While some business welcome the new office building under construction, others have raised concerns about parking, the less-historic design, and the costs of a two-year construction plan. Submitted rendering
The Center of Developing Entrepreneurs, now under construction on the west end of the Downtown Mall, will provide office space for more than 600 workers. But it will include only 74 parking spaces.
That drew the ire of a couple members of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, who grilled builders about a potential parking shortage at their January 31 meeting in Old Metropolitan Hall.
At the meeting, representatives from CSH Development and the Wolf Ackerman architecture firm unveiled detailed plans for CODE, the latest project from hedge fund CEO Jaffray Woodriff, which will take the place of the now-demolished Main Street Arena and Escafé, and rent space to a variety of start-ups and other businesses.
“The goal of the building is to provide a healthy work environment for individuals, fledgling businesses, and established companies,” CSH president Andrew Boninti told the crowded room. “It’s designed for the collision of people, which allows for networking.”
For the most part, the crowd was receptive, sipping rosé and eagerly asking questions about new business opportunities. But midway through the meeting, Jacie Dunkle and another business owner pressed the builders on how they plan to accommodate the parking needs of hundreds of new tenants.
“Many businesses coming to this space are already downtown and already have parking,” Boninti replied. “The parking we have now is being underused.”
Later, Dunkle, owner of Tin Whistle Irish Pub and The Salad Maker, elaborated on her concerns over the phone. “There will be 670 new people looking to park,” she says, “but they’re only adding 74 spaces underground and offering some spots in the Staples parking lot.”
“I don’t blame Woodriff,” she adds. “I blame the city. It never required him to have more spaces, even though people are struggling to find parking in the city as it is.”
Boninti says parking is a concern for anything downtown. “We have secured two offsite areas four to five minutes away, which should add 50 to 75 spaces,” he says, though he declined to specify the locations.
And while the 167,000-square foot space will hold a maximum of 700 people, Boninti predicts no more than 400 will occupy it at once.
The building will have bicycle racks and showers, which could encourage employees to run or bike to work. Other Silicon Valley-inspired elements include rooftop courtyards, open staircases, and a publicly accessible ground floor with retail and food for employees working long hours.
All told, CODE could usher in a new era for downtown businesses.
“There’s been a sea shift in the historic Downtown Mall,” said Roy van Doorn, treasurer of DBAC, at the January meeting. “We’re ending the historic side of the mall and going toward the experiential side, with music, restaurants, shopping, and working.”
Like Woodriff’s record-breaking $120 million donation to the University of Virginia to build a school for data science, that statement has polarized local residents. In addition to parking concerns, Dunkle resents the shift towards “high-tech” architecture. “The ‘historic’ Downtown Mall is losing its value as being a historic venue,” she says.
Others are cautiously optimistic. “It’s always welcome to have more spaces for people who will bring business,” says José Giron, owner of Consignment House Unlimited. But he’s worried he’ll lose customers who frequented Escafé and the ice skating rink, as well as some foot traffic during the years-long building phase.
As the local skating community mourns the loss of the Main Street Arena, which closed last spring, a new option for ice athletes is on the horizon. Photo by Jack Looney
When an angel investor bought the Main Street Arena for nearly $6 million in March 2017 with the intent to turn it into a technology incubator, folks who frequented the 23-year-old ice park—the only one within an hour’s drive from Charlottesville—began to panic. But now it looks like hockey players, figure skaters and curlers could have a new home by next fall.
Board members of Friends of Charlottesville Ice Park, the nonprofit that formed to keep the Main Street Arena operating through spring 2018 after Jaffray Woodriff took ownership (and before he finalized his construction plans), are now working with local groups to design, build and operate a new rink in the Brookhill community, which is currently under development by Alan Taylor and Coran Capshaw-owned Riverbend Development in northern Albemarle County.
The rink’s initial site plan was approved in June, and developers submitted a final plan July 16, according to Megan Nedostup, a principal planner in Albemarle.
The nearly 40,000-square-foot ice park will house an official regulation-sized sheet of ice, while the Main Street Arena’s wasn’t quite as big, says Tom Carver, a board member with the nonprofit. It’ll have at least four locker rooms, multiple private party rooms, a pro shop for skating gear and a concession stand. Special flooring will be on hand to cover the ice for community events that aren’t skate friendly, just like at Main Street Arena.
Carver says working with Woodriff has been “phenomenal,” and adds that Woodriff donated an undisclosed amount of money to build the new rink, as well as all of the equipment from Main Street Arena. The project could cost as much as $4 million, and community members are already reaching out to pitch in.
“It’s really been amazing, the kind of support that we’ve gotten,” says Carver. “We’ve got people who don’t have anything to do with hockey or ice skating or anything else wanting to donate their time or money.”
A group of UVA alumni called the Committee For Home Ice are also working to build an ice park at the university, according to a press release.
Biff Beers, the president of the Blue Ridge Ice Hockey Association, which has long called the Main Street Arena its home, says his teams will practice and play at Liberty University’s LaHaye Ice Center in Lynchburg until the new rink in Brookhill opens, hopefully in time for the 2019 season, he says.
“We are sad that Main Street Arena closed,” he says. “We loved playing there. …But we are so excited about the prospect of getting a new rink in a mixed-use neighborhood that will serve our needs quite well.”
Last year, the BRIHA saw five teams of about 20 players, and Beers says while most of the athletes live in Charlottesville, several come from surrounding areas such as Fluvanna, Louisa and Harrisonburg.
Adds Beers, “We would fizzle up and die eventually without a rink in Charlottesville.”
What's going to happen to the quarter-million-dollars worth of solar panels on the slated-for-demolition Main Street Arena? TBD.
