Month: March 2010

 A disconnect between City Council and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) over the planned 250 Interchange may have negative implications for a timely construction of McIntire Road Extended (MRE), the city’s portion of the road that cuts through McIntire Park. And it all started with a letter Angela Tucker, city development services manager, sent to VDOT last November.

In her letter, Tucker wrote, “if the City elects not to move forward with the Interchange project, City Council will grant the necessary permission to complete the at-grade intersection as designed under the McIntire Road Extended project.”

Not so, according to Council’s response to VDOT. “City Council has taken the official position that the Council support for the McIntire Road Extended is specifically based on the construction of a grade-separated interchange at the U.S. 250 Bypass. Council has taken no position on an at-grade intersection,” wrote Mayor Dave Norris.  

Brent Sprinkel, VDOT’s preliminary engineering manager, then wrote to Council that the two letters “confused” the Army Corps of Engineers, the organization in charge of approving a permit considered the last hurdle before the construction of MRE. Because of the confusion, he says, the Corps has yet to sign the permit, thus putting advantageous bids on hold. 

Yet, Sprinkel tells C-VILLE that the city “has supported the at-grade connection for many years.” Norris disagrees. 

“It certainly is not the case that this Council or any recent Council has ever approved an at-grade intersection,” he says. 

After he received Council’s letter, Sprinkel responded and drafted a clarification letter to be sent to the Corps on behalf of City Council. In it, he too wrote that an at-grade intersection would be an “acceptable and realistic alternative.” It requires Norris’ signature. 

“Unless the majority of City Council decides ‘Yes, we will support an at-grade intersection as a fallback option,’ I can’t sign that letter,” says Norris. “I am not going to sign my name to something that’s not truthful.” 

VDOT has advertised bids for MRE and has received one for $3.37 million—more than $2 million below VDOT’s $5.58 million estimate—but with a delay, there are no guarantees the contractor will honor it. 

The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, in a recent letter to Council, also argued that a delay could hurt the chances of formalizing a favorable contract. The group also questioned Council’s idea of having City Attorney Craig Brown meet with MCP opponents. 

“Our letter was primarily about the change in direction by the City Council,” says Chamber President Timothy Hulbert. In the letter, the Chamber expressed “grave disappointment and concern” about actions that could “compromise” the road project. In the end, he says, “we want the road built.”  

Although Norris says Council is not worried about the bidding environment, he says that the controversy over the at-grade intersection was connected to the debate over the MCP’s segmentation. 

In addition to requiring environmental reports for all federal projects, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) also mandates aforementioned projects to have rational end points. 

“We ended up stopping our project just 775’ from the Bypass to make room for the Interchange and we have been moving under that scenario for several years trying to get these things under construction,” says Sprinkel. Technically, MCP comprises three separate projects, but its opponents—who are prepping for a possible federal suit—argue that that’s not the case.  

“There has been a lot of discussion and review on that for several years and the FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] has come out several times with rulings indicating that these are independent projects and they are not segmented,” says Sprinkel. “It’s just how the projects have developed over the 40 years.”

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 When he began leading the University of Virginia’s investment management firm, he oversaw roughly $2.5 billion in assets. More than five years and one Great Recession later, Chris Brightman, CEO of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company, resigned for “personal reasons,” with an endowment pool totaling $4.4 billion, according to a January 31 investment report.

“My five years serving the University were an honor and the highlight of my professional career,” said Brightman in a statement. “I regret that my personal situation prevents me from continuing to serve.”

Brightman oversaw UVA’s endowment in the throes of the economic downturn, when it plummeted from $5.1 billion in value in June 2008 to $4.2 billion in October 2008. Furthermore, UVA’s endowment fund lost 22.7 percent of its market value from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2009, according to a survey done by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute. 

The sharp decline was due in part to UVIMCO’s investments in private equity and hedge funds, a practice many universities with substantial endowment funds have undertaken in recent years. While the decline in endowment dollars somewhat strains UVA’s budget in the near term, UVA’s endowment only provides just north of 5 percent of the school’s total operating budget.

Former UVIMCO CFO Henry Kaelber told C-VILLE that mixing riskier investment practices with more conservative ones usually proves worthwhile in the long run.

“It’s always easy to slap people in a down market, especially if they’re an investment professional, but I think [UVIMCO] takes a really thoughtful approach,” said Kaelber, who worked at UVIMCO from 1997 to 2003.

