Boasting three Grammys, a 2006 performance at the White House and, maybe most impressively, an animated appearance on “The Simpsons,” Brian Setzer has enjoyed enormous success. He’s been making music since the early ’80s, around which time he combined rockabilly and swing into something bold, exciting and decidedly fresh with the Stray Cats. Also known for his 19-piece Brian Setzer Orchestra, Setzer currently tours with a simpler quartet.
Wednesday, June 20. $49.75-125, 8pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.
At the start of last summer, the local visitors bureau ran a TV commercial aimed at driving tourism to the Charlottesville area, but pulled the campaign, which showed a happy, lively and beautifully landscaped town to the tune of a Dave Matthews song, weeks before the Unite the Right rally.
Perhaps the lyrics, “Wasting time / let the hours roll by / doing nothing for the fun / a little taste of the good life / whether right or wrong, makes us want to stay, stay, stay for a while,” clashed with what some anticipated would be the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history.
Bri Bélanger-Warner, interim executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, says after the rally that left three dead and many injured, they gave the town, which National Geographic Travel recently named one of the best small cities in the U.S., some time to catch its breath before slowly reintroducing the commercial to local networks.
“We didn’t feel like coming out strong with a sales-y pitch about the destination was in good taste, so we preferred to just be quiet,” says Bélanger-Warner. Of course, after the tragic events, there was a new campaign.
Most residents will remember Cville Stands for Love—when the Virginia Tourism Corporation planted a giant LOVE statue in the middle of the Downtown Mall in an effort to repair the city’s image. Then-mayor Mike Signer posted to Facebook a photo of himself jumping for joy in front of the statue just five days after the rally.
“After a hard week, Cville is back on our feet, and we’ll be stronger than ever,” Signer’s Facebook post said at the time. “Love conquers hate!”
But some evidence shows that Charlottesville was not, in fact, back on its feet, and a number of local business owners are still trying to regain their footing.
“Our best indicator is our [hotel] occupancy,” says Bélanger-Warner, who pointed out a few figures on a proprietary visitors bureau chart, which showed that occupancy in Charlottesville and Albemarle County was slightly down in August and September, and had decreased as much as 5 percent by October of last year.
“Our occupancy was still 80 percent,” she says from her Downtown Mall office. “In the grand scheme of things it’s not alarming by any means, but it is a bit unusual to see a dip.”
By November, the percentages were back in the positives, and by December, January and February, they were up nearly 9 percent. But there was another issue at stake.
“Whereas our occupancy was way up, the amount of money that we got per room was way down,” she says.
Aside from November, average daily rates have steadily decreased since last October, and year-to-date they’re down 5 percent. Year-to-date lodging revenue is down 1.2 percent.
This could be attributed to the local hotel and inn market preparing for new competition, such as the Draftsman Hotel, which recently opened on West Main Street, and the Country Inn & Suites and the Residence Inn that both opened in 2016, according to Bélanger-Warner. Home2 Suites and the Fairfield Inn are scheduled to open this year.
Monticello, one of the top tourist destinations in the area, saw a decrease in visitors for the first few months of 2018, but its numbers were similar to 2014 and 2015. About 440,000 people visit Thomas Jefferson’s home annually. Photo by Jack Looney
The lodging industry wasn’t the only one hit. The number of tickets sold at Monticello, one of the biggest tourist attractions in town, was also down.
“Our visitation in the first few months of 2018 was not as strong as 2017, but is similar to what we saw in 2014 and 2015,” says spokesperson Mia Magruder Dammann. For the last 10 years, about 440,000 people have dropped by Thomas Jefferson’s home annually.
According to Magruder Dammann, several factors contribute to the number of visitors there, especially the weather. This weekend, Monticello will be debuting six new exhibits, and, based on past experience, it can “expect to see a bump in visitation this summer,” she says.
Though tourism can be hard to measure, another indicator is money spent at local restaurants. Last year, meals tax revenue was down nearly 3 percent from 2016, though, as the city’s Director of Economic Development Chris Engel points out, that was a record year for meals tax in Charlottesville. The meals tax total from 2017—$11,429,199—was a 16 percent increase from 2015.
However, downtown restaurant owner Will Richey, the man behind several eateries including The Whiskey Jar, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest and Revolutionary Soup, says the fourth quarter of 2017 was “just terrible” for Downtown Mall restaurants, “and it was all because of the July and August events distinctly.”
Things didn’t start turning around until March, he says, and March, April and May were much stronger than the fall. The business owner attributes that to the “wonderful” people of Charlottesville and Albemarle, who support local businesses in a way that Richey says isn’t often found elsewhere.
“I think we are back on track downtown, though I do think things would be slightly better without some of the downtown issues that have been accosting us over the last years, like hyped up parking issues that are not really issues, panhandling and, of course, last summer’s social unrest,” he adds.
Restaurateur Will Richey says the last quarter of 2017 was “just terrible” for Downtown Mall restaurants, but he reports a turnaround in March. He says downtown issues such as panhandling, “hyped up parking issues” and the events of August 12 all contributed to a decline in business. Photo by Robert Llewellyn
As for the local entertainment industry, Kirby Hutto, the general manager at the Sprint Pavilion, says it’s not a great indicator of tourism.
“Our patrons honestly are not true tourists,” he says. “They’re coming here to see the show. All of our performance metrics are based on how popular the artist is.”
And folks at the Paramount, the historic theater on the Downtown Mall, say they haven’t seen any decrease in sales: More than 113,000 people attended at least 300 events at the Paramount last year—one of them being a public funeral for Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old killed in the August 12 car attack—and director of marketing Maran Garland says recent events and attendees are consistent with their yearly projections.
