Month: March 2022

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News

Around the riverbend

Gabe Silver, co-owner of the Rivanna River Company, says recreating on the river is a great way to get to know nature. Photo: Tom McGovern

There are no leaves on the trees, but signs of spring are visible at the Rivanna River. A dozen turtles sit on a log on the riverbank, their shells bluish, almond-shaped dots from a distance.

“What really has inspired us all along is just the wildness that’s accessible right from the city,” says Gabe Silver, co-owner of Rivanna River Company, which rents kayaks, tubes, and other river equipment. “Great blue heron, green heron—people see river otters right in city limits on the Rivanna. We have bald eagles that nest on the river right outside of town.” 

Recently, more and more people have joined these critters. Silver reports that the pandemic “drove a really significant jump” in river usage, and that interest has remained high. The same dynamic has been visible across the region—1.7 million people visited Shenandoah National Park in 2020, a 17 percent increase from 2019. 

On this Sunday afternoon, one of the year’s first truly warm days, squeals of joy can be heard from the playground in Riverview Park, and an intrepid young swimmer is splashing around in the river’s rocky shallows as a parent watches from the orangey-brown dirt of the bank. 

The high level of interest makes the river’s health and accessibility all the more important. In January, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission released an 86-page Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan, packed full of recommendations for the river’s future. Both Charlottesville and Albemarle officially approved the plan in February. The river has flowed through the central Virginia hills for thousands of years—what will it take to keep it healthy for the next thousand?

Clams and worms and mayflies, oh my

“If you’re looking at just water quality, the river is impaired for biological health,” says Lisa Wittenborn, executive director of the Rivanna Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to clean and protect the river. 

Her group, staffed by an enthusiastic corps of volunteers, tests the river’s biodiversity and bacteria levels multiple times per year. They monitor the presence of tiny river creatures—larva of dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, stoneflies, plus clams and worms and crayfish and more—to see how the river is doing. Right now, “the little organisms that live in the river don’t have the diversity and abundance that we would like to see,” she says, and the bacteria levels are higher than ideal. 

Water quality issues can be exacerbated if people litter and behave badly when they visit the river, but it’s the built environment around the water, rather than the recreational swimmers and boaters, that is most responsible. Four miles of river runs along the eastern edge of the city, and the river’s watershed covers 769 square miles, from the western edge of Albemarle County all the way through Fluvanna. From its headwaters in the Shenandoah, the river eventually feeds into the James and then the Chesapeake Bay.

“In such an urban system, with a lot of impervious surfaces, rainfall hits the ground and runs off immediately into our stormwater system, into our streams, and into the river,” says Wittenborn. Fast moving rainwater increases the amount of sediment in the stream, which makes it hard for river creatures to see and eat. The runoff also “picks up things like dog waste and trash, and washes those into the waterways. And that’s where a lot of the bacteria issues are coming from,” she says. 

Despite these issues, Wittenborn says the data suggests that the conservationists are “holding the line.” A recent analysis of the last 15 years of biological data didn’t reveal many trends, suggesting that the river’s water quality issues aren’t getting worse. 

“Actually, in four areas we identified places where the stream health scores had improved, statistically,” Wittenborn says. The group was able to connect those healthier locations to specific restoration projects and upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant. “All of those things seem to have made improvements in the stream health conditions downstream, so that was very encouraging.”

It’s difficult to come up with long-term solutions for these water-quality issues, since the area isn’t going to get less developed as time passes. Still, Wittenborn says, there are things people can do on their own properties to limit the amount of harmful runoff hitting the water. She encourages planting rain gardens or collecting rainwater in barrels. And larger developments should install bioretention areas, “big rain gardens that allow the water to collect and infiltrate down into the ground rather than running off.”

“Everything we do in the watershed is affecting the health of the river,” she says. “So we need people to think about what they’re doing in their own backyard, and how that is affecting our waterways. Because it all compounds.”

