Celebrating theatrical works for the stage, Live Arts’ WATERWORKS Festival returns to downtown for its second iteration. The 2024 fest features pieces from local, national, and global playwrights, including one-acts, full-length performances, readings, and special events. An opening night reception and closing day wrap party bookend three weeks of theatrical excellence. The New Works section makes up the bulk of the festival, with 19 Live Arts-produced readings all helmed by local directors. The Spotlight Series presents three staged reading productions of developed scripts, each running one week. A night of local comedy and three educational workshops for community members round out the ambitious programming for this unique and expanding cultural affair.
Friday 5/17—6/2. $10–15, times, dates, and venues vary. Live Arts Theater, 123 E. Water St. livearts.org
Pulling into town this week, veterans of the jam band scene The String Cheese Incident take the stage at Ting Pavilion. For the past 30 years, the six-piece group from Colorado has been blending musical genres and blowing minds around the world. Now, SCI brings their legendary live-show experience to C’ville with a little twist. While their overall oeuvre can be called kaleidoscopic, their latest studio album tamps down the mashup aesthetic and turns up the notes of folk-rock. Get ready to hear brand new arrangements and jacked-up jams as the band expands and transforms their newest studio songs into on-stage standards.
Thursday 5/16. $54–69, 7pm. Ting Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. tingpavilion.com
Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is a major historic building in Charlottesville, but its grounds are also an active archeological site, where teams work to uncover the stories of enslaved people and ancestral Monacan in the area. Now, visitors can tour these sites themselves through this year’s Plantation Archaeology Walking Tour. To learn more, we spoke with Crystal O’Connor, an archeologist at Monticello. This interview has been edited for length.
What do you do at Monticello? I’m the archaeological field research manager, so I run and direct all of the archaeological fieldwork that takes place on the property. I’m out excavating, sometimes year-round, and recording layers of dirt that we see, collecting artifacts, and then getting that information back to our lab and our lab staff.
What makes working at Monticello different than working at some of these other historic sites? I think the landscape is one unique aspect of Monticello that other historic sites don’t have—the ornamental landscape, the agricultural working farm. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation owns half of Jefferson’s original 5,000 acres, so it’s a really unique opportunity to get to learn about the landscape in a way that other historic sites don’t or can’t because there’s subdivisions or housing developments that have gone up around their properties. We also have Jefferson. No other site has Jefferson, and to be able to study his architecture and the buildings that he had constructed is fascinating. And then I think we also have a really unique resource in our cataloging system, which is called DAACS. It’s the digital archaeological archive of comparative slavery. And it’s an online database that we put all of our records that we generate in the field into and all of our artifacts. Monticello gives us a really unique opportunity to learn about slavery in a way that other historic sites just aren’t quite there.
These walking tours that started, is this the first time that these have been available? Or has this been available previously? This is the second year of the archaeology department collaborating with the education department. [The guide team has] taken the materials that we’ve written and have added stories that help paint the picture a little better of what slavery was like here at Monticello during the time of the revolution. The tour ends at a site that dates to the 1770s and 1780s.
What path does the trail take and what can people look forward to? The walk travels down a historic roadway that enslaved laborers built probably in the early 19th century, and it’s a pretty level path. It’s downslope of Monticello, so the tour doesn’t visit the main house, or the mountaintop. We walk through what are now woods, but were once agricultural fields. This area was occupied by ancestral Monacan prior to European colonization. Slavery is something we’ve interpreted for decades at Monticello, but the pre- contact component is something that we’re hoping we can share with visitors more broadly with a visit to this site. [The Monocans’] ancestral homeland is about an hour south of here in Amherst County. Working collaboratively with them and working collaboratively with descendants through the Getting Word program here at Monticello, descendants of people whom Jefferson enslaved, it’s been a really rewarding experience to make this project and this tour collaborative.
For more information on the tours, which run through November, visit monticello.org.
Conceptualized 50 years ago, Charlottesville's Downtown Mall endures. Photo by Stephen Barling.
The Downtown Mall is a central feature of life in Charlottesville—a place where residents, locals, and students alike head for shopping, meals, drinks, and entertainment. But there’s more: At eight blocks, it’s one of the longest pedestrian malls in the country. Of about 200 pedestrian malls built in the 20th century, ours is one of only 30 that survive. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s also (word has it) the most popular tourist spot in the area, after Monticello.
And the Mall is a huge income generator for Charlottesville. According to Chris Engel, director of the city’s Office of Economic Development, an analysis from 2013 showed 17 percent of the city’s tax revenue from business license, meals, and sales taxes was derived from the Mall, which is only 3 percent of the city’s commercial area. “It’s reasonable to assume the percentage is similar in 2024,” he says.
But these are just data points. As the Mall approaches its 50th anniversary, I set out to explore its story.