The Paramount aims to benefit central Virginia artistically, educationally and charitably, says Garland, and to help drum up business by keeping local restaurants and hotels in mind when setting times for events.“When we can partner with our neighbors to achieve our mission, and support downtown, it is a win-win for all,” she says.
When asked about trends in the wedding industry, a slight disagreement exists between wedding professionals, but they can all agree on one thing: Last year wasn’t so hot.
Barb Lundgren has been planning local weddings for more than 20 years, and says that as the tourism industry has surged in recent years, “we’ve lost a little bit of our small-town charm.”
While her business, Barb Wired, is currently down about a third, she attributes it mostly to the stiff competition in one of the local area’s most competitive industries. Lundgren says it’s hard to estimate an accurate figure because couples are becoming more last-minute in their wedding planning.
In 2016, Borrowed & Blue co-founder and former CEO Adam Healy calculated that the wedding industry had a $158 million economic impact on Albemarle County. He said then that the local wedding market has been ranked as one of the top five for destination weddings on the East Coast. (Borrowed & Blue shut down in October 2017, and its online assets were bought earlier this year by weddings e-commerce startup Zola, based in New York City.)
“One of our challenges in the industry is that we don’t have enough hotels,” Lundgren says—a sentiment that Bélanger-Warner at the visitors bureau echoes.
Although some Charlottesville and Albemarle residents are opposed to new hotel development, Lundgren says many couples have to cancel or change their dates because there aren’t enough available rooms to host their guests.
Wedding photographer Jen Fariello echoes other industry players: Work slowed down last year, but she attributes it to the 2016 election more than anything. She says business is currently up 25 percent from last year. Photo by Ron Dressel
And the hardest part of Bélanger-Warner’s job, she says, is turning down wedding parties, sports teams or potential conference attendees who want to stay in town at a time when she can’t find a big enough block of rooms for them. Including the two hotels that are set to open this year, a little more than 4,000 rooms are available in the city and county in close to 60 lodging establishments including hotels, bed and breakfasts and inns.
“It happens regularly enough that, intuitively, we know that there would still be room for a few more hotels,” says Bélanger-Warner.
But despite the lack of places to stay, local wedding photographer Jen Fariello says business is booming.
“Last year was a weird year,” says Fariello, “but 2018 and 2019 have made a strong recovery.”
She says 2017 was pretty bad for everyone in the industry, but she doesn’t think it can be attributed to the August incident because, in the wedding world, generally a couple books services such as a photographer and venue for their big day between six months and a year out. “Nobody quite knows why, but that would really have to do with whatever was happening in 2016. I think a lot of people chalk it up to the election.”
Adam Donovan-Groves, another local wedding planner, says he sees that decline every election year, because people are concerned about the economy and their wedding budgets go down. By the second and third year after an election cycle, however, things are usually back to normal, he says.
“We’re right where we’re supposed to be,” says Donovan-Groves, who just booked a wedding for 2020. Fariello is fully booked for the year, and is currently booking for fall 2019. She says business is up by at least 25 percent from last year, and she hasn’t even hit fall, her busiest season.
“It’s really a thriving industry here,” she says, and, like Lundgren and Donovan-Groves, also attributes any overarching industry-wide decline to new competition and venues, since vendors have seen how well others have done in Charlottesville and Albemarle and set up shop. “There’s just lots more of everything now,” says Fariello.
While the nation watched last August, as brawls between neo-Nazis and their counterparts ensued in our streets, all eyes will be on Charlottesville again this summer. But it could be for good reason, according to Forbes, which, in May, named our Monticello region as the best 2018 summer wine trip.
King Family Vineyards, nestled on the Monticello Wine Trail in Crozet, didn’t see any disparity in sales last year, and actually saw a 4 percent overall increase.
James King says, historically speaking, the alcohol industry is one that fares well during economic depressions.
“When the economy’s bad, people want to forget their troubles,” he says. “Not to say that alcohol’s a recession-proof industry—it’s not—but we really didn’t see a difference [in 2017].”
A good indicator of a successful 2018 is that they’ve been busier earlier than usual this year in their tasting room, and every year has been a record year since his family first opened its doors in 2002, he adds.
“We’re on track to sell a bunch of wine and have the best year ever, and I hope that’s the case for everyone else,” says King.
A new radio ad from the visitors bureau encourages the community to stay local and play local this summer.
Bri Bélanger-Warner, interim executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, says the best indicator of tourism is hotel occupancy, which fell to 80 percent in October. Photo by Eze Amos
With an aggressive wedding industry, national accolades racked up by area wineries and breweries, increased hotel occupancy in the city and county, and the city’s sales tax revenue up 5.75 percent from the same months last year—after being down 3.34 percent in 2017, the first dip in four years—Bélanger-Warner says the bottom line is that “tourism is healthy.”
And that’s good, because the local area relies heavily on the industry that employs more than 5,000 people, and where domestic travelers spent more than $600 million in Charlottesville and Albemarle in 2016, according to the Virginia Tourism Corporation.
There would be severe repercussions if local tourism saw a sudden nosedive, says Bélanger-Warner.
“It would have a huge impact because all of those people who come here from out of town stay in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, shop in our stores, get gas in our gas stations, go to our wineries, go to our orchards and our historical attractions,” says Bélanger-Warner, and if all of those people stop coming, businesses would suffer and there’d be a loss of revenue. Or, put simply, she says, “We are in trouble.”
While filling the role as executive director of the visitors bureau, answering why people would want to come to Charlottesville and Albemarle is a big part of the job.
“Why wouldn’t they?” she says, laughing. “It’s the best of all worlds.”
