Tag: Planning & Development

C-VILLE Weekly’s planning and development coverage features regular stories on Charlottesville and Albemarle County real estate and local government actions.

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How to spend $162 million: The city’s budget increases 3.5 percent

Over the next three fiscal years, City Manager Maurice Jones is proposing $10 million for improvements to West Main Street. Photo by Jack Looney

Charlottesville City Manager Maurice Jones presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2017 to City Council on March 7.

The $161,871,784 budget is a 3.5 percent increase over 2016’s fiscal year budget, which was approved at $156,391,435. The latest budget is Jones’ sixth version.

“The biggest chunk is going to the schools,” he says, and overall, he is proposing an additional $1.9 million for city schools, along with a 1 percent increase in the lodging tax rate to help offset the cost of school funding. The increase will add $566,000 in revenue.

The tax rate will stay the same at 95 cents per $100 of assessed value; because property values increased by 2.56 percent in 2015, the city made an extra $3.1 million in property tax revenue.

In just two words, Jones says he can summarize next year’s budget as allocating money for “quality services” in the city. And, in his opinion, one of the most significant capital improvement projects in the works is the development of a $1.7 million skate park at McIntire Park.

Renovations to Charlottesville’s circuit and general district courts are also a priority, with $4.5 million projected for circuit court renovations over a five-year span and $500,000 in the current budget for design. An additional $500,000 is proposed for general district court renovations, which will require more than $7 million over the five years.

Over the next three fiscal years, Jones is proposing $10 million for improvements to West Main Street. In five years, $1 million will be used to install new sidewalks and almost $500,000 will go toward maintaining underground utilities.

By 2025, City Council’s vision for Charlottesville is for it to be “America’s healthiest city,” and Jones says the budget supports that by allocating money for keeping up with parks and recreation “to help ensure that people have opportunities to exercise.” Over the next two fiscal years, $1.5 million will go toward implementing the McIntire Park master plan.

Minor changes to some services will save almost $400,000, Jones says. Those include reducing pool hours at the Washington Park Pool and a change to the Charlottesville Area Transit route 7, which will reduce the number of operating buses to six per hour, instead of seven. Wait times between buses on that route will increase to 20 minutes, up from 15 minutes.

Council will meet March 10 for a budget work session.

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

$161,871,784: Total budget is a 3.5 increase over 2016 fiscal year budget

No change: Tax rate stays the same, 95 cents per $100 of assessed value

$63,569,933: City schools get the biggest piece of the general fund budget pie, with an increase of $1.9 million

$3.1 million: The additional revenue from property values, which increased 2.56 percent in 2015

$10 million: Amount slated for West Main improvements

$1.5 million: for the McIntire Park
master plan

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Nightmare on Water Street

No word yet on how long a portion of a major downtown thoroughfare will closed. Staff photo

Utilities relocation for Market Plaza had already closed the eastbound lane on Water Street and detoured traffic to South Street and Second Street SE, and when Second Street was also closed last week, many who park in the Water Street Garage were trapped in an extraordinarily long exit line March 3.

“Staff met with [contractors] yesterday and told them they need a better plan,” said city spokesperson Miriam Dickler March 8. “They’re supposed to have a plan by the end of the day.”

At press time, she didn’t know how long the utilities work would take, but the Jersey barriers on Water Street could be an ominous sign.

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Old and new: West Main complex keeps Blue Moon Diner

A new apartment complex will wend between two hidden historic houses behind Blue Moon Diner. Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Development Services

A new apartment complex is in the works for West Main, but the Board of Architectural Review has already ruled out tearing down some of the street’s oldest buildings to accommodate the building.

Developer Jeff Levien says he would prefer to demolish Blue Moon Diner and the next-door convenience store and rebuild them, adding that Blue Moon tenant Laura Galgano has publicly supported the plan, and the diner and store are not historical by nature or registered landmarks.

Blue Moon, built in 1951 at 512 West Main 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.