Growing, growing, gone
There are still plenty of residents who remember the pre-Mall, small-town Charlottesville that in the 1950s saw people—and their dollars—heading to the suburbs. The new Barracks Road Shopping Center and others like it siphoned off the city’s shoppers and a large chunk of its tax revenues.
By 1959, the downtown business community knew drastic change was needed, and over the next decade various groups developed revitalization proposals which were hotly debated and repeatedly rejected. It’s a measure of how dire the situation must have been that in 1974, the Charlottesville City Council took a make-or-break decision: It approved a $4.1 million proposal to radically redesign the town’s heart. (The vote was a less-than-rousing 2-0; three of the councilors abstained due to opponents’ cries of potential conflict of interest.)
The proposed design was the work of internationally known landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, the designer of Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, the groundbreaking pedestrian/transit Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, and many other landmarks. Halprin’s human-scaled designs featured a free pedestrian flow combined with spaces for gathering, carefully placed trees to both shape and shade the walkway, and the use of water features and participatory fountains. It’s a tribute to the city’s business community and planners that a small college town took this ambitious step.
On July 3, 1976, the Downtown Mall was opened with the placement of a commemorative brick in front of the Central Place fountain. But that didn’t mean instant prosperity—the downtown area couldn’t be insulated from changes in consumer habits or national economic trends. By the 1990s, department stores Miller & Rhoads, Roses, and Leggett had moved, and Woolworth’s had gone out of business. Gradually, the Mall morphed from a business district (banks, law offices, stores) into an entertainment/cultural space.
The Mall evolves
Renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin created the proposed design for the pedestrian mall. Photo by Willi Walker.
In 1980, the first sidewalk café, The Muse, opened. The following year, Miller’s became the Mall’s first music venue and the city installed six steel sculptures by University of Virginia professor James Hagan. In 1988, the first Fridays After Five concert was staged; and six years later, the expansion of the Mall’s eastern end created a permanent stage for that event and others. The 1996 opening of Regal Cinemas (now Violet Crown) and the Charlottesville Ice Park (replaced by the C.O.D.E. Building) developed the Mall’s western end and drew more evening and weekend visitors.
It’s hard now to imagine that in the Mall’s early years, the Paramount Theater sat shuttered in its very center. The theater, a downtown feature since it opened in 1931, shut down in 1974. Julie Montross, the Paramount’s executive director, credits a 12-year effort by committed members of the community, working with the city government, to restore and reopen the old theater in 2004 as a nonprofit community cultural space. “It’s a huge benefit for our mission to be in the heart of things,” says Montross. (Andy Pillifant, the Paramount’s director of communications, maintains that the Paramount’s blade sign, finally restored in 2015, is the third most photographed object in Charlottesville after Monticello and the Rotunda. Hard to prove, but believable.)
Another Mall success factor: By the 1990s, Halprin’s trees had matured. Mall observers credit that overhead canopy with creating a real sense of place—as well as shade that made people want to linger.
Speed bumps
This is not to say there weren’t ups and downs along the way. Convenience and habit kept most UVA students on the Corner, and until West Main was revitalized, there was no real connection between Grounds and the downtown area. Linnea Revak (a UVA grad, class of 2010) who now owns Darling + Dashing on the Mall, says, “When I was an undergrad, students never walked up Main Street.”
Beth Meyer, an architecture professor at UVA, was involved in the 2008 debate over how to renovate the Downtown Mall. Photo by Sanjay Suchak/UVA University Communications.
By 2008, 30-plus years of wear and tear on the area’s lighting, water features, and pavement was showing. The Council’s consideration of a $7.5 million renovation project led to heated debates about time, cost, and the nature of the Mall itself. Beth Meyer, a professor in UVA’s School of Architecture, was one of those who got drawn into the debate.
“Halprin’s design was so brilliant, minimalist with its flowerpots and lights and trees. It’s an outdoor living room,” she says. “Some people understood Halprin was important; others thought [honoring the original design] was a huge waste of money.”
Meyer and others argued for restoring some of Halprin’s features that had been cut—the large fountain, play spaces for children—but in many instances, budget won over design. Re-laying the brick pavement, after another protracted debate, was done in sections over the winter of 2008-2009 so as not to close the Mall entirely. Unfortunately, the project coincided with a national recession, and many businesses were hit hard.
Once again, the Mall’s fortunes recovered—and then came August 11 and 12, 2017, when a deadly white nationalist protest struck the city. Those shocking events did spur a rallying of the community to support Mall businesses. But the trauma made itself felt in years of city government dysfunction.
The next punch was COVID-19. With the pandemic shutdown, businesses on the Mall had to pivot. Retail moved online, restaurants launched takeout, stores started delivery services. The Paramount was one of the few that stayed open. “It was important to us that the lights stayed on,” says Pillifant, so the theater hosted small-group events or created social distancing by taping photos of past performers to nine out of every 10 seats.