Photo by Skyclad Aerial
Hot topic
In 2012, the Local Energy Alliance Program floated a low-interest loan of $280,000 for Mark Brown to install solar panels on top of the Main Street Arena using a $500,000 grant from the city. Now that he’s sold the building and it’s slated for demolition, some are wondering what will happen to the panels on the roof.
The loan was paid in full when Brown listed the property, confirms LEAP spokesperson Kara West.
“The only reason we put those panels in was because the city wanted us to,” says Brown, who says he broke even on the panels. “Most of the savings came from them shading the building from sun on that side of the building.”
Solar expert Roger Voisinet says some parts of the system, such as the inverters, can be recycled more easily than others. As for the panels, “It depends,” he says.
There’s plenty that can be recycled from the building, he observes, such as the copper roof and the equipment that makes it an ice rink, which current owner Jaffray Woodriff pledged to donate to a business venture that would create a new ice rink in a different location.
Woodriff’s Taliaferro Junction LLC bought the property in early 2017 for $5.7 million, and the arena, as well as the building that houses Escafé, are all coming down to make way for a tech center. That won’t happen until the Board of Architectural Review approves the site plan, probably not before this summer, according to city planner Brian Haluska.
Details are not final on what will happen with the solar panels, according to a Woodriff spokesperson.
The solar panel loan was controversial at the time, says Brown. “I don’t think there were any real losers. It wasn’t an Omni bailout deal.” That’s a reference to the city pumping $11 million in taxpayer funds to the hotel in the ’80s and secretly forgiving the loans in closed executive sessions a decade later.
Says Brown, “I’d assume [the panels] will be thrown in the garbage.”
“There are people in Virginia history that I think it’s appropriate to memorialize and remember that way, and others that I would have a difference of opinion on.”—Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfaxspeaking to reporters after he declined to adjourn the Senate January 22 to honor General Stonewall Jackson
New city flack
Brian Wheeler, executive director of Charlottesville Tomorrow, will take over as spokesperson for the City of Charlottesville, a position Miriam Dickler most recently held. Wheeler starts the $98,000-a-year-plus-benefits job (more than $5,000 above Dickler’s salary) February 20. He co-founded the online news nonprofit in 2005 and implemented a groundbreaking partnership with the Daily Progress. He will devote the remainder of his time with Charlottesville Tomorrow to finding a fundraising successor.
Paw patrol
The Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA is housing a group of canines that Humane Society International rescued from a dog meat farm in Namyangju, South Korea. Many of the animals suffered eye infections, skin disease and have leg and paw sores from standing and sitting on thin wire mesh. HSI rescued 170 pups in total, but it’s unclear how many are up for adoption locally.
Police Academy director dies
File photo Jen Fariello
Albemarle resident Hugh Wilson, creator of “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died January 14 at age 74. He was a writer for “The Bob Newhart Show,” and he broke into directing with Police Academy in 1984. He also directed Guarding Tess and The First Wives Club, and in 2001 made Mickey with fellow Albemarlean John Grisham.
#metoo for UVA board member
First lady of New Jersey Tammy Murphy says she was sexually assaulted while a second-year student at UVA. Murphy, who graduated in 1987 and sits on the Board of Visitors, revealed the attack at a January 20 Women’s March event in Morristown, New Jersey. She says she was pulled into the bushes walking home alone and managed to escape. Her attacker was later jailed for a different crime.
Another counterprotester arrested
Six months after the Unite the Right rally, police arrested Donald Blakney, 51, for malicious wounding near the Market Street Garage melee. He was released on $2,000 bond.
Worst headline about a UVA alum
“Another sycophant trashes her reputation” was Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s January 16 piece about UVA law’s Kirstjen Nielsen, now secretary of Homeland Security, who denied hearing President Donald Trump use the term “shithole” to describe the countries he doesn’t want immigrants from in the infamous meeting at which she was present.
Killed bills
Here’s what legislation has died in the General Assembly so far.
SB360 would allow localities to ban firearms at permitted events.
SB385 limits handgun purchases to one a month.
SB444 allows localities to remove war memorials, and it died in Senate committee on party line vote 7-6 January 16. House Minority Leader David Toscano has a similar bill in the House of Delegates.
SB245 prohibits conversion therapy for LGBTQ youths.
SB665, carried by state Senator Creigh Deeds, adds Charlottesville and Albemarle to the list to localities where it’s unlawful to carry certain firearms in public places.
SB744 makes not wearing a seatbelt a primary offense and requires backseat passengers to be belted. Currently police can’t pull over a driver for being seatbelt-less and can only ticket if they observe another primary violation.
On the last day of May, Blue Moon Diner will close until early 2018. While a four-story mixed-use apartment complex is under construction behind and adjacent to Blue Moon this summer, the diner will undergo a few renovations itself. Rendering courtesy of Neighborhood Development Services
On a recent Sunday morning, a crowd of Blue Moon Diner patrons could be seen hovering outside the side door of the self-proclaimed “best little breakfast, sandwich, burger, dinner, live music, arm wrestling, vinyl record-playing, family-friendly neighborhood bar and activist spot” with menus in hand. Lovers of the eatery, a Charlottesville institution, are shoveling in their last bites before it closes—briefly.
Owner Laura Galgano says the diner will shut down for some renovations, or “more of a reboot,” at the end of May. And because the 31st is a Wednesday, she said her crew thought it would be fitting “to go out with Jim Waive to serenade us into a break.”
Blue Moon, built in 1951 at 512 W. Main St. and originally operated as the Waffle Shop, is an addition on the facade of a two-story duplex called the Hartnagle-Witt House, which was built in 1884. A six-story mixed-use apartment complex called 600 West Main, proposed by developer Jeff Levien and designed by architect Jeff Dreyfus is set for construction at that address, which includes Blue Moon, this summer.