It’s a beautiful city with a vibrant downtown, top-notch restaurants and the “fun vibe” of its many festivals, paired with a rural countryside that offers agritourism, historical attractions and, of course, wine, says Bélanger-Warner. And the area isn’t so large that it loses its authenticity.
“It’s not so big that you’re stuck in traffic 24/7, but you have all you need,” she adds. “In some of the bigger touristy cities or destinations, it’s geared at tourists so much that you get a gift shop every two seconds with the cookie cutter souvenirs and takeaways, where here, I feel people really want to share how they live and who they are in a very authentic kind of way.”
Those hit the hardest last year have high hopes for this summer, too.
Says restaurateur Richey: “I’m looking forward to a good summer—hopefully a regular C’ville summer without any crazy.”
Pedro Lasch’s “Fire and Ice,” performed on April 1 at the Main Street Arena, recontextualized fire from tiki-torch invasion to positive force. It’s part of Art in Odd Places: MATTER, which continues April 5 on UVA Grounds and April 6 on the Downtown Mall. Photo by Eze Amos
This week, New York-based artist Ed Woodham brings his Art in Odd Places festival to Charlottesville in a two-day, intensely collaborative event with the theme of “matter.” Sponsored by the UVA Studio Arts Board, the mission of AiOP, Woodham writes in the program guide, “is to engage and activate the everyday places in our lives. In creative, unexpected and sometimes unusual ways we claim our shared rights to public spaces, while also making sure to question, subvert and occasionally shake up the socio-political status quo that regulates it.”
Woodham, who takes AiOP to various cities across the country, says, “It’s important for me being an outsider to be very mindful.” During numerous visits to Charlottesville, he has met with and listened to residents, UVA students, community leaders and artists. In past AiOP festivals Woodham has mostly brought in outside artists, but with AiOP MATTER, “the focus here is that there’s so much good work going on in Charlottesville that has been going on for years.” Consequently, the festival features 16 local artists, three regional artists and nine national and international artists. Woodham says the events of August 11 and 12 last year framed a narrow view of Charlottesville that he wanted to reframe by showcasing local artists “doing really innovative, change-making work.”
Local artists Leslie Scott-Jones and Brandon Lee have designed re-enactments for the festival in a work titled “Historical Matters,” which tells “the story of how the other half lived…our ancestors, the names of those Hoo are largely responsible for the building and upkeep of the university,” Scott-Jones and Lee write. Re-enactments on UVA Grounds will portray the lives of enslaved persons who built the university, as well as the first black students. On the second day of the festival, their work will celebrate Queen Charlotte, Charlottesville’s namesake, a descendant of Margarita de Castro e Souza, a black member of the Portuguese royal family. In a procession led by the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps, Queen Charlotte will travel in a carriage from the Rotunda to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, before meeting the city’s mayor on the Downtown Mall. The procession will include the Monacan Indian Nation and historical interpreters representing enslaved persons and soldiers from various American war efforts.
Local performance artist Jennifer Hoyt Tidwell will contribute a work titled “Please Move Along, Nothing to See Here.” Four performers atop a pedestal will recreate Charlottesville’s statues of Robert E. Lee and George Rogers Clark in an animatronic-style human tableaux with songs and dialogue.
“This short performance will take place every half-hour at both [festival] locations and promises to be entertaining and absurd, and ultimately raw and personal,” says Tidwell. “I am interested in the juxtaposition of women of color portraying colonizing war ‘heroes.’ I think this is going to be an effective device to allow the audience to have a more visceral understanding of what is hidden or invisible in our community—from the geologic features to the erasure of documentation related to enslaved people at UVA and Native Americans here, to the misrepresentation of history solidified in the statues.”
National artist Pedro Lasch, a professor at Duke University, applied both a conceptual and literal interpretation of the theme of matter. His April 1 performance at the Main Street Arena was the last public event held there before the building’s scheduled demolition. “Fire and Ice” recontextualized fire from tiki-torch invasion to positive force.
“Early on,” he says, “I knew I wanted to do something related to the tension and tragic incident of last fall but I did not want to be heavy-handed about it.” Before he came to Charlottesville, he considered a project involving fire and ice and knew he wanted to honor the life of Heather Heyer. When he arrived, he ambled down the pedestrian mall at night, and the arched windows of the Main Street Arena revealed figure skaters spinning on the ice and the idea sparked.
The final act for the installation included hundreds of votive candles placed in the center of the rink with an invitation to the public to skate around them. “It’s celebratory for both Heather Heyer and the building,” says Lasch.
DBAC chair Joan Fenton says the Downtown Mall has suffered after this summer, and the city needs to pitch in for what’s one of the area’s top tourist attractions.
SKYCLADAERIAL.COM
The Downtown Mall is not faring well, at least according to the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, which wants the city to pump up the maintenance and provide DBAC with $250,000 for advertising, staff, rent and holiday lighting.
Business in the entire city of Charlottesville dropped $14 million—nearly 12 percent—in September, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce reports. And while August 12 is cited as a reason people aren’t coming downtown, so is parking, shoddy maintenance and safety concerns.
DBAC chair Joan Fenton points to the bricks on the mall that are sticking up and hazardous, despite the city’s $7.5 million rebricking project in 2009. “It’s an easy maintenance,” she says. “You need someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Loose brick on the mall, photographed in late August. Staff photo
Lighting is another big concern and the “biggest complaint from employees walking at night,” she says.
Fenton wrote a letter to City Manager Maurice Jones and City Council January 2 asking for increased mall funding in the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2019. She says the city’s budget has grown 17 percent over the past four years while the mall’s maintenance has declined 20 percent.
