C-VILLE Weekly’s planning and development coverage features regular stories on Charlottesville and Albemarle County real estate and local government actions.
Two years ago John Rubino moved his metal sculpture studio from McIntire Plaza to IX Art Park. He pays approximately the same rent for substantially more space. Photo: Eze Amos
“This is just a glorious space,” says the artist, his eyes drinking it all in. Many people would probably balk at that assessment. The place is roughed-in and decidedly unfinished—lots of raw wood with minimal concessions to human occupancy. There are lights and a number of electrical outlets and exposed ductwork for air and heat overhead. A few tables tucked into the corners serve as individual work areas within the otherwise open space, with just a few beams, a few area dividers of exposed sheet rock and empty floor. It’s not much to look at, unless you look at it from a certain perspective, and from a certain set of needs. And that’s exactly the way the artist sees it—as a blank slate for doing creative work.
The artist and the owner of this building were not sure they wanted to be featured in an article on the redevelopment of downtown. So I offered them anonymity because the story of this space is so interesting. The artist knew the owner had unused space in his building. He also knows the value of inexpensive studio space to people doing creative work. So he convinced the owner to do a few small-scale accommodations and rent out semi-private work studios. When the artist hears of a fellow creative looking for studio space, he sends him or her to the owner. There are currently three tenants in the space—each with his or her own work area, littered with tools of the trade and plastered with trials and essays and works-in-progress. And everyone seems happy. The tenants get inexpensive studio space, the artist gets the satisfaction of helping the cause of art, and the owner gets a little extra income from his property at the cost of a few minor renovations. Win–win–win.
Correction: win–win–win–question mark. Because it’s unclear how long it can last.
It’s part of the logic of a booming development cycle and a restless economy that sparsely utilized, post-industrial spaces like this one will inevitably get bought up, redeveloped and upscaled. A space that might have started its life 100 years ago as a warehouse may lie fallow for a while after something in the economy shifts. But eventually it will sprout into apartments or boutiques or restaurants or into the combination of residential and office and retail that city planners call, with angelic choirs and showers of light pouring down from the heavens, “mixed use.” Fly a camera drone straight up over this part of town, and what you’d see is one of the most diverse, nonredeveloped areas remaining in Charlottesville. The city calls it the Strategic Investment Area (or SIA). It constitutes 330 acres roughly bounded by the CSX railroad tracks and by Avon Street on the east and Ridge Street on the west. It’s been on a slow fuse for years, and now it’s about to explode.
As redevelopment proceeds in this transition zone south of the Downtown Mall, property values are going to rise. And that is a situation that the owner knows quite well. He wants to sell, and he has a price in mind. Sooner or later he’s going to get that price. The artist can see the writing on the wall—right alongside the art. “It’s a pretty amazing space,” he shrugs, “and it’s probably going to go away at some point. But until then, let’s do something.”
The artist introduces me to one of the tenants. I ask what he finds appealing about working here: “The great thing about this space,” he says, “is the location, and also the raw quality of it—that you can with a little bit of work turn it into a nice studio/workshop.” He mentions that a group of colleagues have talked about finding a similar collaborative “making” space somewhere: “The idea is to get out in the community a bit more,” he says.
He has just relocated his studio from a town about a half-hour drive away, where space was plentiful and cheap but the commute was “ridiculous.” I ask him what he thinks will happen when the building gets sold. “To me,” he says, “what’s most important is to have a good space that supports the work. I imagine when it goes away, we go away. You start moving further and further away to find the space.”
And therein lies a story—one that hasn’t yet been acknowledged or identified, much less addressed, in all the city’s planning for the SIA. Economic development and speculative reinvestment aren’t the only things happening in this neck of the woods. There is also a healthy amount of grassroots creative activity—artists and nonprofits and cultural provocateurs doing their thing. There is The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative in a nondescript brick box near Spudnuts (itself gloriously, scruffily, endearingly nonredeveloped). Just across Avon Street there is an old service station housing two socially aware nonprofits: the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville and Charlottesville Community Bikes. And then there’s the IX Art Park, which houses the Maker Space and a sculpture studio, not to mention the open space of the park itself, a flexible communitarian plaza—home to Fleaville and music and theater and civic events and festivals. And all of that is on top of whatever other solo-shot studio spaces may be squirreled into the low-rent nooks and crannies of the neighborhood.
Enabled by low overhead and nonredeveloped spaces and the occasional enlightened property owner, cultural pioneers are busy adding verve and vibrancy and economic kick to this part of town right now, not in some utopian mixed-use future. What happens to all of that when the redevelopment freight train starts rolling through?
Attorney Tom Wolf explains how the city is moving forward to condemn the Water Street Parking Garage.
Staff photo
How many lawyers does it take to schedule a hearing? Well, if it has anything to do with the highly contentious battle between the city and Mark Brown’s Charlottesville Parking Center, that would be five attorneys in Charlottesville Circuit Court today to set a date for CPC’s petition for the appointment of an emergency receiver. During the hearing, the city’s lawyer from Richmond, Tom Wolf, told the judge the city had begun the condemnation process of the Water Street Parking Garage.
“We’re moving forward with the condemnation,” said Wolf outside the courthouse. That process involves getting an appraisal, making an offer and filing suit—not to be confused with the suit against CPC the city has already filed.
A June 22 hearing on the emergency receivership had been canceled, and CPC filed a motion claiming the city’s counsel falsely said that change of date was mutually agreeable to all parties. Judge Rick Moore said he was concerned with the representation that rescheduling was okay with everyone. “I don’t want that to happen,” he said.
Wolf blamed an assistant for the error.
The parking center’s attorney, Will Prince, said he was not required to give notice to all parties because of the emergency situation, with CPC’s management agreement to run the Water Street Garage expiring June 30. At that point, management of the garage reverts to the deadlocked Water Street Parking Garage Condominium Association, with its board evenly split between the city and CPC.
“It’s not an emergency,” said Wolf, who said the garage was an ongoing business and the city objected to appointing a stranger to run it.
“It’s not going anywhere,” observed Moore. He said that he wanted to hear from all parties to make an informed decision.
Ty Grisham represents the deadlocked condo association. “We’re in an untenable situation,” he said “It’s difficult for the association to have a position. We urge the court to consider all the concerns about timing.” He noted that the condo association board has to approve a management company. “Because of the stalemate, that’s not going to happen,” he said.
Prince said he had a problem with Wolf’s characterization of CPC “walking off the job,” and said the city had threatened to sue if CPC tried to close the garage. “CPC wants the garage to stay open,” he said.
Brown was not in court, but new CPC general manager Dave Norris was. Earlier today he called the city’s plan to take the parking garage “an egregious abuse of eminent domain power.”
The city could attempt to end its public/private marriage in hell with Mark Brown with eminent domain, a divorce surely headed to court.
Photo: Matteus Frankovich/SkycladAP
In this week’s episode of Charlottesville v. Mark Brown over the Water Street Parking Garage, the city makes an offer to buy Brown’s shares of the garage. If he declines, it plans to initiate eminent domain proceedings, according to the city’s outside attorney.