According to data from the Rivanna Conservation Alliance, recent projects have
improved the river’s water quality in a few spots. Photo: Jack Looney

Touching the river

With Charlottesville’s next sweltering summer approaching, more and more people will be drawn toward the water. 

“We have been open now for six years,” says Silver. “In that time, we have seen a steady increase in the usage of the river recreationally, with on-the-water recreation, but also on trails and recreation adjacent to the river.”

As that interest continues to flow, it’s crucial that everyone can safely and easily access the water.

“To some extent, the public resources for enabling recreation on and around the river haven’t really caught up with the demand, or have never kept pace with the demand,” Silver says. Parking lots at Riverview and Darden Towe parks fill up, it’s not always easy to reach those places on public transportation, and the river’s steep banks make it difficult to get down to the water. 

When the Rivanna River Company, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance, and the city worked together to install a better water access point at Riverview Park, it “instantly became a place for people to go with kids and families to just wade around and play in the river, and touch the river,” Silver says. “We need more spots like that. It’s free, it’s always there in the summer when it’s hot, it can be a great place for kids to get to know nature, get to know rivers,” he says.

From the perspective of outdoor recreation, Silver isn’t yet concerned about human overuse. In an urban river corridor like this, “summer Saturdays being busy with human beings playing on the water is pretty typical,” he says. “If you go upriver or downriver from that main stretch between Darden Towe and Riverview Park, you still find, I think, a fairly peaceful experience.” 

Moving forward, “It’s worth thinking about [how to] leverage the interest and enthusiasm for the Rivanna into caretaking for the Rivanna,” Silver says. His company is helping to organize Rivanna RiverFest on May 1, which will feature food trucks, live music, and opportunities to learn more about the river’s past and present.

“I think all of us in the outdoor recreation world want to believe that there is a connection between using a natural resource and coming to care for it both in our hearts and in our actions,” he says. “We can continue to work on ways to connect the dots for people who are newly using the river.”

Planning for the future

The Urban Rivanna Corridor Plan aims to “build a vision and develop an action plan for the urbanized section of the Rivanna River,” according to the report. Sandy Shackelford, director of planning and transportation at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, says the plan was created to facilitate coordination between the Charlottesville and Albemarle governments when it comes to policymaking in the Rivanna area.

The document doesn’t dictate which stretches of the banks are best for new development. “The local Land Use plans and the Comprehensive Plans have already identified where the development and redevelopment is appropriate,” Shackelford says. “We’re not changing that. But where development and redevelopment is already allowed, there are ways to do that with greater context sensitivity and awareness of environmental impacts.”

Since 2014, the planning agency has been researching the river and conducting community outreach in order to create a set of recommendations for the city and county.

The goals fall into a handful of different categories. The Environmental Protection section includes aims like “Encouraging the use of locally native plants for landscaping at parks and businesses,” and “Identifying and protecting the most sensitive biological and ecological areas by limiting access and installing signage.” In the Multi-Purpose Trails and Bridges section, the planning commission recommends “Providing seating areas at regular intervals along trails throughout the corridor.” In Development and Redevelopment, the report urges the city and county to “maximize the environmental sustainability and context sensitivity of new development.” The plan also encourages the localities to apply for grants to fund some of these initiatives.

In February, Charlottesville’s City Council amended the city’s Comprehensive Plan to include the Urban Rivanna Corridor Plan. Albemarle, currently in the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan, saw its Board of Supervisors endorse the plan and direct staff to consider it as the new Comprehensive Plan is ironed out.

Supporting the plan doesn’t mean its recommendations have become law, or even guarantee that the localities will follow the plan’s proposed course of action. “It doesn’t necessarily commit resources,” Shackelford says, “But it does give additional weight to staff being able to pursue some of these resources. That could be things like applying for grants or prioritizing work programs, or things like that.”

Shackelford says the planners tried to include realistic, short-term goals. Installing erosion control and flood prevention infrastructure like fencing along the bank could go into a parks department work plan “at a fairly low cost,” she says, and could have a big impact on the river’s health.