And Fenton is being vigilant about the budget after a walk on the mall last spring with city department heads. “I pointed out that the plants look awful,” she says. “[Assistant City Manager] Mike Murphy said I should have paid attention to the budget.”
The DBAC letter has a laundry list of wants: Seven-day-a-week policing, particularly at 2am when bars close, cameras, trash cans and public restrooms. The business association wants the city to hire a person to oversee mall decisions and an extra staffer to maintain and clean the mall as well as West Main to the Corner and side streets.
And it wants the city to provide $100,000 for DBAC to hire its own staffer and to pay rent for an office, along with $100,000 for advertising and $50,000 for lighting and decorations as part of the mall recovery program.
Spring Street Boutique owner Cynthia Schroeder, a DBAC member who also started the Downtown Business Alliance, says more mall maintenance is warranted, particularly with the city’s $9 million surplus, but she is skeptical about the DBAC request. “I would think a quarter million dollars with $100,000 for salaries is a bit high,” she says.
She supports a marketing plan to bring locals back downtown, and not just for one-time, alcohol-themed events like this fall’s Heal C-ville Beer Garden.
“Locals have a bad perception of the mall,” she says—that it’s “dangerous, dirty and filled with homeless people asking for money.”
Chamber of Commerce head Timothy Hulbert suggests there’s another big reason city revenues are down from a year ago. “Last September, last October, there was no 5th Street Station,” he says. And while the Unite the Right rally could be a factor, so could the weather or the timing of football games. “A month or a quarter doesn’t make a trend.”
North downtown resident Pat Napoleon, who is petitioning to remove three city councilors remaining from last year, says areas near the mall like Emancipation Park are filthy. “I don’t think it’s an inviting place.”
With erosion at the park, people sleeping there and a proliferation of cigarette butts tossed on the ground, she says, “A lot of people feel uncomfortable. It’s not a clean-looking place.”
Napoleon doesn’t think the city needs to give money to DBAC for staffing. “When I hear about a surplus, I think the city needs to use it more wisely. I think downtown business people need to put screws to the city.”
Former city spokesperson Miriam Dickler says of DBAC’s request, “There has been no decision on this. The budget is in process. Like all requests, this will be considered.”
Vice-Mayor Heather Hill says the request has to be evaluated against other priorities, but safety—of surfaces and lighting and cameras—are infrastructure expenditures “I’d certainly consider.”
Fenton wants the Downtown Mall to be in its own business improvement district, and says that appeared possible until commercial property assessments skyrocketed last year. “Once taxes increased, there was no way you could ask people to pay extra,” she says.
Because the mall is an income generator, she says the city should be investing in it. “People don’t drive from Northern Virginia to go to Barracks Road,” she says. “When UVA has new faculty prospects, they bring them to the Downtown Mall.”
Word on the mall is that some businesses are struggling. “If there isn’t a strong effort, I think we’re going to see a lot of businesses close,” says Schroeder. “The Downtown Mall clearly needs the support.”
Spring Street had busy days this fall, she says, but she will continue to re-evaluate her business. “When you put your heart and soul into something and traffic is down because of where you are…” She leaves the alternatives unspoken.
Correction January 30: The $14 million/12 percent decline in retail sales for Charlottesville was in September, not for the first three quarters of 2017 as originally reported.
Jason Kessler's permit for the anniversary Unite the Right rally was denied. Photo by Eze Amos
Permission denied
Minutes before a decision was due, City Manager Maurice Jones denied several special event permits for rallies and counterrallies proposed on the weekend of August 12 in Emancipation, Justice and McGuffey parks—ground zero for the summer’s Unite the Right rally that left three people dead and countless wounded.
The first application was filed by local right-winger Jason Kessler for a “Back to Charlottesville” rally on the one-year anniversary of Unite the Right. He touted the event as a protest “against government civil rights abuse and failure to follow security plans for political dissidents,” in his application filed November 27.
In the city manager’s denial of Kessler’s application, he wrote, “The applicant requests that police keep ‘opposing sides’ separate and that police ‘leave’ a ‘clear path into [the] event without threat of violence,’ but [the] city does not have the ability to determine or sort individuals according to what ‘side’ they are on and…[can’t] guarantee that event participants will be free of any ‘threat to violence.’”
Another denied permit was filed by Brian Lambert, an acquaintance of Kessler’s, who hoped to host “Donald Trump Appreciation Weekend” in neighboring parks during the Back to Charlottesville rally.
Curry School professor and activist Walt Heinecke, City Councilor Bob Fenwick and photographer M.A. Shurtleff also requested to hold counter events in the parks over the same weekend, and their permits were denied because they present a danger to public safety, don’t align with the parks’ time constraints and the applicants did not specify how they would take responsibility for their rally attendees, according to Jones.
At the bottom of each denial, Jones wrote that applicants should be advised that future permits will be reviewed under the city’s standard operating procedures for demonstrations and special events in effect when the applications are received. The city manager is expected to go before City Council on December 18 with proposed updates, which include prohibiting certain items from rallies.
In Kessler’s blog post where he announced his plans for a Unite the Right redo, he said he had an arsenal of lawyers prepared to fight back if city officials didn’t grant his application—and he fully expected them not to.
“The initial permit decision is bogus,” Kessler writes on Twitter. “The rationale they give for denying it almost makes it seem like they want me to win. See you guys in court!”
“The proposed demonstration or special event will present a danger to public safety.” Maurice Jones in his denial of 13 permits for proposed August 12 events
Another editor leaves the Progress
Wes Hester, who took the helm of the Daily Progress in July 2016, is ending his little-more-than-a-year tenure. He followed former Houston Chronicle sports editor Nick Mathews, who stayed 14 months. Also departing are four other staffers, including reporters Michael Bragg and Dean Seal.