“For months Mark Brown has been trying to bully the City into giving him control of the Water Street Parking Garage,” says Tom Wolf with LeClairRyan in Richmond in an e-mail. “He has even threatened to close down the garage, which he has no power or authority to do. Mr. Brown’s first lawsuit was meritless and this new one is a transparent attempt at further bullying. The City is not intimidated by Mr. Brown’s threats.”
Wolf calls the Water Street Garage “a public necessity,” confirmed by the recent public outcry demanding accessible, affordable parking in the city’s core. Downtown business owners have circulated petitions asking the city to not sell its spaces to Brown.
On June 8, the city offered to buy spaces from Charlottesville Parking Center, which is owned by Brown, at the same price per space that CPC offered the city earlier this year. “According to CPC that price is above fair market value,” says Wolf. “If CPC refuses, the City will initiate the statutory procedure to make it possible to acquire CPC’s spaces through eminent domain.”
And that’s in a state that passed a constitutional amendment in 2012 prohibiting eminent domain for private enterprise, job creation, increased tax revenue or economic development.
Delegate Rob Bell wrote the constitutional amendment, and he says the key is that the use of a condemned property has to be public. He declines to weigh in on the city/Brown contretemps, but also notes that just compensation would have to be paid, including lost profits.
“The condemnor has the burden of proving it’s a public use,” he says. “Whether that’s a good use, the voters will decide. Ultimately it’s going to be settled by the court.”
“It’s unprecedented,” says CPC general manager and former mayor Dave Norris. “It’s a very extreme step that only escalates the current situation. Eminent domain is not designed to resolve a pricing dispute.”
The city’s move, says Norris, “creates a frightening precedent for any business wanting to do business downtown. If the city doesn’t see eye to eye on pricing or management, they’ll threaten to seize your property.”
The petition cites the deadlock on the board of the Water Street Parking Garage Condominium Association, whose seats are evenly split between the city and Brown’s Charlottesville Parking Center. Because of a dispute over parking rates, the association has not approved a budget. CPC’s contract to manage the garage expires June 30, and a receiver is needed, says the petition, “to make necessary decisions related to the future operation” of the garage.
Those decisions include making a budget and approving rates. With the current deadlock, claims the petition, the condo association can’t negotiate with CPC to run the garage or hire a new managing agent. And CPC fears the deadlock will keep the association from maintaining appropriate insurance on the garage.
“A receiver is a fiduciary position like a trustee or guardian,” says legal expert David Heilberg. The receiver reports to the court about the assets and property for an entity, he says.
“Obviously Brown must feel like his hands are tied because the city won’t settle,” says Heilberg. “The receiver will sort it out until this is resolved. He’s saying, ‘I don’t want the responsibility of handling a disputed property.’”
And Brown wants $450-an-hour attorney Brian Jackson, a partner at white-shoe firm McGuireWoods, to be the receiver, with the help of $100-an-hour legal assistants.
“That’s pretty pricey,” says Heilberg.
But the city’s attorney, Wolf, is known to be pretty pricey himself. Wolf declines to reveal the rate he’s charging the city because, he says, he doesn’t want his other clients to know how steep a discount he’s offering.
“I agreed to a large discount in my hourly rate because my fees will be paid with taxpayer money and because I love litigating against bullies,” says Wolf.
He points out that all good trial lawyers with decades of experience are expensive and he knows for a fact there are many lawyers in Virginia whose normal hourly rate is significantly higher than his.
Brown declined to comment on the eminent domain threat. The emergency receivership petition was scheduled to be heard in court June 22. Another hearing on that scheduling will take place at 4:30pm today.
Says Heilberg, “It sounds like a mess.”
“The city has taken a situation that was messy and made it messier,” says Norris. “My sincere hope is that sanity prevails.”
Timeline of contention
August 12, 2014: Mark Brown buys Charlottesville Parking Center for $13.8 million.
October 15, 2015: CPC proposes new rates of $145 a month, $180 for reserved spaces and $2.50 an hour at the Water Street Garage.
October 28, 2015: The city counters with $125 and $140 for reserved spaces and an hourly rate of $2.
February 2, 2016: The city declines CPC’s offer to lease parking center spaces to the city, says it will consider a fair offer to sell its 629 spaces to CPC.
February 17: The city refuses CPC’s offer to pay $6,792 per space—nearly $4.3 million.
March 14: Brown sues the city, alleging he’s being forced to run the Water Street Garage at below market rate and below what the city-owned Market Street Garage charges.
March 28: Brown announces he’s hired former mayor Dave Norris to be general manager of Charlottesville Parking Center.
April 4: Chris Engel, Charlottesville director of economic development, sends a letter to Brown questioning Norris’ qualifications to run the parking garage.
April 6: Brown notifies the Water Street Parking Garage Condo Association that it’s in default of its agreement with CPC by not having a 2016 budget and gives the city 30 days to come up with one. Fears that the garage will close May 6 begin to foment.
April 28: Brown writes the city, urging them to work things out. brown letter to City Council 4-28-16
April 29:Charlottesville countersues CPC, claiming the city didn’t get its right of first refusal for Wells Fargo’s parking spaces that the bank sold to CPC. city counterclaim 4-29-16
Besides creating delays on Water Street, the Third Street SE stoplight is also known for once having a Southern-accented male voice instructing pedestrians when to cross.
Staff photo
On Water Street, buses regularly back up at a traffic light at Third Street SE that has the Water Street Parking Garage on one side and a half street dead-ending on the Downtown Mall on the other. Water Street traffic can idle at this light for nearly a minute, by this reporter’s count. The Charlottesville Area Transit advisory board asked that it be changed, a request that was under way until City Manager Maurice Jones intervened and put the request on hold.
“Some business owners raised some concerns that they believe this crosswalk is the best one for folks with mobility issues or handicapped to get on the mall,” says city spokesperson Miriam Dickler. “They asked the city to reconsider. We put a pause on that to consider other options.”
That pause has raised concerns for Lena Seville, who sits on the CAT advisory board, which has been asking that the signal, which is right after a bus stop, be changed for months. “We were told Neighborhood Development Services couldn’t restripe until the weather was warm,” she says. “Everything I was told was that it was going to be removed.”
Seville also says she was told someone on City Council had intervened on someone else’s behalf who did not want the signal removed.
“A lot about this bothers me,” she says. “There’s a process in place. They’re elected to be fair, not to get special treatment for friends and donors. They’re supposed to work for the overall benefit of the public, not the special benefit of individuals.”
“Nobody I talked to had talked to anybody from City Council about this,” says Dickler. “People contact the city manager’s office all the time. It’s a totally appropriate way to contact the city.”
She says Neighborhood Development and CAT staff are working to evaluate the situation.
“It does delay the buses,” especially at the bottom of the hour when 11 buses leave the Transit Center and get stopped at the light, says CAT manager John Jones. “The last bus in line can lose four minutes of transit time. People riding the No. 10 bus are quite sensitive to delays.”
“It seemed ridiculous to back up traffic on that street,” says Seville. “Each bus has to wait for its own green light.”
From her own observation at the bus stop, she says it’s rare to see someone use that crosswalk. And she says the green light for dead-end Third Street stays green as long as it is on Water Street—with no traffic coming out of Third.
“The thing is, it’s not activated by actual use,” she says. Lights can have sensors or can be pedestrian activated. “I don’t think it should work the way it works. It could be modified.”