In some areas, like transportation, the plan recommends additional study. “We tried to think about things from an equity lens,” Shackelford says, “Things like increasing access by different modes of transportation, and thinking about who is going to have access to the park.”

She also points out that the river’s historic resources are not adequately cataloged. The report offers a cursory history of the river: Monacan Indians live throughout the region, and their historic capital, Rassawek, was located on the Rivanna, about 30 miles southeast of the city. In the antebellum era, enslaved laborers worked on plantations along the river’s banks. In the 19th century, Woolen Mills and Union Mills developed into major economic engines for the region. “So much local history happened around this really small section of the river corridor,” Shackelford says, and additional research will be required to ensure that history is well told. 

From here, Shackelford says the next phase is creating an even more detailed master plan, with specific projects and cost estimates from engineers. Responsibility for undertaking some of the more complicated recommendations laid out in the plan lies with the area’s municipal governments. 

“I thought the recommendations were great,” says Wittenborn. “I think the real question is just, are they going to be implemented? It doesn’t matter if you don’t follow through.”

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Arts Culture

Pick: Richmond Ballet

The Richmond Ballet performs four short works at PVCC's V. Earl Dickinson Theater. Supplied photo

Splendor on stage: In four distinctive works, the Richmond Ballet showcases what ballet can be in the 21st century. The State Ballet of Virginia executes classical choreographies alongside new works beginning with George Balanchine’s joyous and sprightly Allegro Brillante, followed by Ben Stevenson’s intimate Three Preludes and Colin Connor’s romantic Vestiges. The company finishes with Glare, an uplifting original from Richmond Ballet Associate Artistic Director Ma Cong.

Wednesday 3/9. $17-23, 7:30pm. PVCC’s V. Earl Dickinson Theater, 501 College Dr. pvcc.edu

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Arts Culture

Pick: A Promise to Grow

Local author Marc Boston appears at Dairy Market on March 15. Supplied photo

Growth spurt: Local author Marc Boston writes stories for young people that emphasize the importance of diversity and inclusion. His newest picture book, A Promise to Grow, was created in partnership with area nonprofit City of Promise, which works to end generational poverty and foster a culture of achievement in all kids. Set in Charlottesville’s Westhaven community, the story follows CJ, whose pride in his neighborhood and kind heart move him to create a community garden. The book’s foreword tells a child-friendly, yet candid version of the loss of Vinegar Hill, and the afterword, written by Andrea Douglas and Jordy Yager, discusses pivotal moments and figures in the community’s history, including John West, a formerly enslaved man who became a civic leader. Following a reading by Boston, the community will work together to create a mural that will be displayed at Dairy Market.

Tuesday 3/15. Free, 4pm. Dairy Market’s Brick Cellar. dairymarketcville.com

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Arts Culture

Color rush

Charlottesville’s Priscilla Whitlock and Richmond-based artist Mary Holland complement each other’s work in a dual exhibition at Quirk Gallery. Photo courtesy of the artists

As daily temps start to climb, and we await the vibrant colors of spring, Quirk Gallery offers a visually stunning show celebrating the work of two artists, Priscilla Whitlock and Mary Holland, whose work is guaranteed to lift winter’s gray grip. 

Whether producing vignettes of her garden, open meadows, or mountain vistas, Whitlock’s “Eden” conveys with paint the essence of a place—not just its physical manifestation, but also the experience of being there. She clearly revels in depicting nature, and her manipulation of paint and her lively gestural style expose a deep appreciation for the purely visual aspects of painting, too.

The trio “Spring, Greens,” “Goldenrod Thistles” and “Wild Field, Mustard” are heady depictions of a world in full bloom. The paintings buzz with life. Whitlock captures the effects of nature—wind, shifting light and shadow, and the sense of ever-present insects—to reflect this bombinating sensation, but her painterly approach infuses the works with vitality. With “Spring, Greens,” Whitlock zooms in beyond the vegetation depicted in the other two works and emphasizes the riotous sensual quality of the place as a whole.