Daycare bust
photo Albemarle County police
Kathy Yowell Rohm, 53, was arrested December 6 after 16 babies and small children were found in her unlicensed Forest Lakes home. Rohm was charged with felony cruelty, and already faced charges stemming from a separate November 24 incident at the UVA-Virginia Tech football game that includes a felony assault charge for allegedly biting an EMT and public intoxication.
Animal abuser pleads guilty
Orange Sheriff’s Office
Anne Shumate Williams, convicted in November of 22 counts of animal cruelty for the neglect of horses, cats and dogs at her Orange County nonprofit horse rescue called Peaceable Farm,pleaded guilty December 7 to a related embezzlement charge for using nearly $128,000 in donations for horse breeding. A five-year sentence was suspended on the condition Williams serves 18 months for the cruelty charges.
Harris could face misdemeanor
The man who was brutally beaten August 12 and was accused of felony malicious wounding could see his charge reduced to a misdemeanor, according to the Daily Progress. Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman filed a motion to amend Deandre Harris’ charge to misdemeanor assault.
Clifton Inn sold
The historic luxury inn has been acquired by D.C.-based Westmount Capital Group LLC and Richmond-based EKG LLC, led by the McGeorge family. The inn was previously owned by Mitch and Emily Willey, who restored it after a 2003 fire took two lives.
Attempted abduction arrest
City police arrested Matthew Kyle Logarides, 29, on abduction and sexual battery charges for an October 27 attempted grab at 1115 Wertland St. The victim said she was walking alone around 2am when he approached her from behind, covered her mouth and took her to the ground. Logarides, unknown to her, fled the scene when witnesses heard her scream.
Man with a Christmas plan
Restaurateur Will Richey was spotted adding some Christmas decorations to light poles last week. Staff photo
Will Richey, owner of Revolutionary Soup, The Whiskey Jar and other downtown eateries, is really into the holiday spirit. And he’d like the Downtown Mall to look a bit more festive.
“The entire downtown business group and all the merchants are in shock at the lack of decorations and the half-hearted effort,” he says.
He points to the garlands with lights that don’t work wrapped around light poles, the red-ribbonless wreaths and the “lovely tree” beside the fountain with orange construction barricades in front. “The city requires us to put up black metal [fencing],” he says. “Why don’t they? It looks like garbage.”
Those barricades are not adding to the holiday spirit. Staff photo
Richey—with the help of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville and city staff—is taking matters into his own hands and plans a future winter wonderland, with the block in front of Splendora’s as a model for decking the mall for the holidays.
He was up on a ladder last week installing colored lights on the nonfunctioning garlands. “The city has not officially endorsed this,” he admits, but he sees it as “fulfilling what they originally intended.”
Says Richey, “We’ve had a hard summer, we’ve had a hard year.” He believes if Charlottesville went all out, it could be a holiday tourist destination. And he’ll be “working even harder to get something beautiful up next year.”
Correction: Wes Hester’s name was botched in the original version.
Julia Kudravetz is the new owner of New Dominion, one of the last independent bookstores standing.
Photo Natalie Jacobsen
New Dominion Bookshop owner Carol Troxell’s sudden death in January sent shock waves through Charlottesville’s literary community—and left some wondering what would become of the downtown institution.
Established in 1924, one of the oldest businesses on the mall is now in the hands of a new generation. Charlottesville native Julia Kudravetz signed the papers November 15 to buy the bookshop, but it didn’t happen the way she might have imagined.
She left Charlottesville for higher education, and returned with an MFA in poetry from Johns Hopkins, where she taught future neurosurgeons “how to write a sonnet,” she says.
Growing up, Kudravetz, 37, a self-described “mall rat,” was a fixture downtown, where her mother was a founding member of McGuffey Art Center and her father had a law office. “This was always a place I felt most centered,” she says.
At Piedmont Virginia Community College she taught freshman composition, and at William Monroe High School in Greene County, her students learned how to write a five-paragraph essay. She co-founded the Charlottesville Reading Series at the Bridge, and that led in early 2016 to doing social media for Troxell, whose shop was still hand-writing receipts.
“I had talked to her,” says Kudravetz, about some day acquiring the business, but “not in any serious way, because it was hard to imagine the store without Carol.”
“Julia seems meant to take New Dominion Bookshop to its next manifestation,” says writer Jane Barnes. “She knows Charlottesville having grown up here. She has lots of youthful energy, an offbeat sense of humor, a racing brain. She’s ready to try new things.”
Barnes lists Kudravetz scheduling unexpected combinations in the reading series, which has moved to New Dominion, staging Donna Lucey’s reading at Common House “amid exotic cocktails” and playing ’20s jazz great Bix Beiderbecke as background music for Brendan Wolfe’s book signing.
Gift wrapping is still free at New Dominion and the Christmas list is coming, albeit with poetry rather than books on Virginia, says Kudravetz. Photo Natalie Jacobsen
Kudravetz realizes that implementing her vision has to be done “slowly and thoughtfully,” she says. The cash register has been updated with a Square credit card reader, she added cordless phones so staffers could walk around the store, and she’s got Vibethink designing a new website that’s scheduled to launch this week.
And she wants to have more events, particularly for children and young adult readers.
It turns out her experience as an educator has been invaluable for running a bookstore. “Everything’s easier than teaching public school,” she says. Even on the hardest days in the store, “my grumpiest customer is not worse than a 15-year-old having a meltdown.”