It’s not the first time there has been grousing about the city’s handling of traffic lights. The long-awaited McIntire Interchange opened in February 2015, and for months drivers languished through multiple cycles at a light that was green for only 18 seconds, despite heavy traffic volume, backups and complaints. Lights installed at Park Street also stalled commutes.
Citizens who have concerns about traffic issues can contact Neighborhood Development, for which Rashad Hanbali is the new traffic engineering manager, says Dickler. Or, apparently, they can also complain to the city manager’s office.
“It appears there’s sort of a lack of transparency and evenness to this process,” says Seville. “It feels like things are happening behind the scenes. I would have liked it transparent and public.”
Former RWSA executive director Tom Frederick and Chair Mike Gaffney inspect the plaque that commemorates their efforts in getting the Ragged Mountain Dam built.
Staff photo
Perhaps nothing this century has shaken the Charlottesville area more than the drought of 2002, when carwashes closed, restaurants served on paper plates and the water supply was within 60 days of running out.
And perhaps nothing has divided the community more than the multi-year battle waged over the plan to build a 129-foot-tall mega-dam at Ragged Mountain that would be filled with a nine-mile pipeline from the silting-up South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, from which most of the area’s water still comes.
Today, the pipeline is unbuilt and the South Fork is still filling with sediment, but the new $38 million dam at Ragged Mountain is complete and the reservoir is full, holding 1.5 billion gallons of water.
Champions of the Ragged plan gathered at the new dam on a rainy May 5 to toast the bounty of fresh water and celebrate National Drinking Water Week. Mike Gaffney, chair of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, noted the “herculean effort” to get the dam approved and built, construction of which started in 2012 and was completed in 2014.
Former RWSA executive director Tom Frederick, who led the dam construction effort after a plan to pull water from the James River was rejected and who just finished his tenure here to take a new job in Loudoun County, recalled the community’s fear of drought—and fear of clear cutting and destruction of habitat in the natural area around the reservoir.
“We’re putting to rest permanently the notion this would be an environmental wreck,” said Frederick. “We recognize and prove we as humans can live together with nature.”
Albemarle Board of Supervisors Chair Liz Palmer was on the Albemarle County Service Authority Board when the debate raged, and she noted that the new dam “was only part of the plan.” Palmer listed aging infrastructure—both the 1920s-built pipeline from Sugar Hollow reservoir used to fill Ragged Mountain and the Observatory Hill Water Treatment Plant, which processes water from the Ragged reservoir, are “antiquated,” she said.
Once the pipeline is built from South Fork Rivanna for water storage at Ragged Mountain, during times of drought, the pipe will be able to “gravity feed” back down to the South Fork, which has the largest water treatment plant, she said. That offers redundancy and “we don’t have to build a new treatment plant,” said Palmer.
The unbuilt pipeline is still the rub for those who fell into the camp that favored dredging the Rivanna rather than investing in the new dam. “It was a ridiculous idea to begin with,” says former city councilor Dede Smith, who founded a group called Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan. “It was $100 million of a $140 million project.”
“I haven’t seen any acquisitions of rights of way” to build the pipeline, says former vice-mayor Kevin Lynch, who also opposed the Ragged Mountain plan. “Most people are still getting water from the South Fork and nothing’s been done to that.”
The good news, Lynch adds, is the South Fork reservoir is silting up more slowly than it had in previous decades. “We’re good at building new stuff and not so good at maintenance,” he says.
“We’re going to get that pipeline built,” assures Gaffney.
“It’s in the capital improvement plan,” says Frederick.
The water level of the Sugar Hollow reservoir has been a concern for both supporters and opponents of the new dam. Between filling up Ragged Mountain and downstream releases of water into the Moormans River, which flows into Sugar Hollow, while other reservoirs have water overflowing their spillways, Sugar Hollow was nearly 14 feet below level April 30, according to a RWSA daily report.
“Sugar Hollow went down precipitously last summer, and it went down this spring,” says John Martin with Friends of the Moormans, a group that supported the Ragged Mountain Dam because that plan would allow larger releases from Sugar Hollow into the Moormans River.
The plan, modeled on the flow of the Mechums River, called for releases of 10 million gallons a day from Sugar Hollow into the Moormans. “The concern is that formula may be overstating the amount of water to be released,” says Martin. “Too much water is going out and not enough is coming in.”
RWSA has asked the Department of Environmental Quality to temporarily lower its releases to 5million gallons a day.
Those “minor corrections” are something one learns during the process, says Frederick. He expects Sugar Hollow levels to fluctuate for a period of time, but ultimately the reservoir will fill up again.
Despite low water levels in Sugar Hollow, Martin says water flow in the Moormans is “tremendously improved” from before, when it would dry up every summer.
That’s what it’s always done, counter Lynch and Smith, who call the Moormans a “flashy” river—one that gets really high flows when it rains and low flows when it doesn’t.
Using the Moormans River and Sugar Hollow with its 17.5 square miles of drainage area is “not sustainable in the long term for this community,” says Palmer. She says that’s why the nine-mile pipeline from the South Fork Rivanna’s 260-square-mile watershed is needed. While the South Fork is good for collecting water, it’s not good for storage, but Ragged Mountain, a natural bowl, is, she points out.
Once the pipeline is built, she adds, the Sugar Hollow pipeline will be abandoned. But for now, Sugar Hollow remains Ragged Mountain’s lifeline.
With the rain coming down and the reservoir full, those there last week clinked their plastic cups and toasted clean water—1.5 billion gallons of it.
Between the Corner and downtown Charlottesville, five hotel projects are in the works—and that doesn’t include the recently opened Residence Inn on the corner of West Main Street and Ridge-McIntire Road, nor Graduate Charlottesville, which opened last year.
City and tourism officials say this hotel-building frenzy is an economic windfall for the area and provides much-needed supply. Despite that, some are skeptical the area can support so many hotels, particularly during the week, and they are concerned the local landscape will be haunted by more skeletal projects like the still-incomplete Landmark.
“In general, I think that’s too many to succeed in a part of town already chock-a-block with hotels,” says close-to-downtown resident Antoinette Roades, citing the Omni, Hampton Inn, Courtyard Marriott and Graduate.
“We’re very happy about the additional inventory coming into the market,” says Bri Warner, director of marketing and sales at the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau. “During certain times of the year, it’s impossible to provide proposals to clients looking for a block of rooms.”
Thanks to the Charlottesville area becoming a wedding destination, during the prime marrying months of May or October couples can find themselves out of luck and looking at having to stay in Waynesboro, Staunton or Richmond. “We want them to be able to stay in Charlottesville,” says Warner.
But it’s not just the wedding biz that’s filling Charlottesville and Albemarle’s 3,700 rooms. The University of Virginia is a major driver with education, sports and medical visitors. “We’ve got a lot of niche markets,” says visitors bureau Executive Director Kurt Burkhart.
Add in conferences—despite the area’s lack of a convention center—corporate and leisure travel, and the area boasts an astounding 70 to 71 percent occupancy rate, says Burkhart.