Galgano says the diner will get a few “very unsexy updates,” to the HVAC and electrical systems and the bathrooms, and “just enough renovation to set Blue Moon up to grow with Charlottesville’s ever-expanding restaurant scene.”
The diner’s hiatus will last until early 2018. For the staff of about 15 people (including Galgano) that will find other work around town and the customers, she says “change is hard,” but she’s focusing on the positives—that this isn’t a goodbye.
“We’re just going to go out into the world for a bit to get some new stories to share,” she says.
“We will be back, and still very much Blue Moony,” Galgano adds.
Bye bye, buildings
Blue Moon isn’t the only downtown historic building facing changes. The Board of Architectural Review voted April 18 to allow for the demolition of the Escafé and Main Street Arena structures, but not without some hesitation.
“About the only thing the [Main Street Arena] building has going for itself is that it’s still structurally sound,” says BAR member Carl Schwarz. “The Escafé building is much older.”
The Escafé building was built in the 1920s, when it served as a warehouse for a department store on Main Street. He says it’s a small remnant of when Water Street had similar industrial and warehouse buildings, and every time one is demolished, the collection that remains becomes less significant.
“Additionally, while overall pretty simple in form, the building does have some interesting features with a stepped parapet and brick pilasters in the front,” he adds.
Though the BAR voted unanimously to allow demolition of the arena, the same vote for Escafé passed 5-2. Schwarz was part of the majority.
“My reasoning was that while old, the building is not significant enough to enforce preservation,” he says. “Even without it, Water Street will still maintain its defining warehouse character due to better examples along the street. To be clear, though, this was not an easy vote.”
Escafé owner Todd Howard says “there’s still a great deal of uncertainty” surrounding the future of his restaurant, but he hopes to open it in another location.
Corrected April 26 at 11:22am to reflect the correct number of floors at 600 West Main.
At least 500 STEM-lovers came out to IX Art Park on Earth Day for the city’s satellite March on Science. C’ville Comm-UNI-ty hosted the event.
Courtesy C’ville Comm-UNI-ty
Stonefield death nets $100 fine
Franklin Pollock Reider, 75, was convicted of reckless driving April 24 for hitting pedestrian Bonnie Baha, 57, a California businesswoman who was in town August 21 to drop off her first-year son at UVA and who later died at UVA Medical Center. Reider said he accidentally hit the accelerator rather than the brake.
Let the 2018 races begin
Democratic newcomer Roger Dean Huffstetler, 38, an entrepreneur and former Marine, announced a challenge to 5th District Congressman Tom Garrett.
“Nothing is worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don’t matter.”—Gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart via Twitter, April 24.
“You know what was worse? Slavery.”—Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery in response.
Accused widow bilker files for bankruptcy
Former Farmington Country Club and Virginia Athletics Foundation president Victor Dandridge III filed for bankruptcy, putting on hold the lawsuit filed by his best friend’s widow, Lynne Kinder, who alleges he swindled her out of nearly $7 million. Dandridge now works for Uber, according to a court filing.
Five innocent people
John Grisham hosted a fundraiser for the UVA Innocence Project Pro Bono Clinic April 19 with a panel of the wrongfully convicted, including local men Robert Davis and Michael Hash, as well as Eric Weakley, Thomas Haynesworth and Beverly Monroe. “They were so focused on me, they allowed this man to rape 25 more women,” said Haynesworth, who was convicted of rape and spent 27 years in prison.
Beverly Monroe, Michael Hash, Dahlia Lithwick, Robert Davis, John Grisham and Thomas Haynesworth at UVA law school. Photo Jesús Pino
Loitering-proof seats nixed
The Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review rejected backless benches on the Downtown Mall April 18 and voiced concern the uncomfortable seating violates designer Lawrence Halprin’s vision of the mall as a public space.
Short-termer
UVA law student Erich Reimer, 26, known for his “Make UVA Law Great Again” campaign during his run for student office last year, was elected new chair of the Charlottesville City Republican Committee April 18—at least until he leaves in a few months to join the US Army JAG Corps as a military lawyer. Sad!
Glossary for alt-right speak
UVA alum Richard Spencer. Photo Vas Panagiotopoulos
A year ago, many of us had never heard the term “alt-right,” which started popping up in conjunction with former Breitbart News head/President Trump adviser Steve Bannon. That’s because a “language and set of ideas are coming out of a movement that was on the fringe and on the Internet,” says UVA Miller Center’s Nicole Hemmer. Racism and white nationalism are being communicated with a more modern, more millennialist twist, she says. “It’s a new generation of racist.” And if someone has a frog on a website, unless it’s the Muppets, that could be a sign.
Alt-right: Coined by UVA grad/white nationalist Richard Spencer, it’s a far-right ideology that believes white identity is under attack. Urban Dictionary’s top definition: “a politically correct term for neo-Nazi.”
Antifa: You might think being an anti-fascist would be a good thing, but in alt-right land, antifas are PC extremist gangs who only object to racism when it’s done by white people, and who probably sip chardonnay.
Cuck, cuckservative: Cuckold plus conservative equals conservative light—one who doesn’t uphold white preeminence. “Really racist, really sexist,” says Hemmer. Cuck means “race traitor,” she says. GQ defines cuck as a porn term in which a white husband watches his wife have sex with a black man.
Human biodiversity: It’s been called the “eugenics of the alt-right” to allege racial superiority and Forward’s Ari Feldman describes it as “pseudoscientific racism updated for the Internet age.” It’s another example of using a seemingly benign term, in this case “coopting the language of environmentalism,” says Hemmer.