The shutdown resulted in a series of closings, especially among smaller businesses, and created an impression among many residents that the area was struggling. In fact, according to the City’s semiannual survey, the January 2024 vacancy rate for the Mall’s street-level businesses was about 3 percent, down from almost 6 percent in July 2023. “Anything 10 percent or under is a healthy figure, and the Mall has never been above 10 percent” since the survey was started in 2008, says Engel.
Rapture owner Mike Rodi says lunchtime traffic hasn’t been the same since the pandemic. Photo by Stephen Barling.
Post-pandemic, staffing is still a challenge—some Mall restaurants have cut back on hours or days open. And the pandemic’s work-from-home trend and resulting office closings had a big effect on the Mall’s activity level. On the lovely spring day I interviewed Rapture owner Mike Rodi, there were people strolling, but only one couple was lunching at his restaurant’s outdoor seating. “Lunch traffic hasn’t recovered,” claims Rodi. “Before the pandemic, on a day like this we would have had a waiting list.”
But perspectives vary. “The Mall is livelier than it used to be,” claims Darling’s Revak (whose sector, vintage clothing, is booming). Lily Garcia Walton, chief people officer and general counsel of tech firm Silverchair, whose offices occupy the top two floors of the Hardware Building, says that on any given day, about 20 percent of its hybrid work force chooses to work on site. “They love being on the Mall for its vibrancy, and because of the venues they can go to after work,” she says.
Ellen Joy of Alakazam Toys, who purchased the business in 2019 from its retiring owner, thinks much of the business turnover may be generational. She credits the Mall’s resilience to its sense of community: “When I got here, the Mall was still reeling from August 11 and 12, and everybody came together to reclaim it.”
Recurring debates
Photo by Stephen Barling.
So is the Mall a city asset? “Because the Downtown Mall is such a powerful symbol [of Charlottesville], it’s always an argument,” says longtime local journalist Sean Tubbs. And one thing Charlottesville residents have plenty of is opinions.
One of the persistent gripes is about parking. The City claims there are 1,710 public parking spaces, largely in the public parking facilities adjacent to the Mall. But every Charlottesville driver has horror stories about the mish-mash of signs and designations along the surrounding streets.
Another complaint: The Mall, a public space, had no public bathrooms. For a while, restrooms were available in the Downtown Transit Authority and in City Hall, but the pandemic shut down access to them. Finally, in 2022—45 years after the Mall opened—the city leased space in York Place for public facilities.
Then there’s the seating issue. Halprin’s design specified 150 moveable public seats. In the 2009 renovation, the city installed 30 fixed benches but removed the ones in Central Place because of complaints about vagrancy. In the meantime, more restaurants leased space outside for expanded service, which advocates for Halprin’s vision called encroachment on the public’s space.
The biggest threat to the Mall’s success, however, is a growing perception that it’s not a safe place. Over the decades, there have been complaints about vagrancy and panhandling, but in the last few years, concerns about physical and verbal assaults have ballooned.
“The Mall is absolutely a safe place to go,” says Chief of Police Michael Kochis. Department statistics show 115 incidents of Part 1 (violent or serious) crime in the last 12 months, compared to 102 in the previous 12—“and larceny is a driver,” says Kochis. Pulling out incidents of gun violence, the figures are two incidents in the last 12 months compared to two incidents in the preceding 12. In those same periods, shots fired incidents (not considered Part 1 crimes) have decreased from nine to three.
“Are there challenges? Absolutely,” Kochis says. “It’s important not to let the data cover up how people are feeling.” He acknowledges an increase in the number of unhoused persons on the Mall, who gather there since Charlottesville has no 24-hour shelter. Of this population, “there’s a small number who are in crisis and that can cause issues. We’re trying to identify them and get them help.”
The good news is that that department, on track to be fully staffed again by summer, has assigned an officer to the Mall four days a week (weekends are covered by officers on shift). Having an assigned officer provides an ongoing law enforcement presence, builds relationships with the businesses, and enables the officer to recognize the unhomed regulars and keep an eye out for those who may be in crisis. All officers are now going through crisis intervention training, says Kochis. In addition, the new city budget includes funding for the development of “anchor teams,” made up of a law enforcement officer, a paramedic, and a mental health clinician, to respond to situations that require a broader response.
These initiatives are badly needed. But Kochis points out that city government—and the Charlottesville community—need to have in-depth conversations about law enforcement staffing levels, mental health support and services, and community housing.
Whither the Mall?
All things considered, is the Mall a success? “Yes,” Engel says without hesitation. “It’s one of the few pedestrian malls that remains. People from other cities come here to observe [what Charlottesville has done].” But clearly, making sure the Mall continues to thrive will require a more proactive approach to its long-term management.