Compare that with the statewide average of 47 percent occupancy and $85 a night. Here in 2016, even during the traditionally slow first quarter, upscale hotels between Boars Head and downtown were 65 percent occupied with an average nightly rate of $145, according to STR Global, which tracks the hotel industry.
Tourism spending brings in an eye-popping half-billion dollars a year, reports the Virginia Tourism Corporation for 2014. And that’s just Charlottesville and Albemarle. The industry supports 5,400 jobs in the area and a $105 million payroll.
“All numbers point to a healthy economy,” says Burkhart. “We’ve been on an upward trajectory, and 2015 was better than 2014.”
Photo: Carr City Centers, Matteus Frankovich, Southern Development
The nice thing about visitors is that they leave their money, pay the lodging tax and go home, say those in the business. “Tourism is clean,” says Burkhart. “You don’t have to build schools. Local residents become the beneficiaries of tourism.”
Some have knocked hospitality jobs for being lower paid, but Hollie Lee, chief of workforce development strategies in the city’s economic development office, says hotel jobs are not in the same category as fast-food employment.
“We’re seeing competitive rates,” she says. For instance, while housekeeping may normally be an $8-an-hour job, she’s seeing them in the $9-, $10- and $11-an-hour range.
“I think that’s pretty reasonable for someone who doesn’t have a lot of education and skills,” she says. For someone with a GED, “You can start at a lower level, get on-the-job training and move up,” which is the path some hotel general managers have taken, she says. The industry offers a lot of cross-training, which “makes you more valuable,” she says.
In the past two years, three new area hotels each have hired between 40 and 60 employees, says Lee.
But not everyone is buying into the boosterism of the hospitality industry. City Councilor Bob Fenwick is concerned about how quickly hotel projects are lining up in the downtown area and worries they could cause the 70 percent occupancy rate to plummet.
He cites the example of an Elton John concert that packed the town, and hotel rooms couldn’t be found. “That situation was publicized as an indication we need more hotel rooms—as if we have an Elton John concert or other big name every week,” says Fenwick.
Once the new projects come on board, he fears oversupply and downtown becoming a “hotel alley,” with the Landmark as a grim reminder of what happens when financing dries up.
For Charlottesville’s director of economic development, the current building boom is part of a cycle. “Eight years ago, no one was building anything,” says Chris Engel. And while the current cycle will slow, “I think we’ll see older properties improve or convert, like the old Quality Inn that’s now the Country Inn and Suites.”
One reason for the downtown area boom: Visitors want to be within walking distance of the Downtown Mall. That’s what Vik Patel with Baywood Hotels, a development company out of Greenbelt, Maryland, that is working on two of the hotel projects, discovered in his company’s research.
Another trend with several of the new hostelries like the Residence Inn is to skip including restaurants because of the abundance of dining options downtown.
Here’s who’s not freaked out by the new hotels—and competition: the Omni, which a couple of sources say boasts a 91 percent occupancy rate. Sales and Marketing Director Jennifer Mayo would not confirm that number, allowing only that the west-end-of-the-mall hotel’s occupancy was “very high.”
Says Mayo, “Worried is not in our vocabulary.”
The projects
Autograph Hotel
1106 W. Main St.
Developer: Carr City Centers, Washington, D.C.
Number of rooms: 150
Development status: Okayed by Board of Architectural Review March 25; groundbreaking by early summer.
Carr owns the Willard Hotel in Washington, and recently closed on the former Studio Art Shop property for $4 million, says its former owner John Bartelt. The Autograph will have a “signature restaurant” on the ground floor, 2.5 levels of parking, hidden by “an attractive architectural” screen, fourth floor meeting rooms and guest rooms above that in a 101-foot, 10-story tower, says Mike Wilson, Carr senior VP. “We want to provide a gateway between the university and downtown,” he says, one that is a luxurious, upscale boutique.
For years, Bartelt refused to sell his property at 11th Street to UVA for fear West Main would be pedestrian unfriendly, with deserted office buildings after 5pm. “Having a hotel there is better than what it could have been,” he says.
Home2 Suites by Hilton
201 Monticello Ave.
Developer: Baywood Hotels, Greenbelt, Maryland
Number of rooms: 113 rooms, four stories
Development status: Site plan under review; groundbreaking later this year.
Baywood is a development company that does only hotels, says senior VP Vik Patel, and the Coran Capshaw-owned former Portico Church location’s “proximity to the Downtown Mall attracted us to this site,” he says. Home2 Suites by Hilton are extended-stay hotels with a “boutique-y feel,” says Patel. While this one will have a fitness center and indoor pool, it won’t have a restaurant or a bar. And it will compete with Residence Inn for corporate clients, those in town because of UVA Medical Center and wedding parties. “I think we’ll be a great addition to that street corner,” he says.
Glass Building site
Garrett and Fourth streets
Owner: Oliver Kuttner
Number of rooms: 120-150
Development status: Kuttner expects site plan approval by August; city planner Brian Haluska said it could be months if not years.
Oliver Kuttner wants to put a hotel on top of a parking deck on his Garrett Street property. Photo: Elli Williams
Kuttner is one of the most visionary builders around, with projects like the Tree House on the Glass Building site, but his innovations often are not embraced by the city, which gave his plan to put micro apartments in an affordable housing-strapped town a cold reception. He’s in talks with Baywood Hotels, and Patel confirms that, but says it’s premature to comment further. Kuttner says he can do by-right development, and envisions a 350-space parking structure with a hotel on top, along with an office and residential component on the site that’s “essentially two city blocks,” he says. “The demand for hotels is there for downtown.” So is the demand for parking with the Water Street Garage at capacity. “A hotel with parking that’s open to the public during the day has its advantages,” says Kuttner.
Fairfield Inn & Suites
Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue
Developer: Southern Development
Number of rooms: 100-plus
Development status: City approvals complete; groundbreaking this summer.
Of all the current hotel projects, none has been more actively opposed than this one. Southern Development’s Charlie Armstrong has worked on the William Taylor Plaza for more than a decade. Neighbors resisted the planned unit development on the corner of the historic African-American neighborhood amid concerns a 19th-century cemetery is on the site, and submitted a petition with more than 500 signatures objecting to the Fairfield Inn last summer. Now that approvals are in place, Armstrong is selling the corner to Marriott, which owns the Fairfield chain, and he is getting ready to work on the commercial and residential phase 2 of the plaza.
The Dewberry
201 E. Water St.
Developer: John Dewberry
Number of rooms: Approximately 100
Development status: Depends on when the Dewberry Charleston is completed.
Atlanta’s John Dewberry bought the Landmark in 2012. Four years later, he may be getting around to putting a hotel there. Photo: Courtesy subject
If the Fairfield is the most controversial hotel project, the skeletal structure of the Landmark Hotel looming over the Downtown Mall for more than seven years is the most ridiculed. The glowing collaboration between CNET founder Halsey Minor and Ice Park/Regal Cinema developer Lee Danielson to build a nine-story luxury hotel in 2008 quickly deteriorated and construction stopped in January 2009. Dewberry picked up the blighted property in 2012 and said he’d start on it as soon as he finished his hotel in Charleston. Four years later, in January, City Council approved a resolution to take action that included getting an appraisal in the event of public acquisition through condemnation. Camp Dewberry is upbeat that won’t happen because the Charleston hotel finally is supposed to open in mid-June. “We’re excited,” says Dewberry representative Eliza Heyward. “We met with the mayor and city officials. We’re getting the ball rolling.” One other problem facing the project and possibly its financing is that the downtown hotel no longer has access to parking in the Water Street Garage. “I’m sure it’s something John is working on,” says Heyward.
