It’s a tale as old as time: An eccentric inventor builds a boy, gives him scissors for hands, dies, and leaves the boy alone in a castle high on a hill. Discovered by a kindly townswoman, the scissor-handed boy is invited to live with her suburban family, setting off a journey of self-discovery and sculptural design. Based on the classic Tim Burton movie, Edward Scissorhands: Matthew Bourne’s Dance Version features appropriately haunting and affective music of Danny Elfman and Terry Davies. Filmed live in March 2024 at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, this fish-out-of-water narrative is big-screen fun for the whole family.
Wednesday 9/25. $12–16, 7pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net
In 1948 Martin B. Hiden formed the Tuesday Evening Concert Group, with aid from Bard Hume of The Washington Post and Richard Bales of the National Gallery of Art. After establishing a connection with the National Music League—which included affiliation with six concert organizations in the DMV region—Hiden’s group disengaged from the affiliation, reforming as The Tuesday Evening Concert Series, and established itself as an independent, nonprofit organization in 1951. The Series presents seven concerts a year featuring internationally renowned classical chamber musicians at Old Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia. As it kicks off its 2024-25 season on October 1, we put Tuesday Evening Concert Series Executive Director David Baldwin in the HotSeat.
Name: David Baldwin
Age: 53
Pronouns: He/him
Hometown: New York, New York
Job(s): Executive director of Tuesday Evening Concert Series
What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn? The amount of details involved in producing a single concert.
What is music to you? Ultimate form of expression.
First concert you attended? Murray Perahia at Carnegie Hall.
Last concert you attended? Faure’s Requiem
Why is supporting music education important? In addition to improving overall academics, music nurtures creativity and enhances emotional development.
How does classical music impact contemporary audiences? Classical music is a connection to our collective past that manages to communicate to everyone individually.
How does classical music shape contemporary music? Classical music is the antecedent and foundation for much of the Western music we hear today. It differs significantly from the sounds you are likely to hear in non-Western cultures such as Asia or the Middle East.
What are you listening to right now? Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartets
Favorite performance venue: Vienna’s Musikverein
Favorite musician/composer: Bach (today … )
Favorite arrangement/composition: Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
Go-to karaoke song: I’m a terrible singer.
Best advice you ever got: We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.
Criminal and disciplinary charges have been dropped against protesters arrested
at UVA on May 4. Photo by Eze Amos.
Charges against student protesters arrested May 4 have been dropped, but the University of Virginia continues to grapple with protections for and restrictions on freedom of speech. While celebrating its status as the No.1 campus for free speech in the nation, UVA is cracking down on students’ ability to demonstrate on Grounds.
Prior to the start of fall semester, the university updated its rules governing “demonstrations and access to shared spaces” on Grounds. Through these changes, UVA has not only deemed any form of encampment against university policy, but outlined a willingness to escalate to trespass warnings and arrest for noncompliance.
Key changes to demonstration policy include: expanding the definition of the Academical Village, which is subject to additional demonstration restrictions; banning outdoor events on Grounds, including demonstrations, between 2 and 6am; prohibiting camping, with or without a tent, in outdoor spaces; prohibiting sleeping outside between midnight and 6am; and requiring any person wearing a face covering to provide identification if requested by a UVA official.
Students who fail to comply with UVA policy after being informed of a violation can face disciplinary action including “the issuance of an interim suspension by Student Affairs and a trespass warning by law enforcement. Failure to abide by the trespass warning will result in arrest. Every reasonable effort will be made to resolve the matter at the lowest possible level without the involvement of law enforcement.”
UVA’s policies on protests, demonstrations, and gatherings on university property, which include potential consequences for policy violations, can be found at freespeech.virginia.edu/policies-regulations.
Earlier this month, UVA officials demonstrated a willingness to both enforce these new policies and call university police for peaceful noncompliance. According to The Daily Progress, on September 12, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Marsh Pattie informed students on the Lawn making signs calling for divestment that their use of a folding table violated policy, and asked a student wearing a mask to provide ID.
When the student did not identify themself, Pattie threatened to contact university police. The situation deescalated when the student left the area and the table was taken down. The table was briefly set up again in front of a Lawn room with the permission of its resident, but was deconstructed again when Pattie returned with another official.