Greer Achenbach is the executive director of the Friends of Charlottesville Downtown volunteer group. Photo by Stephen Barling.
So whose task is that? The City owns the Mall’s right-of-way (the streets and sidewalks), but there has never been a single-point person for its needs, and there is no single line in the city budget for Mall funding. Maintenance and repairs are handled by the Public Works Department and Parks & Recreation; long-term projects fall under the city’s Capital Improvement Plan.
The buildings along the Mall, however, are privately owned. What most visitors think of as “the Mall” are the restaurants and retail outlets—most of them tenants, whether for 15 years or five months. Over the years, several volunteer groups have taken on the role of speaking for that business community; hopes are high for the newest version, the Friends of Charlottesville Downtown, set up in 2021.
One advantage for this new group, explains Greer Achenbach, the organization’s executive director, is that it’s a nonprofit 501(c)(3), funded by private philanthropy, which means it can hire full-time staff. The Friends wants to promote all of downtown Charlottesville, but recognizes the Mall is “a unique asset.” Achenbach sees her charge as promoting the businesses—through marketing, media, and special events—while working with the city to create an environment that draws both visitors and residents. Perhaps the Friends’ most noticed contribution so far is artist Eric Waugh’s “Music Box on Main Street,” a multi-part mural wrapping the abandoned Landmark Hotel building, but more special events like the holiday train and the recent open-air flower market are in the works.
“Some of the downtown’s issues are out of our area,” says Achenbach, “but we’re trying to be the energy/driver to keep things from getting stalled. We’re able to speak with one voice for business, tourists, and local users.”
Recognizing this complexity, a year ago, City Council appointed a 19-member Downtown Mall Committee representing a range of stakeholders: property owners, business owners, and residents as well as the historic preservation community and visitors. With staff support from the city, the committee’s monthly meeting examined issues from the Mall’s design and lighting to access, seating, and parking.
The committee is scheduled to present its report to Council later this month. Several observers believe its recommendations will include naming a point person in city government for coordinating the Mall’s maintenance, operation, and long-term budget needs.
More change will be coming. The city recently commissioned a management plan for the Mall’s trees. Many of the willow oaks lining the Mall are aging out; others have been damaged by pollution, accidents, or vandalism. In the meantime, the stumps of several trees that had to be removed have been decorated with sculptures made from their trunks by local chainsaw carver artist Brad Brown.
“It’s clear the Mall needs some investment, some TLC,” says Engel. “It’s a special place—it needs some regular funding source.”
Key points from the forceful removal of a pro-Palestine encampment from UVA by police May 4 remain a topic of debate. Photo by Eze Amos.
Administrators, faculty, students, and the broader Charlottesville community continue to grapple with the forceful removal of a pro-Palestine encampment from the University of Virginia by police on Saturday, May 4. No one can agree on exactly what happened.
University leadership, including President Jim Ryan and University Police Chief Tim Longo, outlined the timeline of events from their perspective at a virtual town hall on Tuesday, May 7.
“So I will start with the obvious,” said Ryan at the opening of the meeting. “Saturday was a terrible and terribly sad and upsetting day. I’m very sorry it got to that point.”
Though he acknowledged there were disagreements with the decision to dissolve the encampment and bring in state police, Ryan stood behind the choices made and outlined leaderships’ decision-making process.
In response to UVA’s event, faculty members organized their own within two days—billed as Eyewitness Perspectives: An Honest Town Hall—to provide clarity on the differing points of view, supplemented with photo and video evidence.
“By gathering eyewitness accounts from people who served in various capacities in the Liberated Zone, from observer to liaison to participant, we want to set the record straight on events as they unfolded,” said Professor Tessa Farmer at the opening of the Thursday, May 9, meeting.
Following the meetings, everyone—protesters, faculty, administration, and observers—are struggling with what comes next.
At press time, UVA has indicated that final exercises will proceed as planned. Leadership has repeatedly assured that freedom of speech is a priority on Grounds, and they will continue to engage student groups in conversations about the conflict in Gaza.
Points of contention
While the timeline of police presence on the scene is largely agreed upon, the details surrounding opportunities for de-escalation, level of force, and resistance differ between UVA administration and faculty.
UVA SAID
The decision to end the encampment was made for the safety of the community. Reasons cited include protesters calling for more people and resources on social media throughout the week. Emergency alerts were required by the Clery Act, but leadership acknowledged at the Faculty Senate meeting on Friday, May 10, that they brought more people to the scene.
PROTESTERS SAID
Despite the calls for more attendees and supplies, the size of the encampment shrank throughout the week. More observers showed up on Saturday, May 4, after UVA issued multiple emergency alerts. Multiple attempts were made to contact leadership, including Ryan and Vice President and Provost Ian Baucom, throughout the morning and afternoon of May 4.