Kudravetz is aware there are a lot of stakeholders—and an intense loyalty to the shop. A customer came in recently with a list and ordered hundreds of dollars of books. “It’s never going to be cheaper than ordering from Amazon,” she says. “We offer something different.”
She wants the feeling of the store to stay the same: “thoughtful, comfortable, alive.” But there will be some changes, she warns: “There’s going to be a lot more poetry.”
Rick Siebert, Charlottesville’s first parking manager, has experience installing smart meters in Montgomery County, Maryland, where he was in charge of its 20,000 spaces, 19 parking garages and 52 employees.
Photo John Robinson
The already difficult downtown parking landscape is about to become more challenging in the next couple of years. Major construction projects like West2nd, the Dewberry Hotel and Belmont Bridge promise to further clog streets and decimate an already dwindling parking supply.
Hardest hit will be the minions working on the Downtown Mall whose employers don’t provide parking.
Charlottesville’s new parking manager, Rick Siebert, met March 22 with the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, which had an organizational coup and panicked meetings last year at the threat (unfounded, as it turned out) the Water Street Parking Garage might close, to brief the group on the future of downtown parking,
Of particular concern to merchants is the trial run of meters in the immediate mall vicinity for the 157 currently free spaces. The pilot will do away with 97 two-hour free parking spaces and install either meters or kiosks for six months.
At least for now, Siebert reassured the skittish business owners, the validation program will remain unchanged, even as the management of Market Street Garage turns over from Charlottesville Parking Center to Lanier Parking Solutions.
Downtown parking has the “illusion of being free,” says Siebert, but if the spaces are full all the time, that doesn’t help if you can’t find a space.
And for those spaces most in demand—the ones closest to the restaurant or theater or shop—he asks, “Why should we give away our highest value spaces?”
Charging $2 an hour on the street could allow a reduction of rates in the parking garages, where people don’t want to park if free surface spaces are available, says Siebert. If all goes well with the meter pilot, he’d like to make the first hour of parking free in the Market Street Garage and end the validation program entirely.
At present that plan doesn’t include the Water Street Garage because of litigation between co-owners the city and Charlottesville Parking Center. Those parties will head to mediation in late May.
Parking meter bids are due April 5. “We requested equipment to be loaned to us for six months,” says Siebert. The companies likely to provide free equipment “predict the pilot will be successful and that we may expand the program. That’s what those proposers will bet on.”
He says he doesn’t know how much the metered pilot program will cost, but there will be start-up expenses to install the equipment. For the individual meters on the blocks where only one or two spaces are available, new signage won’t be needed, but the blocks that will have pay stations will need new signs to point parkers to the kiosks, he says.
Parking study recommendations suggest paid parking from 8am to 8pm Monday through Saturday.
“I think they came up with a reasonable plan to try it for six months,” says DBAC president Joan Fenton. “If it doesn’t work, it can be adjusted before the busy season begins in October.”
If the pilot is successful, escalating the rate for peak times could be an option. “We can get more sophisticated in the coming years,” says Siebert.
And the parking meter perimeter could be expanded out a couple of more blocks, which would make the streets where many downtown employees park no longer an option.
“The most difficult issue will be to find appropriate parking for people working at minimum wage,” says Siebert. “I don’t think it will be a silver bullet. We’ll try several things.”
Under discussion are park-and-ride lots. Siebert mentioned a city-owned lot on Avon Street that can get bus riders to town in 10 minutes. More problematic is the 20-minute return on a bus that currently runs every 30 minutes.
“When you look at people downtown making little more than minimum wage, to expect them to pay $2 to $3 an hour is not feasible,” says Kirby Hutto, manager of the Sprint Pavilion.
“The metered parking doesn’t bother me,” says Hutto, who says it’s “naive” to expect that spaces will remain free.
What is more worrisome, he says, is that there’s no plan to ease the pain of losing parking in the short term from construction and the uncertainty of the Water Street Garage litigation. “There’s going to be a shortage of parking,” he says. “How are we going to accommodate demand for parking during peak hours?”
The days of the city-owned meter lot on Water Street are numbered with construction of West2nd expected to begin this summer. Also on the chopping block are the 51 spaces under the Belmont Bridge, which City Councilor Bob Fenwick says he’s counted and where many Pavilion employees park.
“We’re already hearing employers say they can’t find people to work downtown because of parking,” says Hutto.
“That is a concern,” says Siebert of the upcoming construction. He’d like to phase projects like the Belmont Bridge so all parking isn’t taken out at once.
Parking is also an issue for people coming from out of town to see a show at the Pavilion. The 75 spaces in the Water Street Garage promised to John Dewberry for his eponymous hotel are “coming out of the inventory I can sell to Pavilion patrons,” says Hutto.
Pavilion-goers need to be able to park, says Hutto, and if all the new parking coming from new developments is for private use, that doesn’t help.
Charlottesville Parking Center owner Mark Brown “actually has some good ideas about how to manage the Water Street space,” says Hutto. “With active management, we should be able to know when there’s open inventory.”
Siebert promises to leave no parking possibility unexamined. He’s ready to talk to churches and the previously uninterested LexisNexis to see if they want to share their lots. He wants to contract parking enforcement. And he’ll work with transit to tailor bus routes for park-and-ride options.
And he’s working on a survey for downtown employers to give to their workers. “We need to find out what time of day they come in and where they’re coming from,” he says.
After a contentious year between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center, and the city and Albemarle County, which threatened to move its courts because of downtown parking issues, everyone seemed to take a deep breath in 2017.
The city is implementing a parking action plan based on recommendations from the four different parking consultants it’s hired since 1986.
That includes hiring a parking manager—Siebert—to report to the department of economic development. “Parking is really a tool for economic development,” he says. “I’m glad this council has acted on the advice it’s consistently received since 1986.”