Recently opened
Residence Inn
315 W. Main St.
Number of rooms: 124 suites
The Marriott property opened its doors March 28, and in its first month has had a 65 percent occupancy, compared to the usual 30 percent for new hotels, says Regina Dodd, director of sales. The $189-and-up rooms are all suites, including studios (around $349 on weekends), one and two bedrooms, all with kitchens that cater toward the extended-stay visitor. “There’s not another hotel in the city like this one,” says Dodd. Unlike most Residence Inns, this one has a bar, along with a fitness center, pool and three meeting rooms. Dodd is not worried about midweek occupancy because of UVA academic and medical visitors, corporate and government travelers, new technology companies and vineyard and wedding tourism. Even with the competition targeting the Residence Inn, she sees demand “continuing to grow.”
The Townsman
211 W. Main St.
Number of rooms: 4
The Townsman is not your typical hotel, says manager Jeremy Fields, and he describes it as a hybrid. “People want to live like a local when they come to town and get out of the hotel,” he says. With Mudhouse next door and lots of restaurants nearby, visitors can walk to everything they need. The hotel is ideal for groups that want to book all four rooms, but individual rooms are available, too. Guests reserve on the website, receive an e-mail with a personal access code, arrive in town and head directly to their deluxe, Kenny Ball-designed rooms with no interactions with staff, he says. The Townsman had a soft, word-of-mouth opening in April. Fields says its rates will be competitive and in the $150-$170 range during the week.
Graduate Charlottesville
1309 W. Main St.
Number of rooms: 134
When Graduate Charlottesville opened last year on the site of the Red Roof Inn, it didn’t really add to the hotel inventory. And with its primo location on the Corner across from UVA, some of the weekend rates for the end of May and early June are in the $389-$399 range, according to its website. “At the end of the day, the increase in upscale hotels in Charlottesville is positive progress because it means tourism is up and people are looking for much more of an experiential stay,” says Graduate GM Yolunda Harrell. “I think that’s where Graduate Charlottesville shines.” For locals seeking to soak in the ambience once the students clear out, check out its rooftop restaurant and bar, which are scheduled to open mid-June.
City Councilor Bob Fenwick is concerned about how quickly hotel projects are lining up in the downtown area and he worries they could cause the 70 percent occupancy rate to plummet. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
Correction: The original story and map misplaced Oliver Kuttner’s planned hotel, which would be on the corner of Garrett and Fourth streets.
Demolition of Fulfillment Farms’ main house, which will be replaced with a hunting lodge, is scheduled to begin soon.
Submitted photo
In Charlottesville, an ordinance exists to protect historic properties, but in Albemarle County, there’s no such luck. And one woman is hoping to save three old buildings on a county farm that was in her family for several generations.
Andrew Jackson Dawson served in the 5th Virginia Cavalry and the 49th Virginia Infantry during the Civil War and owned Albemarle County’s Cool Springs Farm, which he bought from his grandfather, Benjamin Childress.
“Times were hard,” says Mary Roy Dawson Edwards, Dawson’s great-granddaughter. The farm stayed in her family until the 1950s, when her great-grandfather sold it to Thomas Forrer. Now called Fulfillment Farms, the Esmont property is under the ownership of the Wildlife Foundation of Virginia.
In Forrer’s will, signed just months before he died in October 1997, he left the 1,910-acre farm to the foundation for purposes of wildlife management. Forrer gave the foundation “wide latitude” to use its discretion in developing any lakes or ponds, trails and campsites, and to conduct timbering operations, “so long as such activities or projects are in keeping with the basic purpose of providing habitat for a variety of wildlife in a natural setting.”
Fulfillment Farms received statewide recognition as Outstanding Tree Farm of the Year in 2015.
But Edwards, a history buff who fondly remembers the thriving community of Cool Springs from years ago, says the wildlife foundation isn’t properly taking care of the property, which once held Dawson’s Mill, a train station, a blacksmith shop and several other buildings. And now that the foundation intends to tear down the historic main house to build a hunting lodge, and potentially also raze the old schoolhouse and smokehouse, Edwards is hoping to save those structures.
“This is not an easy decision,” says Jenny West, executive director of the Wildlife Foundation of Virginia. While West recognizes that Edwards has substantial emotional ties to the historic structures, she says the complex “has suffered through a century of neglect.”
Before Edwards contacted West earlier this year about restoring the old buildings, West corresponded with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which said the complex would not be eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places if the main building was not intact, and, according to West, it is not. She says Steven Meeks, director of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, who sits on the county preservation committee, said the cost of restoring the main farmhouse could be more than $300,000 and that it would be nearly impossible.
The foundation gave Edwards the option to fund the $300,000 restoration with an annual $25,000 endowment. Unable to afford the renovation, Edwards is searching for other options.
Jared Lowenstein, head of Albemarle’s historic preservation committee, says that although the county has been unsuccessful in passing an ordinance to protect historic property, it is working on one now. In the city, the Board of Architectural Review rules on whether demolition or alterations to historic structures may take place.
Even if Fulfillment Farms were to be accepted on the National Register of Historic Places, the buildings wouldn’t be protected from demolition, Lowenstein says. That status is solely honorific.
West says she has received a permit to tear down the structures at Fulfillment Farms, and has solicited several bids. The demolition is scheduled to begin in the coming weeks.
The Downtown Mall will be Bank of America-less, but will have another steakhouse.
Staff photo
Bank of America is closing its location on the Downtown Mall February 17, branch customers learned by letter April 20. “What, we’re closing?” a teller there asked this morning when she heard a colleague inform a customer on the phone.
Built in 1916, the structure was originally Peoples National Bank and has housed Virginia National Bank, Sovran Bank and NationsBank before Bank of America became the latest occupant, according to Margaret O’Bryant at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.
Hunter Craig’s East Main Investments LLC bought the building at 300 E. Main St. in 2008 for $6,975,000, according to city property records. Craig did not immediately return a call from C-VILLE, nor did his attorney, Steve Blaine.
“Banking has changed,” says Tim Hulbert, executive director of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. “People are doing most or all of their transactions electronically and rarely go into a bank.” Bank of America still will have nine branches in the area. “From the bank’s perspective, it’s efficiency,” he says.
“We’re looking for ways to consolidate,” says Bank of America spokesman Matthew Daily. He points out that there’s another branch about a mile away on Long Street, and one about 2 miles away at Barracks Road.
And while the bank does not disclose how many employees it has, it will try to find them other opportunities nearby, says Daily.
The big question is what will happen to the building, which is more than 22,000 square feet, according to city property records, and its soaring, two-story lobby.
Back in 1916, lobbies were grander. Staff photo
“It’ll open up space downtown,” says Hulbert. “It’s a pretty dramatic space. I suspect some smart entrepreneur will see the opportunity and seize it.”
As for BofA customers wondering about where they’ll pick up cash downtown, a bank employee who was not authorized to speak to the press said the bank is looking for space for a couple of ATMs.