“Dogwoods, Spring Mountain” has an entirely different mood. Its muted colors suggest dawn or dusk, a quieter, more somber time. In the work, a vista of mountains rises above a grove of dogwood trees. The mountains are rendered in broad mauve and blue brushstrokes. Whitlock uses jagged lines to describe variations in the terrain, but for the most part this area has a distinct serenity as compared to the foreground. Visually, this situates the mountains in the distance, but it also fittingly depicts their grandeur and permanence. In front, the trees of the title are animated with wind and light. They seem to bend and twist before our eyes, brought to life by Whitlock’s adept handling of the paint. 

Photo courtesy of the artists

With the showy “Bee Balm, My Garden” and “Blues, Pinks, Whites, My Garden,” Whitlock ventures closer to the world of abstract painting. Yes, these works are representations of plants in the patch of earth by her studio, but how she arranges her composition and the way she applies paint demonstrate an emphasis on the formal aspects of painting. Just look at the riotous blobs of pigment in “Blues, Pinks, Whites,” and the daubs of scarlet, green, and blue overlaid with the scrawl of oil stick in “Bee Balm.” 

Like her paintings, Whitlock’s monotypes (unique images printed from a plate that has been painted by the artist) are about putting pigment down on a flat surface. These delightful, small-scale works possess a thrilling freshness and dynamism that holds its own against the larger works. “Flow,” “Spring, Peaches” and “Orchard, Spring” are visually striking examples, but I was particularly taken with the perfectly balanced “Water, Blues” and “My Garden.”

Whitlock has been producing monotypes for years. “I’ve stayed with it so long because it’s like playing another instrument,” she says. “You see something new that you wouldn’t have if you just stuck to your primary medium.”

At the other end of the gallery hangs Holland’s “Compositions in Blue: Cyanotype.” Cyanotype is a photographic printing process discovered in the mid-19th century that uses paper coated with a photo-sensitive solution and sunlight to produce an image of a stencil or object. The indigo hue produced by the cyanotype process has profound emotional resonance. Whether it strikes primordial chords within our subconscious, referencing natural phenomena like the night sky or deep water, this bold yet quiet color has an undeniably mysterious and romantic quality.

In 14 works, Holland takes full advantage of this. The reduced palette of blue and white sets off her striking arrangements of both natural and manufactured objects. Some of these she leaves as is. With others, she introduces collage and watercolor, occasionally adding the bling of silver foil to augment the white.

Holland’s assortments of leaves lend themselves well to the cyanotype technique. The veiny beech frond skeletons of “Forest Bathing,” the silvery disks of “Money Plant,” and the graphic power of the fan-shaped leaf blades in “Gingko Pattern,” all present a different kind of foliage. Holland’s approach reveals an affinity for the individual qualities of each specimen. With the first two, she employs collage to enhance the basic thrust of the work, adding silver to underscore the mica-like money plant pods and inserting silver hands in the allegorical “Forest Bathing.” When it comes to the distinctive gingko leaves, she adds nothing, deeming the rhythm of their silhouette powerful enough. 

In other pieces, Holland turns to the world of handicrafts, using antique lace doilies, placemats, and embroidered handkerchiefs as her subjects. These are poetic works that highlight the intricacy of needlework and the filmy quality of fabric. Against the blue field, these stark white pieces are transformed to reveal works of intricate design and superb workmanship. One can’t help thinking about the anonymous creators of these bits of needlework. 

“I think women’s work is undervalued,” says Holland. “Especially old crochet, and lace, and all these things women did. You can pick them up at junk shops and vintage places for very little, which is amazing when you think how beautiful they are and the amount of time that was put into them.” Holland gives these pieces a second chance and shines new light into their origins.