UVA SAID
Protesters were unwilling to take down the tents on Saturday, May 4, and clearly understood UVA’s tent policies.
PROTESTERS SAID
Early in the morning of Saturday, May 4, faculty liaisons reportedly notified administration of the exemption for recreational tents listed on the UVA Environmental Health and Safety website. Faculty also mentioned other students were simultaneously using similar tents by the volleyball courts on Grounds.
UVA SAID
Law enforcement identified four men dressed in black, at least two of whom “were known to law enforcement personnel as participating in violent acts elsewhere in the commonwealth.”
PROTESTERS SAID
No one at the faculty-led town hall indicated that they saw or were informed of the “four men dressed in black” at the encampment.
UVA SAID
When he went to remove the tents, Longo said he became fearful given demonstrators’ use of umbrellas and protest chants.
PROTESTERS SAID
Video shows Longo approaching the encampment. Protesters can be seen holding open umbrellas, several with their backs to officers, while reciting a call-and-response: “We have a duty to fight for Palestine. We have a duty to win. We must love each other and protect one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” After several rounds of chanting, during which neither Longo nor any other officer is seen approaching the encampment, UPD walked away from the protest.
UVA SAID
UPD officers “were met with the use of umbrellas in an aggressive manner” when attempting to remove the tents and break up the demonstrators, precipitating the decision to involve Virginia State Police.
PROTESTERS SAID
A video from the faculty town hall shows UPD officers attempting to physically take the umbrellas as protesters hide behind them. One person can be heard yelling “What the fuck?” repeatedly before the crowd repeats “UPD, KKK, IDF, they’re all the same.” Faculty allege officers approached multiple times to take the umbrellas, with the video showing the third encounter.
UVA SAID
Some protesters resisted arrest or threatened police, with one attendee charged with assaulting an officer.
PROTESTERS SAID
VSP encircled and closed in on the encampment, cutting off bystanders and liaisons. Video shows professors attempting to deescalate the situation by standing between officers and the encampment, repeating, “These are our students, on their campus” as armed law enforcement officers moved in. Faculty and protesters broadly dispute claims of violence by encampment participants.
UVA SAID
Student protesters at the encampment would not engage directly with administration, instead acting through faculty liaisons, showing an unwillingness to hold conversations.
PROTESTERS SAID
UVA administration has demonstrated a willingness to hold conversations about Palestine, but with no substantive action taken.
UVA SAID
Longo claims people affected by chemical irritants deployed were given medical treatment on the scene, with no significant injuries occurring to protesters.
PROTESTERS SAID
No eyewitnesses recall any organized medical treatment center on site. Any first aid provided was given by demonstrators, observers, or faculty.
While UVA leadership has continued to stress its willingness to engage with students over the ongoing conflict in Gaza, one such conversation did not proceed as planned on Thursday, May 9, when members of Apartheid Divest—a coalition of 43 student groups—walked out on a pre-scheduled meeting with UVA President Jim Ryan. More than 30 students stood in silence outside the meeting room, with their hands raised and painted red, as remarks and demands were read aloud to the UVA president.
Ryan listened to the statement in silence, leaving after the group started to chant, “35,000 dead and you arrested kids instead” and “Jim Ryan you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide.”
In a statement to the Daily Progress about the decision to not move forward with the meeting as planned, Apartheid Divest member Josh Rosenberg said, “President Ryan’s actions were so inexcusable that there was no way we could have a good faith conversation with him after he refused to engage in good faith with students protesting peacefully for Palestine.”
Further division over how to best address UVA’s decision to call in police to break up the encampment arose on Friday, May 10, at a faculty senate meeting. Upper leadership, including Ryan, Longo, and Vice President and Provost Ian Baucom, attended the first portion of the gathering, and were grilled by several members and a small contingent of supporters among the faculty.
At the height of the conversation, multiple professors expressed their frustration with administration not dismissing the no trespass orders issued to protesters on the scene, especially those issued to faculty members and current students.
After leadership left, the senate passed an amended resolution calling for an external review of the events of Saturday, May 4, but declined to pass a resolution of solidarity.
Moving up
Supplied photo.
On May 13, Jamie Gellner started as the new Director of Transportation for Albemarle County Schools.
Prior to her current role, Gellner served as the Director of Special Projects, Program Evaluation, and Department Improvement for ACPS. She also has a background in transportation management, with experience in both Charlottesville and Fairfax.
“Our students deserve safe, reliable transportation services that support their education,” said Gellner in a release from ACPS. “I am eager to collaborate with students, families, and, of course, the dedicated staff of the Department of Transportation to implement innovative solutions and ensure every student arrives at school safely, on time and ready to learn.”
