Author: dancatalano

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Dick Laurance takes final bow

Dick Laurance was named UVA’s project director for construction administration in 1992, and has been building full steam ahead ever since. He’s overseen many giant construction projects in his day (including the Scott Stadium expansion), but none was bigger than the recently completed $129 million John Paul Jones Arena. We sat down to ask him all about it.

C-VILLE: The JPJ was one of the biggest projects UVA has ever attempted—how challenging was it to get it up on time and on budget?
Dick Laurance: The key in this whole business is, do you have the right people in the right place, in the right time, to make the right decisions? That’s how we were able to keep it on budget… The actual arena took 34 months to complete, and we got occupancy on 16 June, at 3pm. Let the games begin.

The JPJ was funded entirely through private donations. Did that effect the building process at all?
Nope, not at all. My job was not to worry about raising the money, my job was about spending the money.

You recently had a “super flush,” where volunteers flushed every toilet in the arena at the same time. Were you ever afraid you might need the world’s biggest plunger?
No, no, my test went pretty good. We had 60 people—they all got certificates, by the way.

Do you do that on every project?
Yeah, I’ve always done it…I knew one place that is relatively new to the State of Virginia, I won’t tell you where. They didn’t do it. They suffered on the first event. Because they did the first flush at halftime, and the rest of the game was not too good. You gotta be ready for those halftimes, because everybody’s gotta flush.

You’re retiring soon—what are your plans?
I’m just gonna stay here, enjoy life here, I’ve got all my grandkids up in Northern Virginia, so the wife and I will be visiting a lot. And watching UVA basketball, football, baseball. We’re gonna have a few concerts that we’re gonna go to. First one, Cirque du Soleil, I just got the tickets.

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UVA Gives New Stadium Hard Sell

On Tuesday, June 13, UVA Associate VP for Business Operations Richard Kovatch stood in front of a somnolent crowd at Newcomb Hall and did his best to make the impending debut of the John Paul Jones Arena a truly seismic event. The numbers were indeed impressive: 366,000 square feet, 15,000-plus seats, 20 luxury suites, 175 TV monitors, 350 restrooms—and all for the low, low price of just $129 million. But wait, there’s more! How about those retractable lower seats, or the massive elephant doors? (“For both trucks and actual elephants,” Kovatch tried to joke.) And don’t forget the “special academic and dining section” for athletes (what, they’re not pampered enough already?), along with an attendant sports museum and hall of fame. And if the whole thing is starting to sound just a little too, you know, huge, not to worry. The John also comes equipped with a vast rolling curtain to create a “more intimate” venue (“for the women’s games,” Kovatch added helpfully).
Now all they have to do is fill it, which is where the entertainment comes in. As Kovatch read through the upcoming schedule of events, you could almost hear the head-scratching commence. O.K., DMB (or “David” Matthews, as Kovatch called him) is a sure sell-out, but Cirque du Soleil, pro wrestling and Larry the Cable Guy? All class acts, sure, but is this really why they built one of the largest arenas in the ACC? Kovatch characterized ticket sales rather unspecifically as “extremely strong.” As he moved onto parking logistics, people began to drift from the room, and one person perusing the promotional literature was heard to say, “What, exactly, is ‘cirky do soleel?’”—Dan Catalano

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Lit up

Pity poor Susan Shafarzek. This recent-ly relocated Virginian (she moved from Albany, New York, in 1999) was just settling into her position as fiction editor at Streetlight, Charlottesville’s venerable local lit mag, when word came down that Editor-in-Chief Susan Williamson was stepping down to focus on her work at the Tupelo Press. For many small, under-financed journals, such a loss would be tantamount to a death knell—but the Street-light staff wasn’t ready to give up. “We sat around for a couple of days and went ‘oh woe is me,’” Shafarzek admits. “But then we put the word out, and people were saying, ‘Oh yes, I can do that.’ So suddenly we have a staff, and people are working.”
    They’d better be. Due to a generous in-kind printing donation from LexisNexis and T&N Printing, the magazine has a can’t-miss deadline looming, and has only just begun to receive submissions for their latest issue.
    “Streetlight is different, because it’s regional,” Shafarzek explains. “Any other magazine I’ve ever worked on, you put a little notice in the International Directory or Writer’s Digest, and suddenly you have thousands of contributions. But we’re trying to keep regional, so we have to get the word out. But it’s one of the things that makes the magazine exciting: It’s not just another literary magazine, it’s the voice of a community of people.”
    And Shafarzek is optimistic that her current call for submissions will yield grand results. “This is our fifth issue,” she points out. “That’s very unusual for a small magazine with a small budget. We’re proud of that, and we’re really working hard. Our primary anxiety at this point is to get contributors.”
    Of particular interest to the magazine, she says, is creative nonfiction, including essays, memoirs and personal reminiscence—preferably of a regional nature. But, while the magazine’s focus is on local and regional writers, Shafarzek promises that no submission will be dismissed out-of-hand. “If we get something that’s really hot, we’re going to feature it,” she promises. “Regional doesn’t mean that we exclude people who are here as students, visiting faculty, whatever. If you’re here, you’re here.” The bottom line, after all, is quality. “We’re looking for diversity,” Shafarzek says. “We’re looking for anybody who’s got something interesting to tell us.”

Streetlight is currently accepting submissions for the 2006 issue. Visit www.streetlightmag.org for more info.