In the midst of the implementation of new rules and a crackdown on peaceful organizing, UVA was named the top college for free speech in the nation on September 5 by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“FIRE considered several factors, including students’ perceived ability to have difficult conversations, their comfort expressing views on controversial topics and perceptions of their administration’s support for free speech,” wrote University News Senior Associate Jane Kelly in a UVAToday article highlighting the announcement. “The top-ranked colleges have the highest average score among all students surveyed and have the most open environments for free speech.”
For student and faculty organizers, the announcement, and UVA’s public celebration of free speech on Grounds, was deeply ironic.
“If they’re so proud of [the FIRE ranking], then I think [UVA] should roll back the new protest guidelines and start to really listen to faculty and students,” said Laura Goldblatt, assistant professor and faculty liaison for pro-Palestine student protesters, in an interview with C-VILLE. “If they’re so proud of their rankings, then they should follow through on the actions that those rankings might require of them. Instead of using them as a publicity tool, they should use them as a way to guide their decisions about policy.”
Calculated through more than 58,000 surveys, FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings considered data collected from students between January 25 and June 17 this year. Beyond surveys, schools were not further penalized for actions related to encampment protests, according to Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens.
“This decision was made because many schools were likely dealing with a complicated mix of protected and unprotected speech, so accurately adjudicating each individual incident that may or may not have made one of our databases would’ve been impossible,” said Stevens in an email. He further highlighted a footnote from the report, noting that, “The impact of the encampment protests on the campus speech climate is captured by responses to survey questions that ask students about their confidence that their college administration protects speech rights on campus, their comfort expressing controversial political views, and how frequently they self-censor. Deplatformings that occurred during the encampment protests were also still included in the calculation of the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings.”
Laura Beltz, director of policy reform for FIRE, said UVA’s updated demonstration policies will be reviewed as part of the nonprofit’s annual speech code report in January.
“Beyond Boundaries: The Sculpture of Alice Wesley Ivory” is on view at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center through December 14. Photo by Eze Amos.
The story of sculptor Alice Ivory is a story of triumph against adversity, and the power of the creative drive. It is also an American tragedy of sorts, highlighting the dearth of opportunities afforded people outside the white, predominantly male, status quo. In “Beyond Boundaries: The Sculpture of Alice Wesley Ivory,” the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center highlights the work and life story of the under-celebrated artist.
Ivory was born in Albemarle County in 1931. From the start, she faced challenges as a poor, Black female in segregated Virginia. But Ivory had a few things going for her. Her parents, Warner Wesley and Gladys Frye Wesley, owned their own farm in White Hall, and though neither one had attended school, they were literate.
As a child, Ivory attended White Hall Colored School, a two-mile walk each day. She completed her secondary education at Albemarle Training School on Hydraulic Road—at the time, it was the only school in the surrounding five-county area to offer Black kids an education beyond the seventh grade. Ivory went on to Virginia State College (now University) in Petersburg, where she earned a degree in art education. She taught at Jackson P. Burley High School for seven years before applying to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. (The University of Virginia was out of the question, as it was still segregated.)
Accepted provisionally at first because her undergraduate degree was from a Southern Black institution, Ivory satisfied UWM’s requirements, gained full admission, and received her M.S. in art education in 1962. It was at UWM that she discovered her lifelong passion for welding, a highly unusual choice for a woman at the time. Her interest was not lost on Fred Ivory, who presented his bride with an oxo-acetylene torch when they married. She would use that equipment for the rest of her life. In 1970, she became the first Black teacher hired by the Blue Ridge School, and taught there until retiring in 1990.
Ivory received some artistic acclaim during her lifetime, garnering certificates of distinction from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for her sculptures “Crow,” “Wild Boar,” and “Eagle”—the latter created in response to JFK’s assassination. She was also the subject of a one-woman show at the VMFA, which also subsequently commissioned “Kangaroo” for its 1980 “Fantasies,” a touchable exhibition designed for people with visual impairments. Ivory’s work has been exhibited at McGuffey Art Center, and a painted portrait of Ivory by Frances Brand was part of the “Firsts” exhibition. But these acknowledgments are not commensurate with her talent.
