After Oliver Kuttner left Charlottesville for Lynchburg, he told C-VILLE that our city’s southern neighbor doesn’t "get bogged down in the details."
"In Charlottesville…50 people have to agree before anything gets done," he said.
Now, the developer-turned-Automotive X Prize winner plans to keep from getting bogged down by a few of his Lynchburg holdings. On June 23, Kuttner will auction roughly one-third of his Lynchburg properties, assessed at a combined $2.74 million. The properties include warehouses, residential spaces and one restaurant. Lynchburg’s taxable properties will provide roughly $4.9 billion in revenue for the city this year, a number within one percent of 2010 assessments.
Among the Kuttner properties headed to auction is 1415 Kemper Street, current home to his Edison2 design team, which won the Automotive X Prize after it crafted a car that can travel 100 miles on one gallon of fuel. Last year, the Lynchburg News & Advance reported that Edison2 might relocate to a 157-acre industrial site in Campbell County. Kuttner told the paper that such a move would cost an estimated $4 million, and he expected to complete a purchase this year. A call to Edison2 was not immediately returned.