Gellner’s appointment comes at the tail end of a bumpy school year for bussing in the county, which experienced a driver shortage at the start of the 2023-24 school year. After three months, ACPS was able to expand bus services to all students requesting transportation outside of the walk zone.
Over the summer, Gellner will be working to minimize potential driver shortages that may pop back up this fall.
Cause for celebration
It’s graduation season in Charlottesville! Celebrations kick off at the University of Virginia on Friday, May 17, with events including valedictory exercises, the Donning of the Kente ceremony, and the Fourth Year Class Party. The main ceremonies will be held on Saturday, May 18, and Sunday, May 19, at 9am, with respective commencement speakers Daniel Willingham and Risa Goluboff. Expect traffic delays at the Corner, Downtown Mall, and just generally all of Main Street over the weekend.
Phoning in
The Charlottesville Police Department will resume responses for some non-emergency calls on June 1. Responses were temporarily paused in 2021 due to staffing shortages. Significant improvements to staffing will allow officers to respond to credit card fraud, false pretense, impersonation, larceny, vandalism, and lost property calls in person.
Compromise concessions
Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a compromise budget passed by the Democratically controlled state legislature on Monday, May 13. While the new version includes funding for schools and pay increases for teachers and other state employees, other key Democratic priorities were scrapped on the bargaining table. Notable changes include the exclusion of language requiring reentry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the removal of any tax increases or decreases.
VDOT estimates the Hydraulic Road and U.S. 29 project will be completed in Fall 2025. Charlottesville GIS.
With the missing medians, peeled-up pavement, and barrage of cones, it’s hard to miss the construction on Hydraulic Road and U.S. 29. But Virginia Department of Transportation Project Manager Will Stowe says there’s a method to the madness.
Construction along the busy corridor started earlier this year and has mostly consisted of right-of-way acquisitions up to this point, according to Stowe. “Currently, the main work is along the Hydraulic corridor,” he says. “We are preparing to build a roundabout at the intersection of Hillsdale Drive and Hydraulic.”
Located between the Whole Foods Market and Kroger parking lots, that particular intersection is a notoriously busy one. Data from VDOT’s crash map over the last two years shows clusters of accidents in and around the intersection. By putting in a roundabout, VDOT hopes to improve safety and traffic flow in the area.
VDOT is currently relocating utilities and installing drainage, and they plan to implement a detour for which construction is projected to last between 40 and 45 days. This detour will take drivers to the nearby intersection of the 250 Bypass and U.S. 29/Emmett Street next to Bodo’s Bagels. In an effort to reduce traffic as a result of the detour, VDOT intentionally scheduled the work while the University of Virginia, Albemarle County schools, and Charlottesville City schools are out of session (UVA holds summer session classes, but student presence on Grounds is significantly lower compared to the fall and spring semesters).
During construction, drivers will still be able to access businesses and other locations along Hydraulic Road, Brandywine Drive, and Michie Drive, but the area will be closed to through traffic.
“We’ll make sure that all the roundabout signage and guidance is in place, [and] the pavement marking will make it pretty clear which ways you need to go,” he says.
Aside from the roundabout, the project will also include signal changes, handicap ramp improvements, and the construction of a pedestrian bridge over U.S. 29 by the Shops at Stonefield.
“We’re also installing Amber beacons at the crosswalks around the roundabout to alert traffic to pedestrians,” says Stowe. Other pedestrian crossings and street lighting will be added throughout the construction area, but one big change for drivers will be the removal of left turn lanes from Hydraulic Road onto Route 29. “Reducing the phases at that light … will give a lot more green time to the other operations [there].”
VDOT has already started preparing for the pedestrian bridge over U.S. 29, but construction will not significantly affect drivers and pedestrians until at least this fall. “We’ll be focused on the roundabouts and signal[s] this summer,” says Stowe. “We’ll be focusing on getting the pedestrian bridge built into the fall and into next year.”
The single-story office structure within the yellow boundaries will be redeveloped as a four-story mixed-use building with up to 15 apartments. Line and Grade via Albemarle GIS.
Twenty-three years ago this week, Albemarle Supervisors officially adopted a policy called the Neighborhood Model to encourage construction of a more urban fabric in the county’s designated growth areas.
“We were proud of the tremendous efforts put into developing the Neighborhood Model by a committee of local residents and staff,” says Sally Thomas, who represented the Samuel Miller District at the time. “It was ‘smart growth’ before that was a common moniker.”
Since that time, developers have gotten approval from the Board of Supervisors by demonstrating how their projects satisfy twelve principles intended to avoid suburban sprawl by using land more efficiently. Albemarle also created master plans for each area to signal to property owners what the local government would like to see happen.
Dr. Jay Knight operates his dental practice on a one-acre parcel on Woodbrook Drive near the intersection with Berkmar Drive in a building constructed in 1996.