The sensitivity, compassion, and humor with which Ivory’s animals and insects are rendered reflect her rural upbringing. Michael R. Taylor, artistic director and chief curator at the VMFA has an interesting take on her work.
“In a way, Alice Ivory’s marvelous welded metal sculptures are all self-portraits,” says Taylor. “She’s in them. She is the fierce junkyard dog, she is the beautiful crow, and she‘s the kangaroo protecting her young. I think that’s all of her rolled into one.”
Ivory used both naturalism and caricature to capture her subjects. Her chickens possess a hand-wrought honesty and humor reminiscent of some of Alexander Calder’s animals. Even though they are abstracted versions, Ivory nails the posture, stance, and movement—in essence, their chickenness.
Generally, she didn’t bother with surface details, placing emphasis on form and gesture. In a very modern way, Ivory acknowledged the materiality of the work, with unadorned metal and exposed welding seams and brazing marks. Other animals in this vein are the attenuated Alberto Giacometti-like “Heron” and the menacing, yet funny, piranha whose teeth are made from nails.
Ivory’s “Bull’ is a study of compressed energy. The bull seems to be gathering itself in preparation for charging. To emphasize the animal’s power, she exaggerates the hooves, attaches the plates of metal so the seams accentuate the animal’s musculature and adds a tail that seems charged with electricity. Her magnificent, oversized “Crow” gets the bird’s attitude exactly right, with a cocked head that conveys curiosity and intelligence.
The majority of Ivory’s sculptures were made (using scrap metal her husband collected for her) between 1960 and 1970, while she was taking a break from teaching to care for her two young children. It wasn’t easy, as Ivory herself wrote: “…other sculptures have been made at home when I had managed to get the baby quiet, the dishes washed, the laundry hung out to dry and another of hundreds of huge meals prepared.”
In spite of these domestic burdens, she produced, by her estimation, 100 sculptures. By way of comparison, American sculptor David Smith, who died 10 years younger than Ivory, produced well over 500 sculptures.
Ivory made the best of it, producing extraordinarily sympathetic work. She unquestionably had the talent to scale the heights of the art world, yet she lived out her days in relative obscurity, raising children, keeping house, and supporting herself as an art teacher. When she died in 1991, Ivory left behind a body of superlative work that speaks not only to what she achieved but also to how she triumphed in a world of exclusion. Looking at it, one can’t help but feel that she, and (to a far lesser degree) we, were cheated out of a more fully realized career.
A dearth of fresh food in Fifeville means all eyes are on 501 Cherry Ave. Photo by Eze Amos.
There are no places on Cherry Avenue or West Main Street where residents of the Fifeville neighborhood can walk to buy fresh ingredients to prepare nutritious meals, but Aleen Carey doesn’t want you to call the area a food desert.
“A desert is a naturally occurring state,” said Carey, the co-executive director of Cultivate Charlottesville. “Not having any grocery stores or Black-owned businesses or the food access that the community wants, that is not naturally occurring. That is man-made. So instead of a food desert, we call it a food apartheid.”
That term was coined by New York food justice activist Karen Washington to draw attention to the interconnections between access to food and other socioeconomic and health inequities.
Cultivate Charlottesville formed in 2020 when local organizations Food Justice Network, the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, and the City Schoolyard Garden merged to put a more intentional focus on those interconnections at the local level.
Borrowing a phrase from food justice activist Karen Washington, Cultivate Charlottesville’s Aleen Carey says the lack of access to fresh produce in Fifeville has caused a “food apartheid.” Photo by Eze Amos.
The nonprofit is active on many fronts including administering the city’s Food Equity Initiative, trying to secure new garden space in Washington Park—and assisting with a broader effort to bring a community grocery store to Fifeville. Woodard Properties, the new owner of 501 Cherry Ave., agreed in September 2023 to provide space for one as part of a rezoning.
But to make the idea a reality, the community will have to organize.
Buy back the block?
Carey was one member of an August 24 panel discussion at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, an event the Fifeville Neighborhood Association organized for the public to learn more about the opportunities on Cherry Avenue.
