar to that of two other pizza restaurants the partners’ restaurant group owns in Lynchburg and Richmond called Waterstone and Sette, respectively. Both were also built out within historic buildings, says Sawrey. 
 
Sawrey says he and his partner started pursuing the opportunity in September because, “We saw the space and met the landlords and saw how aggressively they were renovating the property and how much care they were taking.” 
 
Fry’s Spring Station will be a full-service outfit with a wine list of 30 or so Italian labels plus draft beer (no bottles). Some of those taps will be outfitted with local brews and a few from Sawrey and Perry’s Lynchburg brewery, Jefferson Street Brewery. 
 
Sawrey says interior renovations should be completed in time for a late March opening. 
Categories
News

County reductions would close JMRL branches in Scottsville, Crozet

As Albemarle County whittles away at a budget, community relations director Lee Catlin wrote last week in a press release that the county asked multiple community agencies “to assess the impacts of a five-percent and 10-percent funding reduction from the County.” The same day, Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Board President Anthony Townsend called a press conference at the Central Library and reported that a 10-percent cut in county funding would close both the Scottsville and Crozet library branches. 

The Crozet branch of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library hoped for a new $9.8 million building by 2013. Now, JMRL fear that county budget cuts will close library branches in Scottsville and Crozet for good.
“Per capita library use here is 19 percent higher than in comparable communities across America,” read Townsend from a prepared statement. He added, however, that “Albemarle County’s library support is $33.74 per capita,” roughly $1.50 lower than the state average. 
 
Why the branch closures? While the county and city split funding for every other library branch based on their circulation shares, Scottsville and Crozet are funded solely by the county. The JMRL’s projected FY2011 cost for Scottsville is $178,454. Based on the JMRL’s numbers, a five-percent overall budget cut would total $158,657—leaving Scottsville with less than $20,000. 
 
The funding structure also limits other solutions to the library system’s problem. According to Townsend, county staff asked that JMRL consider reducing services at multiple libraries rather than closing a branch or two.
 
“In other words, Albemarle County staff wants to see a budget that would support only 40 hours of library services per week system-wide,” said Townsend. The Central Library is currently open 68 hours per week; Scottsville and Crozet are open 48 hours per week, and together accounted for more than 12 percent of the JMRL’s total circulation during FY2009.
 
While the loss of the Crozet Library seems less likely than Scottsville, Crozet has other concerns. In December, the county Board of Supervisors voted to postpone construction of a new, 18,000-square foot Crozet Library, a task that JMRL hoped to complete by 2013 as part of its five-year plan.
 
“I am not willing to grant this anything more than a temporary setback at this point, because the library on schedule by 2012 would have been a tremendous boost to the resurgence of downtown Crozet,” supervisor Ann Mallek told C-VILLE at the time. She added that “in order to live within our budget we have to do what we can.”
 
“The fact is that every other contributor is paying up their share,” says Mike Marshall, chair of the Crozet Community Advisory Council and publisher of the Crozet Gazette, with regards to funding sources.
 
“When they all pay up their share, the Library Board doesn’t feel like it can turn around and say, ‘Well, what we’re going to do is hurt service at your branch.’ Because they paid for full service. Albemarle didn’t pay for full service.”
 
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
Categories
News

Van der Linde agrees to pay $600,000 in settlement

Did Peter van der Linde fight the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority into a settlement stalemate of sorts, or vice versa? This much we know: Months after the RSWA filed an amended complaint against the recycling center director to the tune of a $30 million racketeering charge, the RSWA came to settlement terms last week with van der Linde, who agreed to pay the RSWA a sum of $600,000 over the next five years. 
 
“With an attempt of this nature, to reach a settlement, all parties involved have to look at things from their own interests,” says Tom Frederick, Executive Director of the RSWA. “It turned out that, through discussions, we were able to find mutual interests, and were able to agree on the terms of the settlement.”
 