Beside the Hartnagle-Witt House sits the Hawkins-Perry House, which was built in 1873 by Ridge Street resident James Hawkins. Cecil Perry added a store, called Midway Cash Grocery, to the front of the house in 1931 and operated it for 30 years while his family lived above the store. That space at 600 West Main is now a convenience store.

“They’ve seen their better days,” Levien says about the old buildings, but the Board of Architectural Review insists that the structures remain standing, citing that the properties are the only two remaining dwellings built along West Main in the last half of the 19th century. Levien calls the BAR’s November decision to preserve them putting “history over function.”

In its reasoning for not permitting demolition, the BAR also says, “Both houses could be reproduced, but would not be old” and “the public purpose is to save tangible evidence and reminders of the people of Charlottesville, their stories and their buildings.”

Blue Moon2
Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Development Services

Staff requested both houses be incorporated into the new development proposal, so that’s what Levien and his architect Jeff Dreyfus, are planning to do.

In preliminary site plans, the four-story mixed-use building can be seen to the left of and behind both historic houses, which include the diner and convenience store. Levien says the ground floor will be used for retail and higher levels will include rental apartments.

“It won’t be like The Flats,” Levien says. The Flats @ West Village was highly criticized for its height, which required a 101-foot special use permit and “turned everyone off to these big-box buildings,” he says. Levien has addressed height by planning for a 35-foot-tall street wall along West Main and setting the remaining three stories of the complex back.

Proposed zoning plans for West Main will eventually allow four-story buildings, so Levien says he isn’t asking to add any extra height. He also says he hopes to rent to young professionals, hospital employees, professors or even graduate students rather than undergrads.

Design-wise, Levien looks to Oakhart Social, a restaurant across the street from his complex’s proposed site that has taken over a renovated building, but used its historic character in its aesthetic by featuring the space’s original exposed brick walls and showcasing “old and new,” he says.

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Partial demolition underway on West Market

A partial demolition is underway at 206 W Market St. after a January 25 roof collapse. Staff photo

An owner of the two-story brick building on West Market Street says a partial demolition is currently underway after a January 25 roof collapse.

“It would’ve happened one way or another,” owner Josh Rogers says. He and his partners had plans to renovate the 206 W Market St. building for their proposed private club, called Common House. He doesn’t think the roof collapse will significantly interfere with the club’s construction because it was previously ahead of schedule.

“It accelerated our production schedule,” he says, though he hasn’t made any permanent plans for after the demolition.

The building’s roof also collapsed in 2010 when snow cracked one of the trusses supporting the rafters, according to the city’s building code official, Tom Elliott.

While Rogers says he was aware of the initial collapse, the back right corner truss that failed this time was not the one repaired six years ago. He and his partners are paying for the selective demolition, he says, which will require removing loose bricks and wood from the roof and second floor of the building.

According to the Neighborhood Development Services website, specific design criteria for Charlottesville requires buildings to be designed to withstand temperatures of 16 degrees with a ground snow load of 25 inches per square foot. According to principal planner Brian Haluska, that doesn’t translate exactly to number of inches of snowfall.

Rogers says the demolition could take between two and three days and the strip of West Market between Old Preston and 2nd Street NW is projected to stay closed during that time. City inspectors want to be sure engineers have confirmed that falling debris will not be a threat, he says.

Even though the damage is on the backside of the building, city spokesperson Miriam Dickler says, “We want to know the structure is stable and sound before the road opens,” adding that it could stay closed until Saturday.

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Mayor doesn’t rule out condemning Landmark

The Downtown Mall around the Landmark was blocked off January 14 so firefighters could clear debris. Staff photo

The skeletal Landmark Hotel officially went from eyesore to public safety hazard last week when a beam went through the roof of next-door CVS. “Debris blew off the building and could have killed someone,” said Mayor Mike Signer on “Wake-Up Call” January 17.

The city closed the area around the hotel January 14, and the fire department went in to secure a metal door frame that was swinging in the wind as the structure became an “active and ongoing public safety threat,” says Signer. The city now is exploring legal options that include condemnation, he says.