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Arts Culture

Direct miss

Oscar-nominated disaster film Don’t Look Up, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, is a comedy that takes itself too seriously. Photo: Netflix

In Adam McKay’s satire Don’t Look Up, astronomy grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover a “planet-killing” comet that’s hurtling toward Earth. Aided by NASA official Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), our heroes bravely try to warn the world. As the news breaks, backwards mobs vehemently deny the comet’s existence, and these three Cassandras desperately struggle to prevent doomsday. What all this amounts to is a ham-handed allegory about climate change, undone by its preachy, self-congratulatory tone, which constantly reminds the audience this is a very important film. In reality, its recent Academy Award nomination in the Best Picture category hardly reflects the actual film. For an alleged comedy, Don’t Look Up takes itself way too seriously.

The issues the film confronts are important: America’s rampant greed, misguided priorities, sick obsession with celebrity, overdependence on technology, scientific illiteracy, and—metaphorically—global warming. But tackling substantial topics doesn’t inherently give a movie substance. This story about whistleblowers blasts a shrill and persistent whistle.

Moreover, Don’t Look Up really isn’t saying anything new, in terms of either cultural commentary or science fiction. Its runaway comet concept is a deathless chestnut in genre films and literature, in everything from When Worlds Collide to Greenland. Parodying that sub-genre could be very funny, but here the humor is bludgeoning. Ultimately, Don’t Look Up plays like an overlong, half-baked episode of “Black Mirror,” with little of that series’ scathing intensity.

Don’t Look Up has been compared to Stanley Kubrick’s apocalyptic comedy Dr. Strangelove, which is stretching a point. What Kubrick accomplished tightly in just over an hour-and-a-half, this film doesn’t come close to matching in its draggy two hours and 25 minutes.

There’s a gag Kubrick belabored in Dr. Strangelove: a sign reading Peace is Our Profession at the Air Force base where World War III is triggered. Don’t Look Up has similar weak spots—the flick stridently overworks various on-the-nose satirical jabs about why our heroes can barely get anyone to listen or actually mobilize the world to overcome the grave problem at hand.

DiCaprio and Lawrence are both good. Melanie Lynskey is excellent as DiCaprio’s put-upon wife, and Tyler Perry is spot-on as a glib, glad-handing talk show host. Meryl Streep as the U.S. president and Cate Blanchett as Perry’s co-host are both arch and unfunny. Jonah Hill as the president’s son is, as his part demands, repulsive, but he doesn’t believably capture that character’s stupidity. And as a cartoonish military thug, Ron Perlman gamely does his best with a very broadly written role.

It’s Mark Rylance’s performance that steals the movie. As billionaire cell phone mogul Peter Isherwell, whose vast wealth blinds the public to his deep fallibility, Rylance skillfully hits all the right notes, from his simpering voice to his perpetual gameshow-host grin. Rylance flawlessly delivers Isherwell’s stream of messianic double-talk, which masks the dehumanization and invasiveness lurking behind his technology. If all of Don’t Look Up paid off like Rylance’s exceptional performance, it would be a superior film.

Most of the film’s ideas holler out for more skillful treatment. The cinematography gets needlessly jerky. There are self-indulgent montages that could have been better handled. During Oscar season, as you make your list of movies to watch before the awards show, don’t bother to look at Don’t Look Up.

Don’t Look Up

R, 145 minutes
Streaming (Netflix)

Categories
Arts Culture

McBride in stride

The Legend of Georgia McBride, Live Arts’ “celebration of divas and difference,” opens on March 4. Photo: Will Kerner

It’d be easy for a bunch of theater-minded folks to say to themselves, “I’m not part of the drag community, but I can put on a play about drag, no problem.”

That would be a trap, though, and one the Live Arts’ production team wants to avoid in its latest play, The Legend of Georgia McBride. The show, which tells the story of an Elvis impersonator who attempts to become a drag queen to make a living, opens at the Water Street theater on March 4.

“The biggest challenge we took on from the get-go was making sure we were stepping into this in an authentic way,” says director Perry Medlin, who’s helmed three shows for Live Arts and many others at Tandem Friends School, where he teaches theater and public speaking. “None of the company has had a great deal of experience in drag, so we wanted to make sure we were coming to this from a place where we were able to learn about what that culture involves and to honor it, not just imitate it.”