Updated 3:54pm with comments from Bank of America, and with corrected square footage numbers from city property records for 300 E. Main St.
Neighbors say 124 units at 1011 E. Jefferson St. are too much.
Henningsen & Kestner
While official Charlottesville has embraced greater density and infill, some residents aren’t loving it, particularly when the density is happening in their neighborhood.
That’s the case for plans for 124 units in the East Jefferson Apartments between 10th and 11th streets on a site that currently houses doctors offices. Developers are seeking a special permit to up the density from 21 units per acre to 87.
“That’s four times the density it’s zoned for in B-1,” says Little High resident Greg Jackson. “Twenty-one units per acre would be big enough. This proposal goes way too far.”
The application filed with the city has a four-and-a-half story building that’s 45′ tall with a total283,000 square feet.
“The architects state that the massing shown is by-right,” acknowledges Jackson. “The stickler is the increased density.” And that’s what requires a special use permit.
“The city is set up for this urban experience,” says architect Mark Kestner, whose firm did the design. “We’re asking for the increase in density to allow people to live close to downtown.”
Kestner says the city has enough large, luxury apartments, and that people want smaller one- and two-bedroom units. The apartments will range in size from between 900 and 1,000 square feet to between 1,300 and 1,400 square feet. He did not have estimates available on how much the rentals will cost, but says there will be some affordable units.
The project is being developed by Jefferson Medical Building LLC and Great Eastern Management. An additional 20 limited partnerships “must be kept in confidence,” according to the plans filed with the city.
Some residents are concerned that the architectural firm listed on the application is Atwood, Henningsen & Kestner. Architect Bill Atwood has riled residents in the Starr Hill neighborhood with his plans for the Atlantic on West Main, but he is no longer connected with the firm now known as Henningsen & Kestner.
“I’ve had a lot of calls,” says Atwood. “I will not be able to support any building that goes above the tree line in that neighborhood.” He questions the B-1 zoning, which is a transitional designation between residential and commercial. “This building is huge,” he says. “I think our building on West Main is smaller. I do not support it.”
East Jefferson neighbors are also concerned about traffic. The complex plans project 846 vehicles a day, up from the current average of 720.
“I suspect that the traffic projection is too low,” says Jackson. He says the Little High area gets a lot of cut-through and speeding traffic.
But Kestner thinks there will be less traffic because more people will be walking. “There’s some benefit to being this close to downtown where people can actually walk to work,” he says.
He also notes that his office is in the neighborhood, so his firm will be living with what they design. “We’re excited,” he says. “We’ve been doing this a long time.”
Jackson is not convinced. He bought his house knowing what the zoning was and says B-1 is right for the area. He objects to any increased density, and says this special use permit is unfair to those who live there. “Sometimes a special use permit is appropriate,” he says. “In this case, it’s grossly inappropriate.”
The project goes before the planning commission April 12.
The Landmark Hotel is the only thing left standing after the apocalypse. Illustration: Max March; Photo: Ashley Twiggs
What does the future hold? We examine what has happened in Charlottesville’s past and present to make some zany predictions about what could occur years down the road. But you know what they say: Fact is stranger than fiction.
Developing our future
Growth is always an issue in both Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and there’s no reason to think that will change in the future. Those already here want things to stay the way they are—while newcomers continue to flock to our beautiful burg.
Albemarle County has incorporated the preservation of the county’s rural character into its comprehensive plan by funneling development into designated growth areas such as Crozet, Pantops and U.S. 29 North.
Charlottesville flirted with high-density development in 2003 during the tenure of then-UVA architecture professor/mayor Maurice Cox. However, once the first nine-story buildings actually were built (ahem, The Flats), citizens decided they didn’t want density quite that…dense, at least on West Main.
So what does Charlottesville of the future look like?
West Main
West Main is one of the oldest thoroughfares in the commonwealth, dating back to the 18th century when it was known as Three Notch’d Road. By the early 19th century, it was the muddy lane connecting Mr. Jefferson’s new U to the town of Charlottesville. The 20th century saw it dotted with gas stations, car dealerships and auto repair shops in the style now known as mid-century. In the early 21st century, the battle raged about what West Main would look like going forward. Would it keep its mid-century charm with the remnants of 19th-century Vinegar Hill, or would it become canyon-like with nine-story hotels and condos? Would it become even more bike- and pedestrian-friendly, with the 66-foot-wide street redeveloped into a boulevard?
C-VILLE predicts: The Downtown Mall is so successful that it seems only logical to turn West Main into a pedestrian and bike mall, a notion retailers and auto service centers fight. The compromise: no on-street parking and a city requirement that the hotels lining West Main build giant parking structures to handle at least twice their occupancy rates. And a fleet of golf carts will shuttle less-ambulatory citizens to West Main’s restaurants and shopping.
Cherry Avenue
Cherry Avenue now is best known for its Salvation Army Thrift Store and being a backed-up commute option to Jefferson Park Avenue.
C-VILLE predicts: With its proximity to downtown, those deserted storefronts are ripe for redevelopment, especially with a hotel going up on the corner of Ridge Street. And when Trader Joe’s takes over the old IGA space, Cherry Avenue becomes the new West Main.
Strategic Investment Area
Charlottesville’s boldest plan for the future is to take 330 privately owned acres south of the Downtown Mall between Ridge and Avon streets—where some of the city’s poorest residents live—and redevelop it while avoiding the pitfalls of the Vinegar Hill urban renewal of the ’60s. The plan calls for retaining low-income housing while encouraging market and work-force residences, investment in innovative business and upgrading existing infrastructure for safe and walkable/bikable streets.
C-VILLE predicts: The 17-acre Ix complex becomes the centerpiece of the SIA because of its size and its private ownership by the innovative Kuttners, which make it much more nimble than the other large tracts owned by Piedmont Housing and the Charlottesville Housing Development Authority. The area gets its first park and first grocery, and people flock to the mixed-use housing on the property with its close proximity to the Downtown Mall. Following city investment in sidewalks and bike lanes, Ix Center becomes the Belmont of the 2030s.
Oh, the Places we’ll grow
Pantops
The area east of Charlottesville has been Albemarle’s least successful growth area, where instead of the new urbanism, it looks more like the old suburbanism, with all the disadvantages of growth—traffic—and none of the benefits of density. In 2015, residents pleaded for a pedestrian bridge just to be able to safely cross multi-lane U.S. 250 to the Pantops Shopping Center. The perpetually strapped county added the bridge to its good-ideas-we-can’t-afford list.
C-VILLE predicts: Even if Amazon takes over the retail world, we’re always going to need car lots, and that will continue to be Pantops’ ace in the hole. Future Pantops residents won’t be getting rid of their cars anytime soon.
We predict Seminole Trail will receive an underpass at Rio and an overpass at Hydraulic, helping through-traffic flow much better. Photo: Jack Looney
Crozet
Crozet convened its first master plan advisory council in 2002, and for years to those involved it looked like a lot of talk and no money for implementation. But slowly, in the intervening years, Old Trail turned from a big field into a small-lot community with a walkable commercial area—although residents still have to get in their cars to go to the grocery store. The Crozet streetscape, after being torn up seemingly for forever, finally was complete, as was the long-delayed library. Jarman’s Gap was widened and is safe for walking and biking. And the subdivisions that sprouted around the small village prevented the sprawl that otherwise would stretch along U.S. 250 as a blight upon the road’s rural vistas.