Kek: Ancient Egyptian god of darkness and chaos now symbolized by Pepe the Frog, originally a comic series character that’s been appropriated as the avatar of the alt-right and designated a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.
Masculinist: “An advocate of male superiority or dominance,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Social justice warrior, SJW: Another usage that takes something often seen as a positive—social justice—and turns it into a slam. Wikipedia defines it as “a pejorative term for an individual promoting socially progressive views including feminism, civil rights, multiculturalism and identity politics.”
Snowflake: Unique, but not in a good way. Used to describe a generation of young people who take offense easily because they’re as “weak and vulnerable as a speck of snow,” according to USAToday College, which calls it the new “it” insult.
After the ice rink fact sheet
Staff photo
Jaffray Woodriff’s purchase of the Main Street Arena and the building that houses Escafé means big changes—and big demolition—are in the Downtown Mall’s future. Woodriff’s publicist sent the following info:
Site: 230 W. Main St. and 215 Water St., total .88 acres.
Ownership: Woodriff’s Taliaferro Junction purchased the arena from Mark Brown in March for $5.7 million.
Repurposed: Charlottesville Technology Center, a multi-use office and retail structure for existing tech companies and start-ups, with LEED platinum certification and green rooftop terraces for tenants.
Size: 140,000 square feet includes 60K for anchor tenant, 10K for retail and 10K for event/common area.
Demolition: Spring 2018, lasting about three weeks.
Ice sports: Will get another season, through spring 2018.
Main Street Arena has sold for $5.7 million, but ice skating fans still have time to lace up their skates. Staff photo
Taliaferro Junction, LLC and Jaffray Woodriff announced their purchase of Main Street Arena on March 2, but it’s not quite time to say so long to skating—the new owners reached an agreement with the seller that will allow all ice skating programs to operate undisturbed this spring and through its final season this fall.
Construction on the new structure, which will be a minimum of 100,000 square feet, is anticipated to begin in spring 2018, according to a press release from local public relations firm Payne, Ross and Associates.
Local architecture firm Wolf Ackerman, along with New Orleans-based group Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, will take the lead in designing the new building at 230 West Main St. A general contractor has not been hired.
“The new building will be architecturally iconic, linking West Main Street to the Downtown Mall,” the press release says. “The building will be designed both to attract innovative companies to Charlottesville and to retain established local ventures that might otherwise leave the area.”
Additionally, the release says the property’s new owners will donate the ice park equipment to a business venture hoping “to get a new ice skating park up and running in a new location.”
UVA men’s hockey president Raffi Keuroglian says he was surprised by how many people were interested in club-level hockey in Charlottesville. The team practices Monday nights at Main Street Arena and will host playoffs there this month. Photo by Ron Paris
he Main Street Arena first opened as an ice rink in 1996. During its 20-year history it has hosted hockey, curling, conventions, roller derby, concerts and parties. It was also sometimes the subject of controversy because it often struggled to make a profit while sitting on some of Charlottesville’s most valuable real estate. Now, it is slated for demolition, and some members of Charlottesville’s quirkiest and most dedicated subcultures are worried.
In July 2010, local real estate investor Mark Brown purchased the building (then called The Charlottesville Ice Park) for $3 million. The business had been losing about $70,000 a year for the previous owners, Bruce Williamson and Roberta Williamson, and for several months there seemed to be a strong chance that Charlottesville’s ice sports would end entirely—including the UVA men’s hockey club. Brown immediately began exploring options for cutting costs and adding revenue.
One of the first things he did was add a bar by the entrance, which seems like a no-brainer today, but in ice rinks of this size bars are unusual. The upstairs event space, which had been briefly used for retail as the home of the Eloise clothing store, was converted into a night club and restaurant now known as The Ante Room. Brown also invested in special flooring that could be laid over the ice, so the rink could be used for conventions, large parties and even roller derby.
The rink became profitable, but Brown decided it was time to sell the building and listed it for $6.5 million in September. Jaffray Woodriff, a 1991 UVA alumnus who is the founder and CEO of Quantitative Investment Management, which manages a $3 billion hedge fund, made a $7 million offer on the arena in December. A press release issued December 29 from Payne, Ross and Associates said the land and building at 230 W. Main St. (the arena address) and the land and building at 215 W. Water St., the location of Escafé, were under contract by Taliaferro Junction LLC. A spokesperson confirmed plans to demolish the arena and erect an office building, rumored to become a tech incubator space.
Through his PR firm, Payne, Ross and Associates, Woodriff declined to be interviewed. But owner Susan Payne says, “The contract is being negotiated and there are some open issues.”
It is not clear whether Woodriff will allow the Main Street Arena, Escafé or The Ante Room to operate during any period while he is waiting for architectural plans to be completed and permits to be finalized.
Gathering place
Katie McCartney sat with a beer at the rink’s bar on a recent Monday night. Behind her, dozens of warmly dressed people walked—not skated—across the ice. McCartney is the president of the Blue Ridge Curling Club, and Monday nights are theirs at the rink.
Charlottesville seems like a strange place for a curling league. The sport, which involves pushing heavy granite stones across the ice, was invented in medieval Scotland and has grown in popularity around the world in places with cold winters and thick ice, especially Canada. But a curling community has grown here out of a mixture of Northern transplants and curious locals who watched Olympic curling on television and wanted to give it a try.
“I was looking for something to do on a Monday night,” McCartney says. “I came out of curiosity and got hooked and I’ve been playing the sport now for going on seven years.”
The Blue Ridge Curling Club currently has about 120 players who compete against other East Coast teams. Photo by Ron Paris
The club has about 120 players and competes against other organizations along the East Coast. As the players’ trips to the rink’s bar suggest, the club is as much about having fun as it is about competition.