Enter Jason Elliott, a former drag queen and current model and public speaker. Live Arts and the Georgia McBride team recruited Elliott as a production consultant, and Medlin says Elliott’s ability to “take that world and put it onstage” has been critical to developing the show’s authenticity.

The Legend of Georgia McBride, written by Matthew Lopez and winner of multiple awards, will be the third show in Live Arts’ current six-play season. The company is trying not only to recover its stage legs post-pandemic, but also integrate a new artistic director’s vision. Susan Evans, who joined Live Arts last June, said presenting inclusive shows with a variety of perspectives would be central to her mission. “More voices need to be heard,” she told C-VILLE in October.

The show will feature five cast members changing in and out of more than 50 costumes. It lines up with the theme of the company’s annual fundraiser—this year, Elliott will host the fundraiser on March 20. Marketer and Design Coordinator Katie Rogers calls it a “big, boozy brunch and live drag show.”

The Legend of Georgia McBride will be the company’s annual mentor/apprentice show, too. Live Arts’s mentor/apprentice program has been giving high school students the chance to participate in community theater for at least a decade, according to Education Director Miller Susen. The program invites students to act as production team apprentices in one mainstage show per year, typically drawing eight to 10 student volunteers and assigning them to areas of their choosing. This year, six high schoolers will apprentice in stage management and scenic, props, lighting, sound, and costume design.

Susen says the mentor/apprentice program has brought countless students back to Live Arts over the years to volunteer on later productions, as well as helping push others on to drama school and even theater careers. That benefits Live Arts, but it’s also good for the theater community in general, according to Susen.

“We have a great group of apprentices on Georgia, and we are delighted to have people finding their way back to Live Arts,” she says. “It’s been a difficult time for theater, so that’s really important.”

What can folks who come to see The Legend of Georgia McBride expect? Medlin calls the show “a huge number with so many moving parts.” In addition to those 50-plus costumes, the production boasts extensive setwork, props, and technical lighting and sound—all great opportunities for those high school apprentices.

“The thing I love about this show is it is this great big drag extravaganza, but at its heart it is a story about somebody who wants to be better and meet the people around them,” Medlin says. “It’s that core of humanity amidst the feathers and the bangles…that make the show interesting for the audience.”

As the five Georgia McBride cast members—Brandon Bolick as the lead, plus Danait Haddish, Marc Schindler, Randy Risher, and Jude Hansen—move around the stage and (hopefully) perform without a hitch, Medlin says it’s important to remember just how many people are working behind the scenes to make it possible.

Oh, and he suggests remembering one more thing: “Don’t forget to tip your drag queens. They get mad when you don’t.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Pick: Sacred Music of Monticello

Sacred Music of Monticello features Brianna Robinson, Patrick Dailey, and James Dargan. Supplied photos

Seeds of the soul: The community of enslaved people who lived and worked at Monticello developed musical traditions that influenced American music for centuries. Sacred Music of Monticello presents a program juxtaposing spirituals associated with Monticello’s enslaved people with a modified version of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, a composition found in the library at Thomas Jefferson’s home. The program features soprano Brianna Robinson and countertenor Patrick Dailey, as well as the world premiere of spirituals arranged by baritone James Dargan.

Sunday 3/6. $10-25, 7:30pm. Christ Episcopal Church, 120 W. High St. earlymusiccville.org

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Arts Culture

Pick: Jennifer Niesslein

Jennifer Niesslein celebrates the release of her new collection of essays at New Dominion Bookshop. Supplied photo

Don’t look back in anger: What does it mean to be nostalgic for the American past? To be sentimental for your own family history? Jennifer Niesslein tackles these questions and more with humor and charisma in her new collection of essays, Dreadful Sorry, from the perspective of a liberal white woman. She reflects on her hand-to-mouth childhood, her Polish immigrant ancestors, and her working-class upbringing, while tackling topics like class, whiteness, and her family’s own racism.