Deanna McDonald of RN Heartwork is partnering with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association on the effort to increase awareness of the space.
“I come to this project as it relates [to] health equity, food equity, and food security,” McDonald told the crowd of about a hundred people.
For decades, Estes Market at 501 Cherry Ave. served as a place to buy fresh food, but people who lived in the area in the late 20th century said the market played a much larger role.
“Estes was more than just a grocery store,” said Sarad Davenport, a longtime resident of Fifeville who served as moderator of August’s Buy Back the Block event. “It was a community center. In fact, I learned how to play chess in Estes’ parking lot.”
Once a booming grocery store, Estes Foodliner stands now as a shell of its former self. Photo by Eze Amos.
Davenport is the host of “Can I Talk To You, C-Ville?,” a series of programs put on by Vinegar Hill Magazine including one held September 23 that illuminated more details on the status of negotiations for how the space might be operated as a grocery.
Dorenda Johnson has lived in the neighborhood for 55 years and remembers more than just Estes Market.
“I can remember on Fifth Street there was Bell’s Store and Allen’s Store and down the street on Cherry Avenue was Estes [IGA],” she said. “All of those neighborhoods around those stores were predominantly Black neighborhoods and it was bustling and busy.”
Andrea Douglas, the Heritage Center’s executive director, said there was a time when ownership of commercial businesses was more diverse in central Charlottesville.
“There were seven grocery stores run by Black people in this community,” Douglas said.
One of those, at 333 W. Main St., was run by George Inge, whose establishment was a pillar of the community from 1891 to 1979 (and stands today as Tavern & Grocery restaurant). The structure built in 1820 survived the razing of Vinegar Hill and Garrett Street while many others, like Allen’s Store, did not.
According to research conducted by journalist Jordy Yager, Allen’s Store opened on Sixth Street SE in 1944 and closed when the property was taken by eminent domain as part of the Garrett Street urban renewal project in the 1970s, leading to the creation of what would become known as Friendship Court. Its owners, Kenneth Walker Allen and Dorothy Mae Murray Allen, would later relocate their business to the Rose Hill neighborhood in the space that is now home to MarieBette Café and Bakery.
Douglas said efforts to bring a new grocery store to serve the neighborhood is part of a long movement to restore what was lost during urban renewal.
When she was a child, Johnson said she would spend her days in Tonsler Park walking to and from what is now Prospect Avenue. Her parents worked hard to buy their own house, as did so many others.
“Now when I go through those neighborhoods it’s very discouraging and I see it’s no longer the predominantly Black neighborhoods,” Johnson said. “We have $700,000 homes that were bought for barely half of that. What would our parents say?”
After Emancipation, many people enslaved in Albemarle County and on plantations, such as the Oak Lawn estate on Cherry Avenue, would settle in a Charlottesville that was growing in the late 19th century.
“After the [Civil] war, a number of folks who were enslaved there moved into what is the Fifeville neighborhood,” said Jalane Schmidt, an associate professor of religious studies at UVA.
This included figures such as Benjamin Tonsler, who had been born into servitude in Earlysville in 1854. After receiving an education in Hampton, Tonsler returned to Charlottesville and became a leader in the community along with Inge. Another group, called the Piedmont Industrial and Land Improvement Company, was formed in the last decade of the 19th century to promote Black ownership of real property. They did so through the Four Hundreds Club, an informal group of Black families belonging to the middle class, who purchased lots of land priced at $400.
“There is a direct connection between emancipation, personal economy, land ownership, entrepreneurship, and food security,” Schmidt said. “How to put those pieces together that have been shattered is the question that we’re dealing with now.”
Redeveloping the Estes Market
Woodard Properties bought 501 Cherry Ave. in August 2022 for $3.5 million, the latest in a series of purchases the company has made in the area in recent years. Woodard is partnering with the Piedmont Housing Alliance to build 71 apartment units that will be rented to households with incomes below 60 percent of the area’s median income.
One condition of a rezoning granted by City Council in September 2023 is that a portion of the property be set aside for the Music Resource Center as well as an area that would be reserved for a very specific reason.