C-VILLE predicts: The redevelopment of the Barnes Lumber site is the game-changer for Crozet and the best neighborhood model in Albemarle, thanks largely to Frank Stoner, who redeveloped the Jefferson School. Residents actually live above office and retail, and walk to the Mudhouse for coffee and to Great Valu for shopping, thanks to a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. With the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop, some are calling the county’s scenic yet funky village “the new Downtown Mall.”
Seminole Trail
Seminole Trail became Charlottesville’s Main Street of the latter 20th century, geared toward the automobile. The area has been in a chronic struggle to move through-traffic without the bypass desired by Lynchburg and Danville. And while the county’s zoning has kept it from becoming a commercial eyesore like our neighbors on U.S. 29 to the south, it’s also contributed to commercially awkward spaces, like The Shops at Stonefield.
C-VILLE predicts: With the completion of Hillsdale and Berkmar connector roads, the underpass at Rio and an overpass at Hydraulic, through-traffic flows much better. However, that doesn’t appease Lynchburg, which is still clamoring for a bypass 20 years after the Western Bypass was officially killed, and local residents still continue to avoid it if at all possible.
Pay Scale
Charlottesville’s median household income of $44,601 between 2009 and 2013 was well below the state median household income of $63,907, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The higher-than-the-state median housing cost of $293,000 and 27.5 percent of city residents living below the poverty rate prove that Charlottesville is an expensive place to live and wages don’t come close to making it affordable. Albemarle’s numbers tell the same story: Even more expensive housing at $319,200 with a median household income of $67,725.
C-VILLE predicts: In 2036, Charlottesville remains a desirable place to live—for the rich. Its unaffordability creates a boom in Buckingham County, where the median home price was an almost-affordable $128,800 earlier in the 21st century.
Joining Forces
In 1982, Albemarle signed a deal with the devil, in this case, Charlottesville, promising to pay it 10 cents of its property tax rate—currently at 81.9 cents per $100 of assessed value—if Charlottesville stopped annexing county land, which the General Assembly declared a moratorium on in 1987. Between 1983 and 2010, Albemarle has paid nearly $161 million to Charlottesville, and ponied up nearly $16 million in 2016 alone, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow.
C-VILLE predicts: Although Charlottesville reaps a windfall every year from Albemarle, both budget-strapped entities realize their dollars could go a lot further if they consolidated schools, police, fire departments and redundant local governments. The result? A new municipality called Charlbemarle.
Traffic Calming
To discourage driving into town—although for many commuters from surrounding communities, there is no other option to get to work—by 2016 Charlottesville has calibrated all its stoplights so that motorists have to stop at every signal, or at least it seems that way.
C-VILLE predicts: An environmentally committed City Council finally realizes that cars spewing carbon monoxide idling at lights with no other traffic in sight is not the most sound policy, and that the ensuing road rage of citizens constitutes a very real safety concern. Council orders city traffic engineers to calibrate those darn lights to make traffic flow.
Future of downtown
Is there living room?
A well-established community already thrives in downtown Charlottesville. You can buy the essentials at Reid’s Super-Save or Market Street Market. Several salons and barbershops exist to style you, some of the best eateries in town are there, and a buffet of live theaters, movie theaters and music venues aim to feed your soul.
But will downtown Charlottesville soon face the issue of too many people and too few homes?
Realtor Jim Duncan, who has sold downtown homes for more than a decade, says the market has remained surprisingly consistent.
“A lot of people are just happy where they are,” he says, adding that while there are currently enough homes downtown, there is a historically low inventory of homes for sale in the area.
He says as the city’s population grows, and more people are looking to buy homes in neighborhoods such as Woolen Mills, Belmont and Ridge Street, it won’t be long before there are no homes left to buy.
The solution? Building up.
Duncan says the future of Charlottesville could follow the “aspirational trend” of cities such as New York and San Francisco with taller buildings and fewer cars. One of those taller buildings will be Market Plaza on Water Street, with a nine-story retail/office/residential building alongside the open-air City Market. Occupancy is expected in April 2018.
C-VILLE predicts: Oliver Kuttner’s micro apartments around the Glass Building inspire a tiny-housing boom in Charlottesville. Not only do apartments downtown start getting smaller and smaller to accommodate an influx of residents (one resident boasts living in a 150-square-foot IKEA-inspired room), but a local developer buys 50 acres of land in the county and builds a tiny-house community of 1,000 freestanding homes.
With parking spaces expected to disappear as new construction comes in, by the year 2050 we predict we will see 10-story parking structures dotting the downtown skyline. Illustration: Jason Crosby
Where will we park?
In 2012, the city’s office of economic development recorded that more than 1 million visitors parked in a downtown parking garage. As the area continues to grow in popularity and development, and more folks find themselves venturing to the mall, the manager of the Charlottesville Parking Center, Bob Stroh, says parking will become an issue. And sooner than you think.
In just two years, Stroh says the number of lost parking spaces is in the hundreds due to development in the area, including the reconstruction of Belmont Bridge, the building of Market Plaza and potentially futher development of the Landmark Hotel.
“That’s near-term,” Stroh says. “Long-term is worse.”
The city’s 2008 parking study cited 6,000 available parking spaces downtown and called for an additional 1,700 spaces needed due to increased demand. By the 2015 study, only 4,280 spaces were recorded downtown and instead of pushing for more spaces, the study called for learning how to share public and private spots.
“I don’t see any indication that that’s going to happen,” Stroh says, adding that calling for even an extra 1,700 spaces is “very conservative.”
“Now we’re at the point where if somebody wanted to build something downtown,” he says, “they really couldn’t unless they could build parking within the development.” As for the future of parking? It might have to be underground, says Stroh.
C-VILLE predicts: In the future, those living more than a stone’s throw away from the Downtown Mall will fire up their smart cars to drive toward the center of the action. But where will they park? Parking garages will have been demolished to house 20-story apartments and, as for off-street parking—not a chance. You’ll have to motor up to a 10-story parking structure you’re used to seeing in big cities and have your car placed in its designated space by a giant motorized lift.
Youthful nature
Chris Engel, the city’s director of economic development, says Charlottesville was ahead of the curve when the Downtown Mall was built 40 years ago. Not only are pedestrian malls becoming more popular across the nation, he says there’s also a notable trend regarding the people targeted to work and live on them.
Charlottesville companies such as WorldStrides, WillowTree and RKG, which employ significant numbers of young professionals, are situated downtown for a reason, he says. It’s hip. It’s cool. National trends show that youngsters want to live where they work and work where they live.
The future of the Downtown Mall, Engel says, could show an increase in professional offices. But don’t worry, if his calculations are correct: Dining, entertainment and specialty retail aren’t going anywhere.
C-VILLE predicts: Lest we forget the empty-nesters who have moved downtown in an effort to eliminate the burden of driving, just 20 years from now, the young and the old will coexist just steps away from a mall lined with offices and specialty shops. It’s safe to say The Needle Lady isn’t going anywhere. And what do we predict will be the wave of future? You can’t have enough ice cream/gelato shops. We all scream for ice cream.