Saturday 3/5. Free, 7pm. New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com

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News

Wrap it up

A collection of private citizens pooled cash to pay for a vinyl wrap on the exterior of the abandoned Dewberry Hotel. Photo: Eze Amos

Charlottesville’s gargantuan downtown eyesore, the half-finished and abandoned Dewberry Hotel, got a face-lift last week—the front and back of the building have been sheathed in a colorful nine-story vinyl wrap showing an abstract pattern of musical instruments. 

The art installation was funded by Friends of Cville Downtown, a new nonprofit working on “an array of projects that can invigorate the downtown environment with lights, art, paintings, seating, events, banners, sanitation,” and more, said Michael Caplin, co-chair of the group, at a Monday press conference in front of the artwork. 

The wrap, which leaves the building’s sides exposed, “demonstrates the power and the glory and the value of art,” Caplin continued. “We thank the Dewberries for allowing us to use their giant easel.”

Those hoping for answers on the long-term future of the building left the press conference disappointed. The owners of the property, Atlanta-based developer John Dewberry and his wife Jaimie, were scheduled to attend the event but did not appear. Caplin said the couple had been exposed to a positive COVID case over the weekend and were in quarantine. 

The building bearing the Dewberry name has stood dormant since 2009. The project was initially conceived as the Landmark Hotel by developers Lee Danielson and Halsey Minor, but financial difficulties and litigation ground progress on the building to a halt. Dewberry purchased the half-finished building skeleton at auction for $6.25 million in 2012, and no construction has taken place since then. 

The Dewberry Group’s website says the building “is poised to become the city’s premier luxury mixed-use retail, office, and residential property,” and will be called Dewberry Living.

Caplin said the idea for the art installation came from local businesspeople, and when he presented the idea to the Dewberries, they enthusiastically green-lit the project. Two paintings from artist Eric Waugh were enlarged and printed on 13-foot-wide vinyl mesh rolls, which were carried to the top of the building and then affixed to its exterior by workers rappelling down the side of the tower. The wrap is scheduled to remain in place for 14 to 16 months.

Mayor Lloyd Snook was in attendance to pull a tarp off the sign on the front of the building. “It is really exciting for me to know that we have such commitment from the private sector to match the kind of commitment we’ve been trying to display from the public sector,” Snook said.

The mayor admitted he doesn’t have any “inside information” about the future of the building, but “the fact that we’re here with the Dewberries’ support” makes him hopeful that more news could follow.  

The installation is comprised of 12 banners and a 130-foot wrap around the building’s base, and cost $45,000 in total.

The project’s “anchor donors” include major Charlottesville developers Ludwig Kuttner, Hunter Craig, Keith Woodard, and others. Many of those donors sit on the executive committee of Friends of Cville Downtown, along with other local entrepreneurs like Joan Fenton, owner of J. Fenton Gifts, and Alex Bryant, executive director of IX Art Park. The group absorbed the former Downtown Business Association, a collection of merchants and restaurateurs with a similar mission to the new organization.  

Caplin says the group plans to unveil more murals near the Dewberry in the coming days, and is also financing a new coat of paint for the chipped-up exterior of Oyster House Antiques. 

The Dewberry Foundation, the charitable component of Dewberry’s business, has made a $10,000 donation to the nonprofit, says Caplin, and is listed on the building’s exterior as a sponsor of the project. 

As a percentage of its annual budget, $10,000 is a major outlay for the Dewberry Foundation. According to the company’s 990 IRS returns, the only contributor to the foundation in 2019 was John Dewberry, who put in $100,000. The only employee listed is Dewberry, who apparently devotes five hours per week to the position. The foundation’s donations totaled $106,323, with the largest chunks headed for Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theater ($25,000) and the Children’s Museum of Atlanta ($16,000). The 2018 return tells a similar story, listing Dewberry as the sole contributor to the foundation, having given $125,000. 