“We have a very diverse skill level,” McCartney says, “which led us to host this social league where people can come out and have a beer and curl but also work on their game and get some coaching, and we’re able to do all those different things.”
It is hard to imagine how a curling club can exist without an ice rink, but McCartney is hopeful. In fact, everyone interviewed for this article expressed hope.
“When I first heard about [the sale], I was super stressed out. We’re a very new organization that’s trying to grow and establish ourselves,” she says. “…On the other hand, I love curling and the people that I curl with love it so we’re going to continue to do our sport and continue to take advantage of the space when we have it.”
McCartney believes there is enough interest in ice sports in the region that someone will build a new rink nearby. Meanwhile, if they have to they will make a deal with a rink in another city hours away. “Things can still go on in less-than-ideal circumstances,” she says, adding that the club is still actively recruiting new members. “I’m not super concerned about it disappearing from Virginia.
“I think it’s a big process that takes a lot of time and we are not a part of that decision,” she says. “As a result, we are super happy for the time we have to curl here and at some point we’ll start making plans for where we get to curl next. For me, the important thing is welcoming people who are curious about the sport and introducing it to them in a way that’s fun and interesting.”
Ante up
The same kitchen that produces food for the bar where McCartney sipped her beer and watched curlers also serves The Ante Room upstairs, whose entrance faces Water Street. Previously called The Annex, The Ante Room is the only music venue in Charlottesville that regularly features metal acts for the balkanized local metal community.
Black metal, grind core, speed metal and various other subgenres may sound the same to outsiders. To connoisseurs of metal, though, these varieties have very different styles and techniques. All depend heavily on advanced technical skill and speed by guitarists, bassists and drummers—and The Ante Room is open to all of them.
Bartender and metal musician Luke Smith spoke to C-VILLE hours before the doors opened for a three-act bill of black metal bands. [Editor’s note: We are saddened to report that Smith died suddenly, days after he was interviewed for this article; the cause of death is still being investigated. A tribute concert/celebration for Smith was held January 24 at The Ante Room.] Smith was the frontman for two metal bands, Salvaticus and Blooddrunk Trolls. When he first arrived in Charlottesville around 2012, there was no place for a metal band to play. The now-defunct Outback Lodge used to host metal but has since been demolished and redeveloped into the building that houses Sticks Kebob Shop.
“I started up Blooddrunk Trolls and The Annex popped up and I started talking to Jeyon Falsini [founder and manager of The Ante Room], and he said if you want to do something we’ll try it,” Smith said. “Jeyon’s open to booking anything. We did a series of shows together and it just started ramping up.”
The Ante Room hosts at least one metal night a month, sometimes with up to eight bands on a single bill.
“The thing about The Ante Room, being that there’s a built-in PA [system] and a full bar, it’s easier for a band to get paid and make money,” said Smith. “You can charge an $8 cover.” He said the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar has been friendly to metal bands, but the logistics are awkward.
“I’ve played there with three metal bands and there’s just too much gear [to fit on Twisted Branch’s stage and bring up the stairs],” Smith said. “I don’t know what we’d do [if The Ante Room closed], unless another establishment decided to start doing metal. The Ante Room is also big with the hip-hop community. …Jeyon has been necessary with cultivating the scene here, but I don’t really know where we’d go.”
Luke Smith’s death metal band Blooddrunk Trolls played a quadruple bill with grindcore bands Drugs of Faith and Antigama and heavy metal band Earthling in May 2015 at The Ante Room. Photo by Sallah Baloch
Smith said Charlottesville’s larger, mainstream performance spaces have been unwilling to book metal. “They kind of want to bank on sure things versus taking a risk on a kind of niche scene that could possibly not draw as many people out,” he said.
A small, alternative space in the basement of the Jefferson Theater has recently been used for a weekly Goth Night run by Gopal and Angel Metro. Could that experimental space also be used for metal? Manager Danny Shea isn’t sure.
“Gopal has done a remarkable job transforming that area and in a small unconventional space,” Shea says by e-mail. “I’m not sure the hallway is the solution, but [I’m] certainly open to look into ways to cultivate music communities as I can in our venues and in town.”
Falsini has a philosophy of giving bands and genres a chance, even if there isn’t an obvious or immediate payoff. They get second chances. And even eighth chances.
“I think you should always try things,” Falsini says. “Always keep an open mind. The different rooms I’ve booked in the 10-plus years I’ve done this, I’ve always seen every room as a fresh [opportunity] for every band I’ve ever worked with. …I’ve noticed that frequency is the key. It takes about seven shows of a particular genre in order for the room to be known for that genre. So your first seven country shows might not knock it out of the park, but the eighth probably will.”
The Ante Room also hosts Latin dance nights that appeal to groups like The Charlottesville Salsa Club. No other music venue in Charlottesville regularly hosts events geared towards Charlottesville’s large Latino immigrant community and the Anglos who love their music and dance traditions.
Home base
Down the block from The Ante Room’s Water Street entrance is Escafé. Formerly located on the Downtown Mall where The Whiskey Jar is today, Escafé has been a gathering spot for Charlottesville’s gay community for decades. Private gay clubs with membership requirements have come and gone, but Escafé has remained as a public establishment with food, drinks and dancing for queer and straight communities.
The owners of the restaurant rent the building from owners who have reached an agreement with Taliaferro Junction to sell the building for demolition. Because Escafé was penalized twice last year by the ABC for not selling enough food in proportion to the drinks customers bought (55 percent of sales must come from food), the loss of its lease may be the final straw.
Longtime patron Jason Elliot stood in the courtyard under a drizzling rain in front of Escafé and pondered what it has meant to him.