Though he did say investing endowment dollars in more illiquid assets like private equity and hedge funds is a “bold strategy,” Kaelber also said it “wasn’t a bad idea,” either.

“I don’t look at university endowments as 70-year-old retiree money,” he said. “They have a unique advantage over most other long-term investors in that endowments’ time horizon is in perpetuity. Volatility is what should concern constituents of an endowment, not risk tasking.”

In addition, UVA officials pointed out in 2008 that UVIMCO’s losses were less severe than what the Standard & Poor 500 index hemorrhaged over the same time span.

UVA spokeswoman Carol Wood told

C-VILLE that Brightman did “an outstanding job of leading UVIMCO.” Wood would not comment on whether his departure was in any way linked to the arrival of Teresa Sullivan, who replaces John Casteen as UVA’s next president on August 1.

While UVA conducts a national search for Brightman’s replacement, current UVIMCO board member John Macfarlane will take over as chairman of the group’s investment committee. In addition, Leonard Sandridge, UVA’s executive vice president and COO, will assume Brightman’s administrative roles in the interim. Sandridge is slated to retire from his post in December.

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

 How long does it take to construct a state park? Look no further than Middle Peninsula State Park in Gloucester County. The 438-acre parkland was purchased in 2005 by the Commonwealth of Virginia, with money from a $119 million bond created in 2002 for land conservation and parkland acquisition. Nearly five years later, and the master planning process for Middle Peninsula is just getting underway.

Or, look a little bit further. 

Somewhere past Middle Peninsula State Park, you’ll spot Biscuit Run—the 1,200 acres purchased by developer Hunter Craig and Forest Lodge, LLC for $46.2 million in 2005, and sold to the Commonwealth of Virginia for $9.8 million and undisclosed tax credit at the end of 2009. According to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, it could take as long as two-and-a-half years before the master planning for Biscuit Run State Park is completed.

“It may be a matter of months, it may be a year, it may be more until we start the Biscuit Run master planning process,” says Gary Waugh, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (VDCR). 

That’s “start the planning process.” Waugh says that the planning process is very public and, in the case of a park like Biscuit Run, would involve an advisory committee likely composed of city and county officials, members of the Chamber of Commerce, adjacent landowners, and state departments of forestry and game. Waugh says that, “from the time you start talking about setting up the advisory committee to the time the director signs off on a completed master plan, [it] is about usually a 15- to 18-month window” before development may start.

In February, while the General Assembly hacked away at a budget, Governor Bob McDonnell shared recommendations for a reduction of $2.1 billion in spending—including the closure of five state parks. The park closures were not included in the budget bill passed by the General Assembly, and Waugh says that they are unlikely to be included in a final budget.

Nonetheless, money to develop new parks like Biscuit Run will be “hard to come by,” says Waugh.

“Which is one of the reasons, in addition to the existing workload, that we’re not really pushing to have a Biscuit Run master plan started tomorrow,” says Waugh. “Because the money’s just not there. Even if we got the master plan in place, it doesn’t look like the money would be there to develop it.”

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Elizabeth Breeden, with her late husband, David, sold the Biscuit Run land to Forest Lodge, LLC in 2005; her home sits on 36 acres in what she refers to as the “doughnut hole” of the state’s land.

“With this gift, as in every other department, a budget stretched thin is asked to take on another project,” says Breeden.

Since the Commonwealth purchased the land from Forest Lodge, Breeden says that people who speak with her “are totally gleeful that the land was saved from development.” She thinks differently: The Biscuit Run development, zoned for as many as 3,100 lots, is close to the center of Charlottesville, and proffers for the project included $5.5 million for bicycle lanes and widening of Route 20, among many others.

“To be genuinely green,” says Breeden, “you bring people closer to town.”

She takes a reporter on a 40-minute walk through the future state park, two of her dogs running down a hill to splash in the body of water Biscuit Run takes its name from. Breeden shares her ideas for the park—maybe dam up Biscuit Run to create a water attraction, ranked in a 2006 Virginia Outdoors survey as the most needed recreation opportunity in the state—and for her own land. Breeden’s 36 acres were rezoned as “Neighborhood Model” along with the Biscuit Run lots, and she says that she will “absolutely” look to develop her lot when the time is right.

“To me, that’s my children’s inheritance,” she adds.

Ultimately, Breeden calls the land’s future as a state park rather than a development a “missed opportunity.”

“In the long view,” she says, “I think development here was a good opportunity to stay condensed.”

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