(For comparison’s sake, we glanced at the 990s of a few other local big shots—John Grisham’s Oakwood Foundation gave $5,041,440 to charitable organizations in 2018, and the Chris Long Foundation dished out $1,852,376 in 2019.)

Kuttner was also in attendance at the event on Monday. (Caplin introduced the fedora-wearing developer as “the true mayor of Main Street,” which got a chuckle out of Lloyd Snook, the elected mayor.) “We, the citizens of Charlottesville, want to get the mall back,” said Kuttner. He expressed optimism about the state of affairs, and praised Dewberry’s work on a recently completed hotel in Charleston. 

Caplin says he hopes Dewberry will see his plan through to the end—“The energy at the Quirk [on West Main] shows you what a cool boutique hotel can generate.” In the meantime, a steel and concrete shell half-wrapped in vinyl will have to do.

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News

Moving forward

Council voted last week to pony up $625,000 to hire a consultant to draft a collective bargaining agreement for bus drivers, teachers, and other city employees. Photo: Martyn Kyle

For decades, local governments were prohibited from allowing their employees to unionize in Virginia. Since the General Assembly lifted this ban last year, Charlottesville’s firefighters, bus drivers, and teachers have urged City Council to pass an ordinance allowing collective bargaining for city employees. Though the councilors adopted a resolution last summer allowing former city manager Chip Boyles to draft an ordinance, Boyles’ resignation brought the process to a halt last fall. Frustrated with a lack of action, the Amalgamated Transit Union—representing Charlottesville Area Transit employees—proposed an ordinance to council in October.

Last week, council unanimously rejected the ATU ordinance, citing the city’s lack of research and preparation on the topic. Instead, councilors voted to allocate $625,000 to hire a consultant to draft a collective bargaining agreement in collaboration with city leadership.

Unlike other states, Virginia has yet to set up a statewide labor relations entity, which could provide guidance to municipalities as they draft collective bargaining ordinances, stressed Interim City Manager Michael Rogers. So far, only the City of Alexandria and Loudoun County have passed such ordinances.

“We are faced with the challenge of stepping forward without the pathway being clearly defined,” said Rogers. “We need some time here to put the infrastructure in place, so we can step out on our best foot and move forward with a collective bargaining infrastructure that will be beneficial to the employees, their representation, and to the city.”

Mayor Lloyd Snook reminded CAT employees that their ordinance would not get thrown “in the trash can,” and would be used as a framework. 

“I’m not in a position to say if this ordinance that’s been proposed to us is a good ordinance or bad ordinance—but it is something that folks who do know this sort of stuff would look at and say, ‘let’s consider that along with some other ideas,’” said Snook. 

The city plans to hire a consultant within 45 days. The consultant will aim to bring “a workable framework” to council in 90 days, said Rogers. 

Council will formally approve the allocation at its next meeting. In the coming weeks, Rogers will also propose his FY23 budget, which will include funding for additional collective bargaining staff.

In addition, councilors discussed bus drivers’ request to hold meetings inside CAT facilities during non-working hours. CAT Director Garland Williams told the drivers they needed permission from the city to do that, explained ATU representative John Ertl during public comment. 

Rogers suggested the city wait to respond to that request until it has “established this collective bargaining structure.” However, “we could make some accommodation for employees to meet off site—not at the worksite—to discuss among themselves what they need,” he said.

Meanwhile, local teachers are ramping up their collective bargaining efforts. Charlottesville organizers have talked with the majority of licensed professional staff in the district about unionizing, and plan to launch a union authorization card campaign this month. They hope to have enough support to get the city school board to pass a collective bargaining resolution before summer break, according to Charlottesville Education Association President Jessica Taylor.

In Albemarle County, teachers and staff have already started signing authorization cards, and have overall shown “a lot of great support so far at pretty much every site” for the union fight, says Albemarle Education Association President Vernon Liechti.

“We want to make sure that people who are on the frontlines are able to help our elected bodies make these jobs better,” adds Liechti.