“Escafé was actually the very first gay bar I ever went to, about 10 years ago,” Elliot says. “That was my first exposure to ‘gay after dark,’ if you will. And pretty quickly it became a home base. Any time I was in Charlottesville I had to go there to see friends who became family.”
Elliot, a UVA graduate, now works for the Virginia Department of Health as a counselor specializing in HIV prevention and treatment. Later, sitting out of the rain at a coffee shop a few blocks away, he opened up about what Escafé meant to him.
“It very quickly did become a place where I would come when I was feeling happy, when I was feeling sad,” Elliot says. “It really did become my second home here in Charlottesville.”
Jason Elliot says Escafé, the first gay bar he ever went to, became a second home for him when he moved here 10 years ago to attend UVA. Photo by Amy Jackson
Compared to other small Virginia cities, Charlottesville has a high number of businesses that display a rainbow flag as a show of support, or where employees wear a discreet safety pin on their shirts.
“I think the great thing with Charlottesville, with society as a whole, there are a lot of places where we can gather, there are a lot of places where we are safe, where we like to go,” Elliot says. “But there’s a difference between a safe place, between a gathering place, and home. For a lot of people they have the same feeling about Escafé that I do, that this place is home.”
The Impulse Gay Social Club, located above an Asian grocery store on Route 29, is not within walking distance of homes or other establishments. And Impulse is a private club that requires membership and enforces a dress code.
Open to all, Escafé is embraced by people across generational lines.
“You’ve got your Friday night and your Saturday night crew, which is dancing,” Elliot says. “All night long we’re going to be there. …You also have a lot of the older gay community that’s going to head out for brunch or early dinner on Friday afternoon before it gets wild and loud. And with UVA, a lot of the people are really transient.”
Elliot looks beyond the gay community at all of the other groups that will be affected by the pending demolitions.
“Really what spoke loudly is that now it’s not just Escafé, it’s all the other businesses, the organizations, the other homes on the block, so to speak. The arena, the rink, The Ante Room,” he says. “…This is bigger than just one business, affecting more than just the gay community or the youth community or the night community…the Derby Dames, the metal community or even Latin night for salsa dancing, they’re all groups that are going to suffer from Escafé, The Ante Room, the arena closing. It’s a wide range of people who are missing out and losing out.”
Inside Escafé last Saturday afternoon, owner Todd Howard had the wooden top of the restaurant’s greeting stand turned upside down as he reshaped it and worked with a power drill as he talked.
“I would certainly leave [relocation] open as an option,” Howard says.“I know that things like this deal take time. …If it should happen that the stars align and we do some hard work and maybe get some further backing we could probably relocate. Escafé would probably be different because this space has defined Escafé in its current iteration.”
Howard puts the drill down and checks a measurement on his inverted tabletop.
“It doesn’t mean that we actually stop working, stop caring, stop developing,” Howard says. “I just repaired the plumbing today. The work still goes on no matter how long we’re here, whether it is two weeks or two years. …And people should be aware that we’ll be giving notice so there can be a long goodbye.”
Long shot
Late at night, people can often be seen dragging enormous bags of hockey equipment past the merrymakers at Escafé on their way from the closest parking lot to the ice rink. It is a long haul with heavy equipment, especially for a goalie. For both the UVA and JMU men’s hockey teams, this trek is a mandatory part of the ritual of practice.
“We’re currently undefeated in the league,” says Raffi Keuroglian, who is both a player and the president of the UVA men’s hockey club. “We’re a strong team and we’re going to be competitive. We’re actually hosting the playoffs at the Main Street Arena in February.
“I’m a fourth-year at UVA. I played hockey for most of my life,” Keuroglian says. “One of the things I was surprised by is how many people were interested in hockey at the club level. It didn’t hurt that we were just a mile away from Grounds. In the Charlottesville community we have a lot of support as well.”
Keuroglian and his teammates had been hearing rumors of the building’s sale so they were prepared for the bad news. “I wasn’t exactly blindsided by it,” he says. “It’s obviously disappointing. It definitely is a blow to the team. But it is what it is.”
The team doesn’t intend to give up on its sport.
“The closest rink is in Richmond so it would be tough to have the same kind of program but we would obviously have to schedule more games on the road,” Keuroglian says. “The interest level is still there to continue the program. I still think it’s possible that another rink could be constructed in Charlottesville.”
It isn’t only UVA’s hockey team that is at risk of losing its home in Charlottesville. The Main Street Arena also hosts youth hockey programs that don’t currently have a local alternative.
“Silversauce” Annie D., a silversmith and former bar manager at the arena and The Ante Room, has two children in her life who spend a lot of time on the ice.
“My nephew Joey Davis plays hockey in the youth league and my daughter, Liala Finer, is a figure skater taking lessons in the learn-to-skate.”
Joey lives in Culpeper and drives to Charlottesville to play and practice. Annie figures that both kids will keep trying but may find themselves at a disadvantage.
“For Joey, he’s going to keep it up and probably move more toward Northern Virginia competition,” Annie says. “He’s also 17 so the competition is getting stronger. It’s nice to have a rink to practice on in Charlottesville. In Culpeper there isn’t a rink. They travel here and they travel to Richmond. But they’re not going to drive to Lynchburg [where there is also a rink]—that’s even farther.”
Annie thinks she will probably have to take her daughter to a rink in Richmond, “and that might make it more of a hobby than a sport because it’s not going to be as convenient for her to learn how right here where it’s an everyday thing.”