“Owner agrees to reserve a minimum of 5,000 square feet of commercial space at the Property for lease to a small grocery store or neighborhood grocery store that sells fresh produce,” reads binding language in the rezoning agreement. “The space will be reserved exclusively for a grocery store use until the issuance of any certificate of occupancy for the Project.”
Anthony Woodard, CEO of Woodard Properties, says that means the space will be held for someone to either buy or lease it from the company. Anyone who wants to operate a grocery would need to come up with the funding to get the space ready.
“We are building a commercial shell for a grocery market, which would not include interior construction, furnishings, or equipment specific to the grocery’s operation, because a grocery operator has specific needs that they know best,” Woodard said in an email.
Woodard said the total cost is estimated at around $50 million to construct the two buildings that make up the project.
The City of Charlottesville continues to review the preliminary site plan for the project, an iterative process designed to make sure that the building will be up to code.
The grocery store at 501 Cherry Ave. was once a bustling centerpiece of the Fifeville community. “In fact, I learned how to play chess in Estes’ parking lot,” says resident Sarad Davenport. Photo by Eze Amos.
City Council has signaled a willingness to provide $3.15 million in direct funding for the housing portion of the project over the next two years. The Piedmont Housing Alliance applied this year for $1.285 million in low-income housing tax credits but did not make the cut in a crowded field of applicants.
Sunshine Mathon, executive director of PHA, said there are alternative funding options that might allow construction to get underway within the next 15 months.
“We have other funding pathways we are pursuing that I am optimistic about, and would allow us to still start construction in 2025,” Mathon said in an email. “Everyone on the team is working diligently to make this happen.”
Woodard said that to cover the full costs, rent will likely need to be higher than market rate unless an operating subsidy can be identified.
Davenport cautioned against rushing ahead too fast with the project without doing true community engagement.
“Sometimes you can think you are doing the right thing but you haven’t really listened to people, and then you end up doing something that’s catastrophic and you look 40 years later and it’s like, that was a tragedy,” she said. “It did more harm than good.”
Elsewhere on Cherry Avenue
Woodard Properties owns a good portion of Cherry Avenue, having slowly acquired real estate along the roadway over the years. That includes the Cherry Avenue Shopping Center, which the company purchased for $1.9 million in April 2021, and the undeveloped parking lot across the street, bought in July of that year for $1.55 million. The Black-owned Royalty Eats catering company operates out of the shopping center and served food at the August 24 event. Woodard said there are no plans to do anything with these locations beyond what’s already been done; the company refurbished the shopping center soon after purchasing it.
The Salvation Army owns two properties on Cherry Avenue, including its storefront and a lot where a fast food restaurant used to stand. There are three stand-alone convenience stores in addition to a fourth inside the Cherry Avenue Shopping Center. Each store is owned by a different entity and none offer fresh produce.
The fog over the future of 21st-century Fifeville cleared a little in October 2023 when the University of Virginia purchased the 5.2-acre Oak Lawn estate belonging to the Fife family, whose name has been appended to the whole neighborhood. The UVA Health system will soon begin a community engagement effort for the future of that property as well as land to the north, which it purchased in August 2016.
As part of the Memory Project initiative, Schmidt and her students have researched the Oak Lawn estate and found that James Fife enslaved at least 22 men, women, and children by the time of emancipation. More than 100 years later, expansion of the UVA Medical Center displaced people who had settled in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Gospel Hill, a neighborhood that no longer exists, reducing the number of people who could walk to places like Estes Market and other Black-owned businesses.
“Land use and food security are tied to one another and that means listening to the community and folks in the community who remember what things were like when there were these hubs,” Schmidt said.
Carey said one purpose of both Cultivate Charlottesville and the Food Justice Network is to ask people what it would take to achieve food equity. She said that will take Black ownership.
“As we’re talking about 501 Cherry Ave. right now, and who might own that building or who might own the business there, one of the key pieces is, will that be a person of color?” Carey said. “Will that be somebody Black who can restore some of that community wealth building to the area?”
The Fifeville Neighborhood Association is seeking to educate the public on three potential models for ownership of the store. One would be a traditional model where the business owners take on all of the risks of the enterprise.
Another would be a nonprofit model, and a third would be a cooperative-ownership model where members of the store would govern its operations. To that end, a group called the Charlottesville Community Food Co-Op is being formed.