Bye-bye free street parking
The six-month Downtown Mall pilot parking meter program goes into effect in August.
Area bounded by Second Street on the west, Market Street on the north, Sixth Street on the east and either South Street or the railroad tracks on the south
$2 an hour, 8am to 8pm Monday through Saturday
Parking meters or pay stations will take cash or credit
The 157 spaces in the area include loading zones and 22 handicapped spaces
Cavaliers Kyle Guy and London Perrantes are Hoos with the 'dos.
Photos Matt Riley
What about London Perrantes?
The New York Post said first-year Hoo Kyle Guy has the best hairdo in college basketball for his man bun/top knot hybrid, but Perrantes’ high-top fade is pretty impressive, too.
ACC bummer
The Cavs exited the tournament in the quarterfinals March 9 after losing 58-71 to Notre Dame. But UVA got a nod and a No. 5 seed from the NCAA, and will play No. 12 seed UNC-Wilmington March 16.
“A five-seed is nothing to scoff at.”
—UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett
Kill bills
The General Assembly laid to rest 1,355 of the 2,335 bills introduced in the 2017 session. Of those killed, more than half—777—died with no recorded votes, according to Virginia Public Access Project. That’s better than last year, when 73 percent disappeared without a trace of how legislators voted.
Bell’s run
Rob Bell. Photo Amy Jackson
Republican Delegate Rob Bell said he’ll seek a ninth term in the General Assembly. First-timer Kellen Squire, an ER nurse who lives in Barboursville, quietly announced a run as a Dem and is the first since 2009 to challenge Bell in the 58th District.
Parking war casualties
Charlottesville Parking Center laid off seven employees following the announcement that Atlanta-based Lanier Parking will manage the Market Street Garage. CPC was disqualified from bidding on the contract, says GM Dave Norris. “The city was playing politics with Mark Brown trying to get one up on him.” The laid-off employees could be hired by Lanier, he adds.
Office space
The Downtown Mall is probably the first place you’d take an out-of-town friend, shop for a quirky gift and snag a bite to eat because it’s a good mix of stores, restaurants and entertainment venues. But, believe it or not, the majority of space on the mall is uncharted territory for the public—offices. C-VILLE’s office is there. Author John Grisham looks out from a second-floor space and, among others, Borrowed & Blue, Silverchair Information Systems, WillowTree and Merkle (formerly RKG) are all on the mall.
Here’s how the business mix breaks down:
31% office
22% retail
18% condo/apartment
7% restaurant
22% other
Happening places
Of the 190 storefronts on the Downtown Mall, only 1.05 percent are vacant, which is lower than the peak vacancy rate of 9 percent in both July 2009 and January 2010 during the recession, and the current national average of 9.6 percent. As you can see from the list on the right, other shopping centers in town are on par.
Preston Plaza: 0% vacant
Seminole Square: 0% vacant
Downtown Mall: 1.05% vacant
The Corner: 1.61% vacant
McIntire Plaza: 2.17% vacant
Barracks Road Shopping Center: 4.71% vacant
All together, Charlottesville’s January vacancy rate was 1.78 percent, the lowest since the city began its biannual vacancy study almost a decade ago.
—All figures provided by the City of Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development
Khizr Khan speaks out against the "dark chapter that is being written" at Mayor Mike Signer's capital of the resistance rally.
Staff photo
Mayor Mike Signer had a quorum of councilors today outside City Hall, but it wasn’t for a City Council meeting. A band played Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” as hundreds of Charlottesvillians assembled at noon below the statues of three presidents, along with a handful of vocal protesters, and Signer declared Charlottesville the “capital of the resistance.”
President Donald Trump’s January 27 executive order barring refuges from seven predominantly Muslim countries was the catalyst for this and other protests both here and throughout the country.
Signer assembled a dozen speakers, including Gold Star father Khizr Khan and Pam Northam, wife of Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam.
The mayor said he’d met with a dozen local refugees over the weekend and listened to “the fear, the confusion, the anxiety” caused by the president’s order. “They are hearing the message America doesn’t want them,” said Signer.
Mayor Mike Signer calls President Trump a “demagogue” and says the nation is being tested. Photo Eze Amos
He invoked poet Emma Lazarus and said, “We are a place that embraces your huddled masses yearning to be free.”
And he listed four actions he’d be taking, including working with senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine’s staffs to get specific help for local immigrants and refuges, providing volunteer legal assistance, discussing with the commonwealth’s attorney how to protect residents, particularly if federal enforcement “becomes more draconian” in the coming weeks, and asking the city’s Human Rights Office to address xenophobia and harassment on the streets.
The latter issue became an immediate clash of constitutional freedoms, with at least one protester talking loudly as Signer and other speakers addressed the crowd, and frequent council speaker Joe Draego spotted packing heat. When another attendee shouted, “He has a gun!” Draego noted it was his Second Amendment right.
Charlottesville police spokesman Steve Upman says no arrests were made from the crowd he estimates at 500.
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy snaps a selfie while blogger Jason Kessler, right, points a finger. Photo Eze Amos
At the beginning of the rally, Signer urged, “If anyone tried to disrupt these proceedings with messages of hate, drown them out with messages of love.” He suggested protesters make use of the nearby Free Speech Wall.
That didn’t deter blogger Jason Kessler, whose commentary inflamed many of those standing near him, and who drew a shout of “Shut up, Jason!” when Khan began to talk.
Gold Star parent Khizr Khan addresses the crowd under the three presidents. Photo Eze Amos
Khan, whose UVA alum son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed serving the U.S. Army in Iraq in 2004, said, “We will continue to speak against the darkness, the dark chapter that is being written in our country. We will not let that happen.”