“Our building pretty much needs to be updated at this point,” Knight says. “I have been thinking for some time about redesigning the office and the building and thought it would be a great idea to also be able to have some residential components with the property.”
According to the plans drawn up by the firm Line and Grade, the one-story building would be demolished to make way for a four-story structure with a footprint of 6,698 square feet.
“Currently the plan is for ground-level dental office space with three stories residential above, at up to 15 units,” reads the narrative for the application written by Line and Grade.
Knight is a native of the area who says he appreciates Albemarle’s work to limit development into the rural area to attain what he described as a “great harmony.” This property is designated in the Places29 Master Plan as “urban density residential.”
However, comprehensive plans are advisory and landowners must comply with zoning. The current classification for this property is commercial (C-1) so a special use permit is required for residential use. Two special exceptions to building placement rules are also requested to allow the site to be reused.
The property is adjacent to Agnor-Hurt Elementary School, and plans show an easement for a future pathway to the school should the county decide to build one. Knight said that came at the suggestion of planners in Albemarle’s Community Development during a preliminary meeting before the application was filed.
Albemarle has amended its Comprehensive Plan several times since 2001, including the addition of the Housing Albemarle plan. This plan has a clear goal for developers: More places to live are required for the county to support anticipated population growth. The Places29 Master Plan, adopted in 2007, called for an extension of Berkmar Drive north, and VDOT has plans to connect that roadway to Airport Road where it joins the UVA Discovery Park.
Another principle in the neighborhood model is to provide residential density in places where there are sidewalks, bicycle infrastructure, and public transit. People who live in the space would have access to at least one Charlottesville Area Transit route. Knight said residents could walk to the Rio Hill Shopping Center for groceries and could easily make their way to jobs.
“I think a concept like what we’re talking about would really fit in,” Knight says.
The permit and the special exceptions will need to go through the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. Knight hopes to be able to move to construction between two and five years.
Three Notch’d Brewing Company’s Nelson County location is expanding its entertainment options to include axe-throwing. Supplied photo.
Once a week, I travel to distant realms to smite evil. I’m half-orc when I do this. I’m also playing Dungeons & Dragons when I do this. While my character Brad the Bad wields various bladed weapons with ease (and alacrity), my day-to-day life involves far fewer stabby items. I butter toast. I chop onions. I sometimes resist the urge to try to lodge a well-thrown steak knife into my drywall.
So, when I heard that Three Notch’d Brewing Company offers axe-throwing at their Nelson County location, I knew my moment had arrived. The quest crystalized in my mind’s eye: I needed to get my D&D party members, a pack of fellas I’ve been playing with for at least seven years, to join me for an evening hurling blades while drinking beer at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But would my party answer the call? They did. This is the story of our adventure.
—Kristie Smeltzer
What
Throwing axes at Three Notch’d Brewing Company’s Nelson County location
Why
Because playing with bladed weapons under safe conditions is so fun.
How it went
All enjoyed themselves with no casualties to report.
We arrived in ones and twos, as adventuring parties are wont to do. Three Notch’d staff members at the check-in stand gave us waivers to sign, which resulted in a lot of laughs as we read them while waiting for a critical mass of our party to arrive and our lanes to be ready. Here’s the waiver’s gist: This could be dangerous, don’t be putzes, and wear closed-toed shoes. If I’m honest, my biggest concern upon reading the waiver was that we wouldn’t, in fact, be able to enjoy their libations whilst slinging axes, but fortunately, beer and blades can coexist at Three Notch’d.
When our lanes were ready, a kindly staff member took us to our barn. It was a single-car-garage-sized structure with a little porch with tables for our refreshments and our two axe-throwing lanes inside. We six had the whole barn to ourselves since we’d rented both lanes. The staff member showed us the two types of axes available for hurling: ones with metal heads and wooden handles and others solely made of metal. The latter were lighter and had the added benefit of a sharp edge in front and a small point on the back, so there was more than one way to get them to stick in the target. We learned their main rule of axe-throwing: Retrieve your axe after every throw. (Apparently, the first weekend the lanes were open, a ridiculous number of wood-handled axes perished because people hit the target with one axe, threw another with it still lodged there, and managed to break the first axe’s handle with the second one’s blade.) Judging by the state of our wooden axe handles, this rule is hard to remember – maybe because of beer.
We ordered drinks and food and got to hurling. The plain wood targets have a variety of designs that can be projected onto them, with different shapes and points associated with them. I stuck with a basic bullseye for this go at it. My friends and I had differing techniques. Some stood at the line where the walled sides of the axe lanes began, while others stood a few paces back. Some added a wrist flick as they threw to get more rotation. Others hurled the axes like they’d been storing up years of rage—oh wait, that was me, and I learned that brute force wasn’t the most successful strategy. When I managed to get the right distance from the target and amount of rotation on the axe, the sound of the blade thunking into the wood felt satisfying on a primal level, deep in the gut.