Mathon is hopeful the grocery space can become part of the residential development, a value-add that could attract additional funds for the overall project.
“I am working actively to pursue resources for the grocery as I see a direct positive benefit to have the grocery onsite for our future residents,” he said.
Neighborhood skepticism
Many in the Fifeville neighborhood are dubious about why a new apartment building is planned for 501 Cherry Ave. They’re also wary of the name attached to the project.
“Just the name Woodard … It is not a name that a lot of people think much of, me being one if I’m being honest,” Johnson said. “You just constantly see take. They just seem to take. They’ve infiltrated all of those neighborhoods.”
Johnson said nearby residents already suffer the impacts of traffic congestion and a new apartment building will make things worse.
“Cherry Avenue from anywhere between 3pm and 6pm. is a total nightmare,” Johnson said, adding that many continue to have fears Tonsler Park will be taken for private use.
At the moment, the city’s Parks & Recreation Department is soliciting feedback for future amenities for the park, which is owned by the City of Charlottesville. The current year budget for the Commonwealth of Virginia granted $250,000 to the city to assist with the Tonsler Basketball League, now run by former city councilor Wes Bellamy.
Schmidt said part of the conversation needs to be about returning to the spirit of the Four Hundreds Club and making sure there’s an effort to keep Black property owners in place and stop the turnover that has been occurring for decades.
“We also need to have a conversation about who’s selling these,” Schmidt said. “We have folks in the neighborhood that you remember that were pillars of the community but their children don’t live here any more. And when mom and dad die, they come back to settle the estate.”
According to Schmidt, one solution would be to establish incentives for sales to community organizations like PHA. The Piedmont Community Land Trust, a local nonprofit that works to secure affordable housing options in the area, has been purchasing properties in the Orangedale section of the neighborhood to offer homeownership opportunities.
Carey said she is not an expert on housing, but said these conversations are crucial to finding solutions.
“There are three different things going on Cherry Avenue right now: if you’re looking at the park, if you’re looking at 501 Cherry, and if you’re looking at Oak Lawn,” Carey said. “How do you have a conversation that pulls those together so things aren’t done individually?”
Carey said that should include conversations with other neighborhoods affected by the same pressures such as Rose Hill, Ridge Street, and 10th and Page.
City Council adopted a small area plan for Cherry Avenue in March 2021, the same meeting at which they adopted a new affordable housing plan. The small area plan called for an analysis of renovations and teardowns of existing stock, but it’s not clear if the city has conducted that work. The new zoning code designates the road as Commercial Mixed Use 3 in part because of the advocacy of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association.
Following publication, Woodard Properties sent a comment: “We are excited to be working with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association, Piedmont Housing Alliance, and Music Resource Center on this special project that will provide not only healthy food, but also youth programming and affordable housing to Fifeville. This project builds on our commitment to be one of the problem solvers in Charlottesville and the Fifeville neighborhood.”
Neighborhood Investments purchased this half acre lot in Fifeville for $2.24 million, the latest high-profile purchase in the Cherry Avenue area. Photo by Sean Tubbs.
As planning and negotiations continue over a grocery story at 501 Cherry Ave., major transactions continue to take place in the Fifeville neighborhood.
On September 9, the firm Neighborhood Investments paid $2.24 million for an undeveloped property between Roosevelt Brown Boulevard and Ninth Street SW. There have been several development projects associated with the land, owned by the Piedmont Housing Alliance, on two occasions.
The Piedmont Housing Alliance sold the 0.56-acre property in March 2016 for $1.19 million. The previous owner filed a site plan amendment in 2020 for 24 residential units and about 11,000 square feet of commercial space, which was never approved. Since then, Charlottesville City Council has adopted a small area plan for Cherry Avenue that discouraged tall buildings in order to preserve the character of surrounding neighborhoods.
As a result, the city’s new zoning code classified the undeveloped Ninth Street lot as Commercial Mixed Use 3, which sets a base height limit of three stories but an additional two stories are allowed if the project has affordable units that qualify it for bonus space. That is different from other corridors in Charlottesville, such as Barracks Road and Fifth Street Extended, which allow up to 10 stories to encourage shopping centers to redevelop at maximum density.