The $600,000 price tag may ultimately be a less expensive bandage for van der Linde; City Councilor and RSWA Board member David Brown told C-VILLE that van der Linde was accused of “intentionally not paying as much as a million dollars in fees due to Rivanna.” The RSWA’s case against van der Linde was slated to go before Charlottesville Federal Court in June, when van der Linde’s payments will now begin.
 
Other terms of the settlement? For starters, private waste collection company BFI will pay RSWA $300,000. Additionally, RSWA and BFI are released from the 1997 contract that allowed RSWA to deposit waste at BFI’s Zion Crossroads transfer station, which led to a three-party dispute between the RSWA, BFI and van der Linde over application of a $16 service contribution fee. However, BFI must continue to receive solid waste from Charlottesville under the same terms until June 30, 2010, according to the terms of the settlement.
 
“That’s a much easier way of dealing with it than to try and bring the city into a  settlement agreement, because the city was not a party to the lawsuit,” says Frederick.
 

At present, the RSWA is soliciting requests for proposals for the transfer, hauling, disposal and recycling of solid waste, with a submission deadline of March 2. Charlottesville City Council plans to evaluate the costs of proposals during a work session in April. 

C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.

Categories
News

Evergreen, or just lucky?

Hey Ace: Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed an oak tree on the 250 bypass (heading east, on the left side of the McIntire Park interchange) that is still green and full of leaves. Driving west, it’s more of a greenish-brown. How does this happen in January, especially considering the winter we’ve been having?—Oak-K-Commuter-in-Charlottesville

 
The tree you’ve described sounds a lot like the Quercus virginiana, otherwise known as the southern live oak or Virginian live oak, an evergreen species endemic to the southeastern United States, and which Georgia (go figure) claims as its state tree.
 
Typically growing to 50 feet and often spanning three times that range, specimens of Q. virginiana have been known to survive for centuries. Consider, for example, the behemoth Angel Oak of Johns Island, South Carolina, standing 65 feet tall with a trunk diameter of nine feet, and estimated to be over 1400 years old. You can credit the live oak’s resiliency to flexibility of growth, a low water requirement, and a notoriously strong constitution capable of withstanding flooding, hurricanes, and even fire. 
 
This is why the USS Constitution—christened in 1797 and, as of 2010, still in active service—features a hull composed chiefly of southern live oak, cut and milled from Gascoigne Bluff on St. Simons island in Georgia, and won public renown during the War of 1812 as “Old Ironsides.” An honorary distinction, to be sure, but why no hat-tip to the tree itself? “Old Oaksides” might not strike the dread-inspiring chord that would befit an 18th century warship, but it has a certain antique, old-man-of-the-river ring to it—arguably more appropriate to the Constitution’s contemporary relic status. 
 
Look, if you’re going to fool around with live oak, you might as well think long-term.
 
You can ask Ace yourself. Intrepid investigative reporter Ace Atkins has been chasing readers’ leads for 21 years. If you have a question for Ace, e-mail it to ace@c-ville.com. 

Anchorage Farm body, still unidentified, found 19 minutes from JPJ

A skeletal female body was found this morning in a remote part of Anchorage Farm, on Route 29 south of the I-64 interchange. Police have not identified the remains yet, but the parents of Morgan Harrington, who has been missing since October 17, when she was last seen in the vicinity of the John Paul Jones Arena, are reportedly on the scene. A press conference is expected at 5 p.m. with the Virginia State Police.

Anchorage Farm is just over 10 miles from JPJ, a journey by car of about 19 minutes.

 


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NEW C-VILLE COVER STORY: In jobs we trust?

We’ve been hearing about them for years: Eight-hundred twenty-eight employees descending on Albemarle County like a swarm of locusts. But these locusts will be a boon, not a plague, sowing a luscious bounty. This week’s cover story explores one important question surrounding our area’s development: Will the DIA deliver the high-paying government work that’s expected? Read the story here, and don’t forget to leave comments.