“The people united will not be defeated,” said Karim Ginena, who studies at Darden. Photo Eze Amos
Karim Ginena with the Islamic Society of Central Virginia, pointed out, “Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant.” He drew a laugh when he said, “Two-thirds of President Trump’s wives are recent immigrants.”
Harriet Kuhr. Photo Eze Amos
Harriet Kuhr, the director of the local branch of International Rescue Committee, said, “The refugees coming here are the victims of terrorism and are desperate to find safety.” A Syrian family arrived here two weeks ago, she said, and family members who were supposed to join them are blocked by the new restrictions.
“Is this the America we stand for?” she asked, and received a resounding “no” from the crowd.
Pam Northam’s husband, Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, is running for governor. Photo Eze Amos
Northam acknowledged the continuing drone of hecklers, and said, “I’m a teacher and I’m real used to talking over people.”
Jeff Legro remembers coming to UVA when it was much less diverse. Photo Eze Amos
UVA Vice Provost Jeff Legro lamented “the exceptional talent from around the world that cannot get here,” and Rabbi Tom Gutherz, the child of refugees, expressed his dismay with the “shameful” executive order.
“I am very tired of Christianity being hijacked by the voices of hate,” said the Reverend Elaine Ellis Thomas from St. Paul’s Memorial Episcopal Church.
Pastor Hodari Hamilton, of First Baptist Church, speaks and prays at the January 31 rally. Photo Eze Amos
Following a final prayer, Signer returned to the mic: “This is not an end, this is a beginning.”
He said the event was not a partisan one. “This is an American thing. This is a Virginia thing.” And he ended the capital of the resistance rally with shouts of “USA! USA!”
Signer drew some criticism from the Charlottesville chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, which in a statement questioned the timing of the rally as “politically expedient” for the mayor amid the wave of national protests, while taking place just hours before the first public meeting of Equity and Progress in Charlottesville, a new group political group that seeks to involve more marginalized members of the community.
SURJ also objected to Signer “co-opting the language of ‘resistance'” while not acknowledging the many other activists that have stood up against white supremacy and racial injustice.
Updated 5:05pm with SURJ statement.
Updated 2/1/17 with additional photos.
Correction 2/1/17: The Islamic Society of Central Virginia was misidentified in the original version.
When politicians need flack assistance stat, there’s one number they call: Payne, Ross and Associates. And around the beginning of the new year, Charlottesville’s public relations institution will close its doors after almost 35 years. “It’s a new vision,” says principal Susan Payne. Partner Lisa Ross Moorefield says the closing is a mutual decision, and she’ll be “exploring less structured options.”
Woodriff confirms arena deal
Hedge fund founder Jaffray Woodriff is buying the Main Street Arena, as previously reported by C-VILLE. Attorney Valerie Long says, “Our client is now the purchaser of the ice park for an entity he’s involved with.” His QIM firm is not involved in the deal, and he is not ready to talk about whether there will be an ice park in another location, says Long.
Courtesy UVA
R.I.P. Sydney Blair
Beloved UVA creative writing prof Sydney Blair, 67, died unexpectedly December 12 after being hospitalized for pancreatitis. She joined the faculty in 1986, won the Virginia Prize for Fiction for her novel Buffalo in 1991 and wrote many stories, articles and reviews for journals.
Why it’s not paying for West Main
UVA generates $4.8 billion in economic activity in this region, according to a recent study. The university has been cool to city suggestions that it pitch in on the West Main streetscape project, saying it already significantly contributes to the local economy. UVA doesn’t pay Charlottesville property taxes.
Tom Foley. Staff photo
County exec wanted
Albemarle’s Tom Foley is riding into the sunset, er, to Stafford County, to be head administrator there. Foley started in Albemarle in 1999, and succeeded Bob Tucker as county exec in 2011.
Day in the sun
“The sun is my almighty physician,” once said the ubiquitous Thomas Jefferson.
In a small room at UVA on December 6, packed wall-to-wall with people eager to celebrate the installation of 1,589 solar panels on university rooftops, President of Dominion Virginia Power Bob Blue said, “I’m not exactly sure what he meant by that.” But what he does know is that UVA is one of 10 groups participating in Dominion’s Solar Partnership Program, and once all the panels are installed atop Ruffner Hall and the University Bookstore, they will generate 364 kilowatts of energy—or enough to power 91 homes.
Bright future
965 panels, which could power the equivalent of 52 homes, are already installed
Students and Dominion will study the energy pumped back into UVA’s grid
The school’s 2008 Delta Force sustainability program reduced energy usage in 37 buildings, saving $22 million in energy costs so far
Steak of America
When Bank of America closes its branch doors downtown in February, it leaves a grand 1916 building in its wake that will house a steakhouse, according to building owner Hunter Craig. And while he declined to identify the grilled-meat purveyor, he did say it would be locally owned, not a national chain.
Also inhabiting 300 E. Main St., which began as Peoples Bank and during its 100-year history has morphed into Virginia National Bank, Sovran Bank and NationsBank before Bank of America, will be…another bank. “Not Virginia National Bank,” specified Craig, who sits on the VNB board of directors.
Other as-yet-undisclosed tenants will lease office space in the building.
Quote of the week
“Plaintiff threatens to set a dangerous precedent for news organizations and those who rely upon them for accurate up-to-the-minute news throughout the country.”—Brief filed by eight news organizations in support of Rolling Stone’s motion to overturn Nicole Eramo’s $3 million judgment
Correction 12/19: Sydney Blair’s age and date of death were both wrong in the original version.