Richard Spurzem of Neighborhood Properties said in an email he was not sure if he would proceed with the existing site plan or start fresh.
This past March, Ronald McDonald House of Charlottesville bought a former auto repair business at 316 Ninth St. SW for $700,000. The nonprofit owns two nearby lots and has not yet decided how it will use its new property.
The city’s public housing agency is planning to purchase two properties several blocks away on Fifth Street SW to preserve them for affordable housing. There are multiple buildings at both locations, and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority wants to buy them for $2.2 million.
“The acquisition of this portfolio will allow CRHA to preserve the naturally occurring affordable housing units while giving CRHA the ability to redevelop the property to provide additional housing units soon,” reads a resolution adopted by the CRHA Board of Commissioners on September 23.
The acquisition continues a trend of CRHA purchasing property, including several Fifeville properties that were part of a $10 million purchase from Woodard Properties in August 2023, to expand its portfolio.
Meanwhile, single-family homes still sell at a premium in Fifeville. On September 4, 2024, a two-bedroom house at 223 Fourth St. SW sold for $585,000, well above the 2024 assessment of $376,000. There’s also an accessory dwelling on the property.
On September 18, a single-family attached home in the Orangedale subdivision at 705 Prospect Ave. sold for $296,500. That’s over 39 percent above the 2024 assessment of $212,900.
No matter the development, the leadership of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association want all projects to align with the values enshrined in the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan.
“We encourage developers to come talk with residents directly at our monthly meetings so that we can work together on upcoming projects and make sure residents are informed,” read a statement sent in response to a question from C-VILLE.
The sale of Carlton Mobile Home Park officially closed on September 20. Photo by Eze Amos.
Final sale
The sale of Carlton Mobile Home Park officially closed on September 20, preventing the displacement of hundreds of residents. Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville took over management of the community the same day.
With the finalization of the sale, Habitat and Piedmont Housing Alliance can move forward in their collaboration with residents of the affordable housing community—the Habitat Carlton Alliance. According to a joint release, HCA is forming a resident council that will “advise Habitat on property management decisions and serve as leaders with the Carlton Mobile Home Park community.”
Under conditions of the sale, CMHP must remain a mobile home park for at least three years. In the interim, the HCA is kicking off discussions with community members.
“The work starts now,” said Habitat President and CEO Dan Rosensweig. “We are sitting down one on one with each family to get to know them and to learn about their dreams and aspirations.”
On the trail
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will join University of Virginia law school students for a voter protection training on September 25. Emhoff’s visit to Charlottesville is his latest appearance for the Harris-Walz campaign in the lead up to Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. Early voting began in the commonwealth on September 20, and continues through November 2.
Barracks businesses
Three new businesses are coming to Barracks Road Shopping Center next year, following two recent openings at the complex, Monkee’s and Alumni Hall. Salon chain Drybar and shoe store Appalachian Running Company are expected to open their doors in early 2025, with pizzeria Emmy Squared coming in the spring.
Barracks Road Shopping Center. Photo by Stephen Barling.
Over and out
Construction of a pedestrian bridge across U.S. 29 will shift lanes on southbound Seminole Trail. Work on the pedestrian bridge began September 24 and is the latest in a series of planned Virginia Department of Transportation improvements in the area of U.S. 29 and Hydraulic Road. The bridge will be located near the intersection of U.S. 29 and Zan Road.
It’s probably unfair to reduce a band that’s been plugging away in various forms since 2007 to wimpy dance music for disinterested millennials. It’s also likely giving an unfair shake to a reasonably successful group if you suggest that people like it, or tolerate it en masse, because vocalist Josh Hodges and company put out inoffensive music that pushes forward with a mildly danceable rhythm. I also concede that it would be really cynical to say that STRFKR’s upbeat indie pop has only propelled it to the heights because there’s something just catchy enough in its sound that manages to fit the bill for advertisers and music supervisors working in films and TV, as evidenced by placements of the band’s hit “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” and other songs in everything from Target and Juicy Couture ads to Showtime’s “Weeds.”