Ground broke on the Downtown Mall’s unwelcome landmark in 2008 for what was supposed to be a boutique hotel. Construction stopped in 2009, and owner Halsey Minor filed for bankruptcy a year later.

Atlanta developer John Dewberry picked up the property in 2012 for $6.25 million, and said he’d start work as soon as he finished a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. That project didn’t begin until November 2014.

Signer is out of patience with Dewberry’s timetable and promises the issue will be resolved this year. City Council will discuss options to address blighted or unoccupied commercial properties in a closed session with legal counsel January 19. Says Signer, “The cheapest and most expedient thing is for the current owner to finish the damn thing.”

 

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Welcome to the club: Common House takes over former Mentor Lodge space

The space at 206 W. Market St., which was home to a former social club called Mentor Lodge, will now house Common House. Staff photo

The space for a 7,000-square-foot private club on West Market Street was purchased in 2013, and what plans call a “brick and mortar establishment” may be one step closer to becoming a reality.

A joint public hearing between Charlottesville City Council and the City Planning Commission was held Tuesday night after C-VILLE went to press, to discuss a special use permit for the space, which the city requires for private club-type dwellings. Beforehand, Brian Haluska, the principal planner with Neighborhood Development Services who was scheduled to present the report, said he didn’t think he’d see much public concern at the meeting.

Derek Sieg, Josh Rogers and Ben Pfinsgraff are the men behind the club at 206 W. Market St., called Common House in their application submitted to the city November 24. The application states it will be social in nature and “where individual members can meet to dine together or simply for personal connection sometimes lost in the days of online social media.”

Common House will go into the building that was constructed for Mentor Lodge in 1913, a social club intended for the then largely African-American neighborhood of Vinegar Hill, and for which the building provided “a venue for dances, political meetings and music for more than six decades,” the men cite in their application. The space has housed different businesses over the years, including Studio 206, a fitness studio.

Amenities planned for Common House include a banquet hall, lounge, tea room, library, bridge room, billiards room, bars, kitchen, office and rooftop terrace.

An introduction letter from the club to prospective members of both sexes describes a contemporary social club “built to meet the substantial and growing desire in our culture for true, meaningful connection with likeminded people.” There’s mention of bridge and chess leagues and all-day “well-crafted” food and drink, too.

Sieg says the club won’t be invite only, but he and his partners initially sent out fewer than 100 invitations.

“We’re trying to build a place that’s going to be very inclusive,” he says, adding that there will probably be a limit to the number of people who can join.

“We want it to be a place that’s lively,” Sieg says, “but one where you can count on getting a table when you go in.”

Membership to the club will also include special programming, such as a Common Knowledge Series, an ongoing series of seminars by local craftsmen ranging from home craft brewing to “whole hog butchery,” as noted in the application. The owners declined to disclose how much a membership will cost.

According to Planning Commission meeting minutes, city staff says the proposed private club would not be out of character for the downtown area and would complement nearby businesses, but they do have concerns about the potential for a new owner to change the club’s business model in the future. For that reason, staff imposed the condition that there should be no noise, vibration or odor beyond the confines of the building between 1 and 8am.

In a December 15 meeting, the Board of Architectural Review recommended approval of the special use permit in a 7-0 vote.

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New leases signed at 5th Street Station

Courtesy of Bend Management.

A real estate firm out of Virginia Beach has signed five leases at 5th Street Station, a soon-to-be 465,000-square-foot shopping center on Fifth Street.

The 72-acre space has already promised a Wegmans, but thanks to the 66,900 square feet Divaris Real Estate has signed off on, locals can now expect a Havertys Furniture, A.C. Moore, Timberwood Tap House, Hand & Stone and CommServe, a Verizon Wireless licensee.

The development of 5th Street Station began in November 2014, and it’s scheduled to open in November 2016, according to Valerie Long of Williams Mullen law firm.