Flooding and flash-flood warnings close local roads, schools

Well, at least it’s warm! This morning, Brad Savage of 106.1 The Corner announced that today’s high temperature would peak at 55 degrees—although he said it was 62 at the time. And temperature isn’t the only thing that’s coming down.

The Charlottesville website reports rainfall totaling between 2" and 4" with a flood warning in effect until 2pm. An e-mail from Albemarle County Community Relations Director Lee Catlin states that "approximately 30 roads in the area are currently impacted by heavy rainfall." In the city, those roads include McIntire Road at Harris Street, Old Ivy Road at the intersection with Ivy Road, and High Street at Meade Avenue. In the county, multiple sections of Langhorne Road near Route 20 and south of Route 6, Plank Road near North Garden, and several more—check a complete list at the Charlottesville Newsplex website.

Still with us, kids? Good, because a load of schools are shutting doors for the day, and many are simply keeping ’em closed for a few more hours. Check the list!

And, while you’re at it, leave some helpful tips for fellow travelers below. Any spots particularly bad near you? Let us know.

UVA ceases publication of annual yearbook, Corks and Curls

According to The Cavalier Daily, the University of Virginia has ceased publication of its annual yearbook, Corks and Curls. Cav Daily writer Kelly Kirschner paraphrases former staff member Whitney Stivey, who comments that the yearbook "began to experience financial problems in 2003, falling further into debt each year as the publication struggled with student apathy." UVA Today’s news blog mentions the yearbook’s demise here.

Corks and Curls was first published in 1888. The name, according to the UVA Dean of Students website, is from two vernacular terms that essentially mean "to be very wrong" and "to be very right," respectively.

On an interesting sidenote, the New York Times site features a PDF file of an article dated May 19, 1912, that announces the annual release of Corks and Curls. The article covers stats released in the 1912 yearbook, from the academic averages of fraternities and different schools at UVA to the highest average in a year’s study (98.3 percent, for those wondering).

Whether the decision to do away with the yearbook is a "cork" or a "curl" among students and staff is yet to be determined. What do you think?

 

 

Kevin Everson wins cash, Cheap Trick at cost, and 2009

And a good afternoon to you.

  • Bystanders at Cheap Trick’s Friday night show at the Jefferson Theater reported that the band was giving away its latest CD, called The Latest. It wants you to want it. Nuff said.
  • A very nice surprise at the Tea Bazaar on Friday night came in the form of Eternal Summers, a drum and guitar duo from Roanoake, who played a concise and gratifying set. Charlottesville’s own Drunk Tigers later took the stage, sans bassist, and proved that even if they’re not the most fun band in town—though they might be—they certainly have the most fun on stage. Just as winter sets in, seems that Virginia is beginning to cash in on the summer love that’s making the blog rounds.
  • Some shiny happy news for two local artists this weekend. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts awarded $8,000 professional fellowships to filmmaker and UVA professor Kevin Everson, whose feature Erie showed at the Virginia Film Festival in November; and Janet Grahame, a mixed-media visual artist, who specializes in printmaking and is based at McGuffey Art Center. Christopher Oliver, a PhD candidate at UVA, won a $6,000 student grant for art history. Congratulations—and spend wisely, folks.
  • The flow of local Best Of 2009 lists staunches to a trickle as January comes to an end. But two lists from last week are worth noting. First, WTJU’s esteemed jazz team posted their best of 2009 list last week here. (Scroll down for that.) For those of us who don’t know much about jazz (aside from the fact that it’s sometimes grating, sometimes soothing and often involves horns) the list is a convenient foray into modern jazz—much of which doesn’t fit into those criteria listed above. Mentioned among the lists are locals Robert Jospe, Jay Pun and Morwenna Lasko, and Corey Harris. Shout if I’ve missed another local. Also worth looking at is James Ford’s, of the infamous Nailgun blog, best of ’09 list, which includes some other tasty treats that may lie outside your frame of reference.