I would also completely understand if a fan got really bent out of shape in the event they were told that STRFKR is just an unscrupulously watered-down knock-off of Of Montreal, with much less creative exploration or lyrical originality—and minus an over-the-top glamorous live show to distract from STRFKR’s lukewarm offerings. A lover of the band would be justified in blowing a gasket if someone lobbed the idea that its occasional forays into more lo-fi sounding diversions and synthy instrumental passages—as employed on its latest, Parallel Realms—are just pretentious smokescreens of assumed intellectual or philosophical depth.
Yeah, all of the above may be true to some degree, but if the songs appeal to you, why turn your nose up at them. Don’t be so critical. Go to the Jefferson and see if STRFKR is really as well-meaning as it makes itself out to be. Worse case, you dance. Best case, you dance.
Constant innovators and masters of expansive sonic resonance, Victor Wooten & The Wooten Brothers have been breaking sound barriers since they were young, redefining the limits of bluegrass, funk, jazz, R&B, rock, and soul. Five-time Grammy Award-winning bass player and vocalist Victor is joined by siblings Joseph, Roy, and Regi on keys, drums, and guitar, respectively. Together, the Wooten brothers bring decades of experience to bear in their super-funky, high-energy live performances. This tour marks the first time the brothers have played together as a band since the untimely death of their saxophonist sibling Rudy in 2010.
Sunday 9/29. $35–105, 8pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. jeffersontheater.com
Fall food trucks line up at Carter Mountain Orchard though mid-November. Check the website for details. Photo by Martyn Kuyle.
It’s crazy that I worked at Monticello for seven years but never visited Carter Mountain Orchard until recently. I’ve had the apple cider donuts (worth the hype), but haven’t gone apple picking or to an event there. As the weather cools and the call of pumpkin-spice everything drifts to us on the autumn breeze, it seemed like a good time to check out the orchard. My original plan was to dig in at a Fall Food Truck event, but instead I caught one of the season’s last Thursday Evening Sunset Series shows, which also feature offerings from food trucks, plus live music.
Upon arrival, I remembered why I’d never gone to a big gathering at Carter Mountain: my intense dislike of large crowds. Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of folks in attendance were having a lovely time. I’m an ambivert, meaning I’ve got both extroverted and introverted traits. As I’ve entered my midlife renaissance (read: crisis), I’ve realized more and more that I refuel with alone time and that crowds are not for me. Despite my social anxiety, I enjoyed a delicious meal along with a view that will only get more dazzling in the coming weeks as the fall colors grace the mountains yet again.—Kristie Smeltzer
What
Sampling food truck fare at Carter Mountain Orchard.
Why
Because enjoying a delicious meal without having to do dishes is awesome.
How It Went
Great—it’s hard to go wrong with ooey-gooey melted cheese. The view: a bonus.
The drive into the orchard from the Route 53 entrance follows a winding road that requires an attentive driver. If you’re visiting for a boozy event, I recommend using a rideshare app or having a trusted designated driver in your party. The path in creates a sense of arrival, of leaving the world behind as nature surrounds you. When I arrived, cars were waiting in a long line to get to the parking area.
Once parked, I noticed the entrance buzzing with activity. If you like that Fridays After Five feel, you likely love the Thursday Evening Sunset Series. The last one is on September 26, but the series resumes in the spring.
Weekend visits to Carter Mountain during the busy apple-picking season require a ticket for entry, but on weekdays, folks can enjoy the fall food trucks and views between 11am and 3pm without a ticket (looking at you, introverts). The orchard’s country store and bakery offer picked fruit, plus a range of snacking goodies.
At the food truck area, I beelined straight for Raclette on the Run. I’d heard great things about the vendor and I was hangry. Raclette is a Swiss cheese usually served by heating it and scraping off the delicious melty bits to use in dishes. As I stood in line surrounded by jovial UVA students wearing sundresses and cowboy boots, I felt a little ashamed of my enthusiasm watching the cheese porn as the truck’s servers scraped hot raclette off a half-wheel of cheese. I thoroughly enjoyed The Classic, made with Vermont cheddar on hearty white bread with bacon. All the food truck’s sandwiches come with crunchy, salty, delicious tater tots. Yum!