Shop till you drop
By 2030, Charlottesville Fashion Square mall gives the boot to chain stores and becomes a commercial center for local boutiques, with a brewery and doggie daycare located on the bottom level and a rooftop restaurant featuring Virginia wines. Photo: Jack Looney
The opening of 5th Street Station, projected for late 2016, will tip the balance of shopping in what some say is an already oversaturated retail market. For decades, residents living south and east of town have had to travel up north on U.S. 29 to buy new shoes or school supplies. Okay, they’ll still have to go north to buy shoes, but 5th Street Station’s 465,000 square feet make it almost as large as Barracks Road Shopping Center, and having a Wegmans is a game-changer for local groceries.
C-VILLE predicts: Seminole Square and Albemarle Square, which were nearly ghost shopping centers before 5th Street Station opened, in desperation embrace mixed-use development and became new urbanism hits and actual neighborhood models. Seminole Square, with Kroger as its anchor and close to Whole Foods, is actually walkable for the affordable condos and apartments built on the site. Its bus connections and a neighborhood brewery make it popular for car-less millennials—or whatever the generation is that follows them. Albemarle Square is a tougher sell, but the growing senior population, car-less for different reasons, also embraces being able to go by wheelchair to the grocery, as well as its proximity to the Senior Center.
Despite Amazon obliterating many brick-and-mortar retailers with drone delivery, specialty shops remain because a lot of the time people don’t know what they want until they see it and can touch it. And the need for dry cleaners and convenient groceries, drugstores and hardware stores remains.
Local governments learn something from The Shops at Stonefield and Seminole Square, and decide to stop telling developers how to build shopping centers that look like awkward upscale urbanism.
Grocery stores
Again, 2016 was a watershed year for going to the store, with the opening of Wegmans, a grocery chain even more beloved than Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, if such a thing is possible. Wegmans joins Charlottesville’s Giant, three Krogers, two Harris Teeters, five Food Lions and The Fresh Market national chains.
C-VILLE predicts: Wegmans becomes the local mecca for all things food related, and decides to open five more locations in town, becoming the top chain in the area.
But not everyone can afford to shop in the deluxe markets, and two distinct trends emerge. With worsening traffic, shoppers become more fond of being able to pop into neighborhood stores such as Reid’s and Foods of All Nations, and it turns out they also like not having to navigate a massive parking lot or store.
Who will live here?
With an increase in the older population, by 2040 expect restaurants to cater to customers by offering early-bird specials from 4-6pm instead of daily happy hours. Illustration: Jason Crosby
Based on statistics from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville’s population was expected to increase 10.9 percent from the 2010 census to July 2015—up to 48,210 residents. Albemarle County was expected to see a 6.1 percent boost, to 105,051 residents. The makeup of Charlottesville in 2014 was projected to be: 69.9 percent white, 19.24 percent African-American, 7.15 percent Asian, 4.86 Hispanic and 3.2 percent two or more races. The U.S. Census Bureau 2014 projection states both Charlottesville and Albemarle are 48 percent male, 52 percent female. And the largest age group in Charlottesville is 20 to 24 years old, while Albemarle is 15 to 19 years old.
What about further down the road—2020, 2030, 2040. What will our resident makeup look like?
Investing in the future
Illustration: Jason Crosby
A group of prominent Charlottesville CEOs, led by Coran Capshaw, fund a local biotech company that invents a device that allows them to oversee their businesses long into the future.
Eat really local
If Charlottesville had an overarching theme to its restaurants, it would be eat local. Farm-to-table is a common practice, with many chefs and owners searching out the best of area ingredients to offer diners.
C-VILLE predicts: One restaurant takes the concept of eat local to a new extreme, opening a restaurant that features one of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite vegetables—the pea. Pea shoots top pasta, pea greens are sprinkled on steaks, and sweet pea pies become all the rage.
Wedding experts
Charlottesville has become a destination wedding spot for couples from all over the country thanks to our perfect pairing of wedding planners and picturesque wineries.
C-VILLE predicts: Piedmont Virginia Community College will offer a two-year Wedding & Wine Expert degree in which you master flower arranging, catering, how to open a winery and event planning. You also become an ordained minister.
University of Virginia
House hunting
The real estate market surrounding the University of Virginia is known among UVA students for being particularly cutthroat. Students often sign leases for the next year as early as September, and cheap housing is difficult to find. With increases in admissions, new dorms are being built to accommodate incoming freshmen, the most recent of which opened last fall.
According to UVA’s Housing and Residence Life website, prices for on-Grounds housing are projected to increase by about $200 for the 2016-2017 school year. However, the university is also considering plans to expand upperclassmen housing in the future to popular living areas such as Jefferson Park and Brandon avenues.
C-VILLE predicts: By 2025, housing for students will have become so preemptive that first-years will be required to find housing for all four years during summer orientation.
There are currently 6,540 beds on Grounds for UVA students, and dorms see a 97 percent occupancy rate. First-years are often required to sign leases as early as September to secure housing for the next year. Photo: Robert Llewellyn
Big spenders
According to College Board, in-state tuition at public four-year institutions has increased by an average of 3.4 percent per year for the past 10 years. That means that by 2025, UVA’s in-state tuition could increase to roughly $20,505. For 2015-16, in-state tuition was $14,678, while out-of-state tuition was $43,974.
C-VILLE predicts: To help students earn extra money for tuition, UVA creates a work/study program for Cav Man and invents as many iterations of the mascot as possible. There’s
Big ’Hoo, Kind-of-Big ’Hoo and Medium-sized ’Hoo. And the Cavalier on horseback becomes a cavalry on horseback with up to 10 mascots (in both Cav Man and horse costumes) taking the field at one game. Team spirit has never been so strong.
Athletics
Football
Things haven’t looked great for the Cavaliers recently—as evidenced by cumulative statistics this year. In 2015, the Cavs were outscored by opponents 386-304, out-rushed by opponents 1,879-1,737 and received roughly 10 more penalties per yard than other opponents. Last winning season: 2011. Number of consecutive losses to Virginia Tech: 11.
C-VILLE predicts: The future looks bright. Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall didn’t have a single losing season with Brigham Young University, and we predict he won’t have one with Virginia, either. Five years of winning seasons are on the horizon.
Basketball
Head Coach Tony Bennett, in his seventh season, has led the Cavaliers to two ACC regular season titles, and his team clinched a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in 2014 for the first time since 1983. Bennett’s paycheck this year was $2.1 million.
C-VILLE predicts: Money is key. The next seven seasons under Bennett will be full of hotly contended ACC titles and NCAA tournament runs, but that kind of success comes with a price tag.
Baseball
The men’s baseball team is hoping for a repeat of 2015, when it won the NCAA national title series for the first time in the program’s history.
C-VILLE predicts: In 2016, the Cavaliers again clinch the national title and see six players selected in the first 25 picks of the Major League Baseball draft. The consecutive winning streak continues to 2020, and UVA holds the record for most number of consecutive national titles.
This article was updated at 2pm March 15 to reflect the correct name of The Salvation Army Thrift Store on Cherry Avenue.