Other retailers already planned for the space include Field & Stream, PetSmart, Panera Bread, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Mattress Warehouse, Sprint, Great Clips, Hair Cuttery, Lee Nails, Jersey Mike’s Subs and the Virginia ABC.

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Lightning fast: Ting’s grand plans to expand

Ting employees have been installing lightning-fast internet service in Charlottesville since June 2015, but about half of the city is still awaiting service. File photo

Just five months after Ting launched its high-speed Internet network in Charlottesville, the company has given almost half the city access to the gigabit.

Ting describes the gigabit as “lightning fast” (gigabit refers to a speed of one gigabit per second, and one gigabit equals 1,000 megabits), and its network requires not just stringing cables up on poles, but also running a fiber-optic cable to a subscriber’s house.

“We’re very pleased with the subscribers that we’ve received so far based on our coverage,” says Baylor Fooks, a general manager at Ting and cofounder of Blue Ridge InternetWorks—the company that took the initiative to expand a fiber optic cable network in Charlottesville. (He declined to release the total number of subscribers.) Thus far, Ting has targeted downtown and several neighborhoods including Belmont, Martha Jefferson, Jefferson Park Avenue and Rugby Road, according to Fooks. And the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, he says.

Grit Cafe, a food and coffee shop with several locations including one on the Downtown Mall, has used Ting for about two months and advertises it on the sandwich board outside its door.

“Internet access is obviously a huge part of our offering,” says owner Brad Uhl, adding that some customers use the cafe as a secondary office location. Grit employee Anthony Fitzgerald says that while he’s on the job, customers often praise the service and say it’s faster than theirs at home.

With plans to expand the Internet service to more homes in the city by the beginning of 2016 and into Albemarle County shortly thereafter, Ting is also touting a new service.

Ting CEO Elliot Noss recently announced the company will offer cable streaming next year.

“Your Internet access is something you don’t want to think about,” Fooks says, “but your TV experience is quite the opposite.” According to Fooks, Ting’s cable streaming service will be an app format that allows users to select the content they want for their device, similar to Roku, Chromecast and Apple TV.

Though prices for cable streaming aren’t available yet, the gigabit Internet service is $89 per month (along with a $399 installation fee). And though that may seem expensive, Fooks says that just two years ago, the average price for gigabit service would have been between $5,000 and $10,000 per month. Ting supports straightforward pricing without bundling, and doesn’t apply early termination fees, he says.

For people who only use the Internet for basic tasks such as checking e-mail and social media accounts, Ting offers a five-megabit plan for less than $20 a month. Competitor CenturyLink, which has the largest local coverage area, has a three-megabit plan for the same price, but without the fiber optic cable. CenturyLink also offers a 25-megabit plan for $34.95, which the company says is quick enough to support downloading high-definition movies, streaming videos and playing games at high speeds.

CenturyLink user Mark Moss says because there are few Internet and cable options in Charlottesville, with the major players being his provider and Comcast, he was interested in Ting when it launched. His current Internet provider, he says, “does a pretty good job of basic streaming, but the upload is very slow.”

“‘Fast enough’ may work most of the time,” Fooks says, “but we are providing a service that will work with multiple video streams, voice, gaming and anything else you want to throw at it.” He calls it a “vastly superior” experience, and says Ting aims to keep its business model simple by only offering two plans.

Moss, who lives on an extension of Marshall Street where utilities are buried underground, is concerned about whether Ting would be an option at this location. According to Fooks, in this case, the company would also install its fiber optic cables underground. Where Internet is already available, Fooks says it can be installed almost immediately after sign-up in a process that takes about three hours. “When you start drilling holes in someone’s house, you have to take a lot of care,” he says.

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Up and over: Why some are begging for a bridge

A bridge similar to the one Diane Berlin proposes at Rolkin Road already exists on Emmet Street. The difference? Rolkin’s will be longer, with the potential to be cheaper, and will feature an elevator on one side and ramps on the other. Photo by Martyn Kyle

Route 250, deemed a traffic nightmare by drivers of the 32,000 cars that travel it daily, virtually splits residential neighborhoods on one side and businesses on the other. Some think the next step for Albemarle should be building a walkway across the busy highway—because most pedestrians fear crossing the street on foot, but would prefer not driving their cars one-tenth of a mile to get to the grocery store.