“During the time that I managed the bar at the rink it was an opportunity to have a bar in a hockey rink,” Annie says. “Who has ever heard of such a thing? For being on the Downtown Mall, it’s a community area where now the parents have something to do and there’s a social life around it. We added music to it. Now you have kids skating and adults enjoying the atmosphere of music and late-night parties even, and the bar, which is just beer and wine, but when your kids are on the ice it’s nice to have a beer and a snack while watching six HD TVs.”
Natalie Raab, 14, a competitive figure skater, trains at Main Street Arena five days a week. She will be competing in the world championships in April with the Virginia Ice Theatre of Fairfax team. Photo by Ron Paris
The Raab family has already glimpsed what the future without a local ice rink holds, as the rink at Main Street Arena is normally closed from April to August. Natalie Raab, 14, is a competitive figure skater who trains locally and in Richmond (her sister, Leah, 8, also skates). When the rink is not in operation, the family is up at 4:30am to make skating practice in Short Pump by 6:30 and be back in Charlottesville for school at 9am. Currently, Natalie trains five days a week in Charlottesville, and she and her sister practice one day a week in Richmond with their Virginia Ice Box Ensemble team.
Natalie hopes to reach the national level one day, and currently competes in both singles skating and theater on ice teams. In April, she’ll join the Virginia Ice Theatre of Fairfax team in the world championships, and in June she’ll compete in the national championships with the Virginia Ice Box Ensemble. Natalie’s mom, Janice, says the convenience of having a local rink helps her daughter balance the demands of school and skating, and that they will have to continue driving to SkateNation Plus in Short Pump several times a week if no other option is available.
What’s next
Four blocks from the arena, Whitney Richardson rolls up on a pair of roller skates at the Carver Recreation Center for a Charlottesville Derby Dames practice. She serves as president of the team,and skates under the name Crashiopeia.
“I started in March 2010,” Richardson says. “I did the very stereotypical thing, which is I watched the movie Whip It, and I wondered if there was a team here, because I moved to Charlottesville six months earlier. I’m not the going-to-the-bar type and I was looking to get exercise, make friends, and I walked into derby and someone threw skates at me and said, ‘Welcome home,’ and that was it. And that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
The Derby Dames have often held roller derby bouts at the Main Street Arena, where they have attracted crowds of more than 1,000 spectators.
“Every different type of person you can find on the roller derby team,” Richardson says. “We have teachers, we have scientists, we have stay-at-home moms, we have stay-at-home dads. And we have one goal and that is to skate and to knock each other down. With love.”
The Charlottesville Derby Dames have 40 skaters on the team and about another 40 referees, non-skating officials and volunteers who have helped make roller derby happen in Charlottesville for the last decade. They have a contingency plan if the artificial floor laid over the ice in the rink disappears. In addition to a practice space in Ruckersville, they have a space in Fishersville in a building called Expoland that fits the bill.
“One time we went and they had a chicken sale in the parking lot,” Richardson says. “It’s a multipurpose space. …If anyone wants to donate space, it’s tax deductible.”
The Derby Dames are currently ranked number 48 out of 320 leagues in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. They are still actively recruiting new skaters, volunteers and kids to join their Junior Derby league, for children between 7 and 17.
Investor Mark Brown has mostly good memories of his time at the Main Street Arena. He tried curling for a while, learned to ice skate and attended UVA hockey games with his children.
“It was a project that I really enjoyed doing,” Brown says. “It was something that my kids enjoyed. It was different from anything I’ve done before.
“Probably the strongest memory that I have of the rink is the very first event we had there was a Best Of C-VILLE party, and we had the rink ready for the party about two minutes before the doors opened,” Brown says. “We were still screwing down the bar top! …If there was anything I will remember about the place it was that, just trying to get the place fixed. We converted it from an ice rink to a multipurpose building.”
Completing a $7 million real estate deal takes time. Brown doesn’t know exactly when the transaction will be finalized. But he believes that the broad coalition of communities that used the Main Street Arena will be able to convince someone to build a new rink on less expensive real estate.
“There’s already groups working on that,” Brown says. “I don’t anticipate any problems with them making that work in Charlottesville. Most rinks work in rural or industrial centers…lugging hockey stuff from one of the parking garages is not ideal. I would be shocked if there was not in the future skating in Charlottesville.”
Roger Voisinet, a local investor and real estate agent who helped start the UVA men’s hockey club, is exploring options for creating a new ice facility. Voisinet is among a group of investors in the Main Street Arena who would retain the hardware and property at the rink that could be used elsewhere. Voisinet says an announcement may come this spring.
All of the communities affected by the potential ice rink demolition have hope of surviving.
“I don’t think The Ante Room will be gone,” Annie D. says. “The Ante Room will live on. …There has to be another space. The Ante Room has built something really good. It is unfortunate to lose that space because it’s a great club. It took a long time to build it. And Jeyon Falsini has built it to be something of an extreme in town, and not just the other music that we are seeing at other [venues]. We’ve got hip-hop shows and metal shows. Nobody else is doing that and the community wants it. …Jeyon will find some way to find somewhere to put that.”
Jeyon Falsini, manager of The Ante Room, says he’d look for other spaces to house the music venue known for booking diverse genres, but says rent would be a big factor. Photo by Eze Amos
Falsini wants to try.
“I would start with looking to move it somewhere else,” he says. “It’s gotta make sense. The rent’s gotta make sense. The cost has to make sense. …I also have another business, a booking and promotion company, Magnus Management. I help book the bands at the Tom Tom Festival. If I didn’t do The Ante Room I would go back to just that business and expand on that. I do see that it is necessary, in order for a music scene to survive, for a place to exist.”
Jason Elliot sips his latte and considers the situation philosophically.