For $100, you too can hurl blades for 90 minutes with up to three of your closest adventuring buddies. Who knows, maybe the wood targets were made from evil trees who needed a little smiting.
Uzo Njoku’s show “Virginia is for Artists” is at the Connaughton Gallery through June 14.
More information at commerce.virginia.edu/art. Supplied photo.
The John P. and Stephanie F. Connaughton Gallery at the McIntire School of Commerce might not be on every Charlottesville art lover’s radar, but it should be. The gallery typically presents three shows each year with two artists per show who are invited to apply by McIntire Art Committee members. In most cases, McIntire purchases work from the exhibiting artist to add to the school’s permanent collection, now numbering over 80 pieces and hung in public spaces throughout the Rouss & Robertson Halls complex.
Currently at Connaughton is the work of Uzo Njoku. A 2019 UVA graduate, Njoku was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and moved to the United States when she was 7. At UVA, Njoku started out as a statistics major but switched to studio art after her first year.
She is now a one-woman art-producing and marketing powerhouse based in New York City. “Uzo’s journey from statistics major to a self-styled ‘artpreneur’ holds such appeal and also valuable lessons for students in both the arts and in commerce,” says Dorothy C. Kelly, McIntire’s Robert B. Hardaway, Jr. Lecturer of Personal Finance, who sits on the art committee and is an admirer of Njoku’s oeuvre as well as her entrepreneurial skills.
You only have to look at Njoku’s sleek website to see the breadth of her activities; beyond painting, there are events and a prodigious array of Njoku merch—coloring books, calendars, mugs, T-shirts, and outerwear—plus her own wallpaper designs and a mural commission for Tommy Hilfiger. Not bad for a recent college graduate.
Njoku’s vibrant, large format works feature broad, flat planes of paint. For the most part, she takes a stylized approach and uses a bold palette of bright colors together with black to create a compelling graphic quality.
In many of her pieces, Njoku incorporates patterns, as their detail contrasts nicely with the more simplified passages. Pattern is very important to Njoku, who uses it to incorporate Nigerian culture into her work. She uses it in a similar fashion to Kehinde Wiley, as backdrops to portraits, but she favors traditional wax cloth patterns, such as in “A New Perspective,” or distilled versions inspired by them in “A Very Nice Girl,” as opposed to Wiley’s lush floral expanses.
For Njoku, these designs extend beyond visual flourish or cultural reference to imbue the pieces with movement. “The Weight of Ink” is a self-portrait of the artist, identified by the “U” tab on the end of her turtleneck zipper. She’s positioned against an intense teal background and wears a hot pink sweater under an orange shirt and red jacket. Features like ribbing, stitching, and buttons are rendered in careful detail. Two yellow circles denote earrings. What makes the painting captivating is the face, which is largely nonexistent. Is it that she is laughing so hard that her eyes are squinted shut? All we can see against the black of her skin and hair are her teeth, yet the title suggests a more somber interpretation. Is it a comment about Black invisibility, or the weighty responsibility of presenting the Black experience? One thing is certain: The title suggests that there’s more here than meets the eye.
With the “The Young Man,” Njoku produces a psychologically charged image—a result of the melancholia that seems writ on the subject’s face. Sporting a bright red sweater and jeans, he stands before a structure composed of various geometric shapes that form walls, steps, and a doorway. It feels confined, and one wonders if it’s intended to reflect his situation and, perhaps, the stasis that governs his life. Languor is conveyed by a couple of chickens pecking at the ground. Njoku executes these in a more painterly fashion, using blurred brushstrokes to produce feathers. A full laundry basket is positioned against the back wall, and behind the youth hangs a showy floral cloth. Njoku makes it pop by painting it like a self-contained rectangular pattern, as opposed to laundry drying on a clothesline.
The largest work in the show, “Indefinite Space,” is an eye-popping tour de force of motifs and portraiture. Two female figures recline against a vivid pattern of blue, yellow, red, and white that explodes across the canvas. Njoku ratchets up the effect by introducing another similarly hued pattern that butts up against the dominant one. Behind these, she paints a background that looks like a stylized version of deep space. The women, whose faces are rendered with deft sensitivity, confront the viewer with powerful gazes. Each wears African-style head wraps and large gold earrings; one has on fashionably ripped jeans and sneakers, while the other sports a nose ring. The clothing positions them in contemporary times, yet the figures’ poses recall classical renderings of Greek gods and, together with the celestial background, suggest divinity.
The exhibition, which includes multiple works featuring strong women, opened during March’s Women’s History Month. The fact that the strong women in this show are also Black is especially important, given its location at a school that produces future movers and shakers within the realms of commerce and power.