“It’s insanely dangerous. My colleagues and I will sometimes try to walk across the street to get a coffee or lunch and it’s like running a gauntlet,” says Debby Norton, a Mountaintop Montessori teacher. “I mean, really dangerous. Like an agility test, but losing means death.”

Diane Berlin, a Pantops Community Advisory Committee member, tells a similar story.

“You can’t cross it,” says Berlin. “You take your life into your own hands.” Calling the road “treacherous,” she says building a pedestrian bridge would reduce traffic by allowing people who live on one side to access the other’s retail and restaurant opportunities without ever getting behind the wheel. Norton sees this as a way to reduce carbon emissions, too.

Berlin learned from Ken Boyd, the Rivanna District supervisor, that there may already be funds for this type of project—but only if she acts quickly. Projects hoping to get money from the county’s capital improvement plan are being presented to the Board of Supervisors on November 11.

Rather than a crosswalk, Boyd advises a type of grade-separated interchange like a bridge because the Virginia Department of Transportation would ultimately prefer to keep traffic moving. VDOT could match funds raised for a project like this, he says, making it an attractive one for the board to consider.

Before she started heavily advocating for the addition, Berlin scheduled a tour of a similar bridge across Wards Road in Lynchburg.

“It was beautiful and minimal,” she says, adding that the bridge took up very little land on both sides and its 110 feet stretched across four traffic lanes and a median, much like the structure of Rolkin Road where she’s proposing the bridge in Albemarle. Also, the Lynchburg bridge features stairs and an elevator on one side and stairs and exit ramps on the other, making it handicap accessible and also suitable for pet-walkers. According to Berlin, the bridge was built from inception to completion in only six months with Wards Road only being closed for one night. She thinks this bridge makes a perfect model.

At the Board of Supervisors’ meeting where Berlin will formally propose the bridge, other people and organizations will pitch a number of projects to the board. Berlin’s proposal, though, follows the Pantops Master Plan, which was adopted in March 2008.

“Make the neighborhood center a major pedestrian destination with sidewalk improvements, including a pedestrian crossing at Rolkin Road with sidewalks leading from adjacent residential areas into the center,” reads the plan. And while a similar, but shorter, pedestrian crossing bridge at UVA cost about $3.6 million, Berlin says the model bridge in Lynchburg was only about $1.8 million.

With positive feedback from Boyd and the Planning Commission, Berlin will present the project to the Board of Supervisors on November 11 at 5:30pm at the Albemarle County Office Building. She urges other Pantoppers who support the project to attend.

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Construction crews prepare for the Blade

The prep work to hang the Blade at the Paramount is underway. Staff photo

Signs and sandwich boards on the historic Downtown Mall may soon be outshone by the reinstallation of a much anticipated, 33-foot sign at the Paramount Theater.

As the theater celebrates its 10th anniversary of reopening, construction crews prepare to bring back the Blade—a $175,000 project to put the Paramount’s iconic blade sign back in its place. This vertical symbol hung above the marquee from 1931, when the theater was built, until the 1960s.

While companies Nielsen, Schickel and Hightech Signs are overseeing the installment, they aren’t quite ready to hang the Blade.

“I don’t think they have raised enough money,” says Pete Foster from Hightech Signs. He says the crews currently are working on pre-installation, so when the sign is ready, they won’t have to waste any time putting it up. The Paramount is aiming to hang the sign by December, he adds.

Rosemary Miller, the Paramount’s assistant director of development, says through Bring Back the Blade button sales and individual contributions, they have raised $103,556. She adds that the campaign ends on December 15 at an illumination celebration, in which the blade will be lit for the first time.

Visit the Paramount’s Bring Back the Blade campaign to donate to the project.