“I just think the take-home of it is we’re all in a very unstable climate right now,” Elliot says. “We don’t know what the future for a lot of things holds. Locally, statewide and nationally. There’s a lot of question marks. I think places like the arena, Escafé and this block, they helped take away some of those question marks. And even though we’re wondering what the future holds, I’ll always think of that block as being an exclamation point in my life and not a question mark.”
Niko gets a stay of execution.
Courtesy Prayers for Niko
Totally cleared
Robert Davis, 32, spent 13 years in prison for a Crozet double slaying after making what experts call a textbook false confession. He was released a year ago on a conditional pardon and on December 16, the governor granted an absolute pardon, a rarity in Virginia. Read more.
Rumor of the week
Is Lampo opening a steakhouse in the downtown Bank of America building, where owner Hunter Craig has already confirmed a grilled meatery will be going? Lampo co-owner Loren Mendosa says, “That’s a popular rumor,” and declined to comment.
Last week’s rumor confirmed
Quantitative Investment Management owner Jaffray Woodriff issued an official Payne Ross release acknowledging that an entity called Taliaferro Junction LLC is evaluating the Main Street Arena as a purchase for a 21st-century office building that will not house QIM.
Accounting for every penny
Charlottesville plans to award Belmont Bridge preliminary design and engineering to Kimley-Horn of Richmond, and negotiated the cost to $1,980,038.77, according to a release.
ABC not liable
Photo by Bryan Beaubrun
A judge dropped the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control and Agent John Cielakie from Martese Johnson’s $3 million lawsuit stemming from his bloody 2015 arrest after he showed his real ID at Trinity Irish Pub and was turned away.
No more No. 15
UVA basketball star Malcolm Brogdon’s jersey is headed for the display cases and his number has been retired, making him the eighth Hoo to receive this honor. Brogdon is now a rookie for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Sad tidings
Christopher Spears, 22, of Waynesboro died in a single-car crash around 4am December 16 on U.S. 250 in Crozet in Albemarle’s sixth fatal crash this year.
Candy land
Photo Tom McGovern
From the initial blueprint to the cardboard model to the actual cookie construction, UVA Dining’s executive pastry chef Janice Benjamin takes building gingerbread houses to a new level. This year, she based her annual holiday work of art, which currently sits in the main lobby of the UVA Children’s Hospital, on everyone’s favorite movie of the season: Elf.
On the house: 304.5 hours of labor | 98 pieces of gingerbread | 60 pounds of royal icing | 6 pounds of cherry Twizzlers used on
the Empire State Building | 6 different kinds of licorice | 2 12-volt rechargeable wheelchair batteries to power the skating rink
Accused cat killer granted stay
Courtesy Pray for Niko
An Albemarle County pit bull named Niko, on doggie death row for allegedly attacking and killing a neighbor’s cat in 2014, has been granted a stay until January 18, when his owner will appeal Judge Cheryl Higgins’ order to execute him.
What was scheduled as Toni Stacy’s last visit with her pup at the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA on December 18 turned into a protest attended by many sign-waving dog-lovers and an eventual celebration when Stacy received the news later that day.
The case has also attracted the attention of Against All Oddz Animal Alliance Inc., a Buffalo, New York, rescue organization that has offered to take Niko into its care. It is undecided whether the group will be allowed to gain custody of him.
Prayers for Niko/Niko Strong, a Facebook page for the pit’s supporters, has nearly 4,000 members. Kristy Hoover, a friend of Niko’s owners, created the group last October. “He’s just a typical dog,” she says. “He’s not vicious in any form.”
Stacy maintains that Niko did not attack the cat he’s charged with killing, but she posted on Facebook that “it’s all in God’s hands now.”
Quote of the week
It was such an amazing relief to have gotten the news and it was so favorable. It’s been a long, long journey. —Attorney Steve Rosenfield upon hearing Governor Terry McAuliffe had granted Robert Davis an absolute pardon.
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.
Main Street Arena has sold for $5.7 million, but ice skating fans still have time to lace up their skates. Staff photo
Even before Mark Brown listed the Main Street Arena for sale for $6.5 million in September, the rumor mill was working overtime about possible buyers for the prime Downtown Mall location, including speculation back in the spring that a Japanese developer wanted to turn it into a hotel.
The current buzz? That Jaffray Woodriff, founder of Quantitative Investment Management, which manages a $3 billion hedge fund, is going to buy the arena and turn it into a tech incubator hub. Another part of the chatter is that the ice park will move to a less pricey neighborhood, such as the Albemarle urban ring.
A call to Woodriff was routed to attorney Valerie Long, who declined to comment.
“Nothing is settled yet,” says Brown. “A number of people are looking at it.”
In 2010, Brown bought the ice rink that Lee Danielson and Colin Rolph built in 1996 and which is credited with helping to turn the Downtown Mall into the success story it is today.
The ice park itself, however, was a major financial drain. When team Danielson and Rolph split up, it was sold to Roberta Williamson and Bruce Williamson, who bought it for $3.1 million in 2003. They sold it to Brown for $3 million seven years later.
Brown’s strategy was to melt the ice for part of the year and use the 17,000-square-foot-rink for other purposes, while saving on electricity and water bills.
Roger Voisinet is an investor in the 230 W. Main St. facility, and he points out that the property is for sale, not the business. Six or seven locals, two who have children who play hockey, joined majority owner Brown to keep it from becoming a boarded up shell like the Landmark Hotel.
“We had a 10-year note,” says Voisinet, and the group had to invest an additional $1 million to keep the Main Street Arena open, he says.
Since the buy, Brown’s enchantment with owning property downtown has dissipated, fueled largely by his legal battles over the Water Street Parking Garage, which he co-owns with the city.
So when will the fate of the ice park be revealed? Says Brown, “When the for sale sign comes down.
