The latest iteration of a rebranding campaign to draw visitors to the area was better received than an earlier one, but its use of “C’villeization” still makes some local officials squeamish.
Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau
The word “civility” has become a bad word among some Charlottesvillians. Now a proposed tourism ad campaign touting “C’villeization” as a play on the C’ville nickname is also drawing fire.
Chapel Hill-based ad company Clean presented mock-ups of its “Welcome to C’villeization” rebranding campaign at a December 20 tourism board meeting. The ads feature images of attractive people eating local food, having a good time, and, in one, clinking wine glasses with the text, “C’villeization welcomes spitting. In the right context.”
Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who is not on the tourism board, is not a fan. She posted on Facebook, “This makes me so sad. This logo is unacceptable. Be Better! Do Better!” Walker did not respond to a request from C-VILLE for comment.
Supervisor Ann Mallek, a county representative on the board, says, “I’m not a tourism expert. I do know what stuck up and arrogant look like.”
And by “stuck up” and “arrogant,” she means “anybody who claims to be the center of civilization.”
At an October meeting, Clean learned that civility was not going to fly. At the December meeting, Interim City Manager Mike Murphy was wary of “C’villeization” and “C’villeized,” as well. “It’s still too close for me,” he said.
Councilor Kathy Galvin said, “C’villeization is a problem.”
And Councilor Mike Signer, the city’s alternate member, liked going with “C’ville” sans the play on civilization.
Despite those reactions, Adam Healey, the visitors bureau interim director, said the C’villeization campaign had gotten “highly positive” feedback. He proposed it for an ad campaign targeting 25- to 44-year-olds, dubbed “refined roamers,” in the Washington, D.C., and Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina. “The goal is to increase short getaways,” he said.
After Walker’s Facebook post, which Healey says he hasn’t seen, he says, “We have to understand our objective. We’re trying to draw visitors. We’re not on a social mission. We’re on an economic mission.”
Albemarle Economic Development Director Roger Johnson, who was elected chair of the reconfigured tourism executive board, says the C’villeization presentation “was definitely better received than the initial one.”
The visitors bureau board has gone through major turnover the past year, and will now include two elected officials from the city and county on its executive board.
That change was spearheaded by Mallek, who says, “For 11 years I was concerned the county was not getting the service it deserved for its million dollars.” Before, the county sent a staff member, who was one of 11 board members and was consistently in the minority when the county’s wish list was voted on, according to Mallek.
Those at the December 21 meeting approved a 14-member board, with two elected officials each from Albemarle and Charlottesville, four city and county administrators, a UVA vice president, reps from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns Monticello, and the Chamber of Commerce, two tourism industry members, and one representative from the arts community.
The size of the board drew some concerns. Signer favored a “nimble” decision-making group like the seven-member Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority Board. And Johnson said, “The larger we make this group, the harder it is to make decisions.”
Both the government officials and tourism representatives wanted more people with expertise from the tourism industry on the board.
The Board of Supervisors and City Council will vote on the changes to the board in January. As for the ad campaign, that will come back to the tourism board. Says Healey, “We’re going to incorporate feedback.”
The natural wonder of Luray Caverns offers a full day of activities including a garden maze, a ropes course, a collection of museums, and a stunning walk through underground formations. Photo courtesy of Luray Caverns
Tourist trap: It’s such an ugly term. Of course there’s reason to beware of over-hyped destinations. But—especially with kids in tow—there’s also a certain enjoyment in surrendering, now and then, to the spectacle. I don’t know of anyplace in Virginia where that’s a truer statement than at Luray Caverns. The Caverns, as our guide on a recent tour explained, were discovered by three locals who deliberately set out to hunt for a cavern they could develop as a tourist attraction. That was back in 1878, and given that those discoverers didn’t manage to wrest a profit from their find, they’d probably be even more astonished to see what Luray looks like now.
My two girls and I made the drive up Route 340 to Luray with clear eyes. We knew this was not going to be a brush with an unspoiled wonder; the billboards alone (“Mother Nature’s Finest Interior Decorating”) make that obvious. Still, one look at the complex sprawling around the caverns parking lot told me that the good folks at Luray were going to do their best to keep our attention—and keep me spending cash—all the livelong day. Luray includes a garden maze, a ropes course, a collection of museums, and even an on-site gas station. Oh yeah, and a cavern. We rolled with it. After we bought our tickets—it felt a little like booking air travel—the girls, ages 5 and 8, asked to start in the garden maze.
I’d somehow made it this far in life without entering a maze of any kind, and assumed we’d soon become hopelessly lost, thirsty, and panicked. It didn’t happen, though: As I should have realized, the owners of tourist attractions don’t actually want the tourists to have a terrifying time. They’d sprinkled enough clues throughout the tall passageways to ensure that we could make it out—and they sprinkled us too, with cooling mist. We found our way to all four “goals” and then to the exit with only minor, enjoyable confusion.
On to the ropes course. Employees buckled us into harnesses and showed us how to maneuver them through a system of overhead rails as we tiptoed along narrow beams, rungs, and ropes about a gazillion feet in the air. Well, maybe not that high, but high enough to make me seriously nervous on my first couple of passes, as I gripped the sweaty hand of my wobbly 5-year-old. I admit it was a pretty cool moment when we both grew comfortable enough to let go of each other and she took off on her own. Her older sister, meanwhile, gallivanted fearlessly all over the course. We all felt elated when we finally descended.
After a picnic on the lawn, we got in line for a cavern tour. On a day of jarring juxtapositions, none is stranger than this: You’re inside a building, and then you go down some concrete steps and you’re standing in a cavern. The ceiling soars overhead, dripping with stalactites, and an enormous calcite formation, named for George Washington, stands on the floor before you.
Now, let me say that the tour itself at Luray, a mile and a quarter long, is not super-inspired. Our baby-faced, bored-sounding guide recited his script and little else. And I’m glad I wasn’t expecting a geology lesson for my kids, because they didn’t get one. Have I mentioned that Luray Caverns is geared toward tourists? We trudged along brick and concrete paths, obeyed the command not to touch the cave formations, and absorbed a steady stream of quasi-historical lore, all in a pack of 35 or so people.
But it’s hard to ruin a place like this. Luray is a large and astonishing feature of the earth, festooned with every kind of underground formation you could hope to see: stalactites, stalagmites, delicate drapery formations, still-as-glass pools, columns, and flowstone. Even if you ignore the official information, this is the kind of place that makes an impression: It’s a feast for the eyes and a different visual language than we’re used to above ground. The absorption and wonder of kids in such a setting is a good model for the rest of us.
It’s a feast for the eyes and a different visual language than we’re used to above ground.
After exiting the cavern, as you might guess, we were a bit spent. But still there was more—so much more to see! We made a weary attempt to appreciate the Toy Town Junction Museum, home of model trains and historical toys, skipped the Car and Carriage Caravan Museum, and briefly checked out the Luray Valley Museum, which is all about Shenandoah Valley history. All of it was worthwhile enough, but there’s only so much stimulation a family can take in one day.
We’d spent the day as lemmings, true, and the cynical grownup in me sneered a little at the manufactured hokiness of it all. But my kids saw no reason to turn up their noses. They were two very happy tourists.
If You Go
Luray Caverns is open daily 9am-6pm through October; winter hours are 9am-4pm. Tickets for the cavern and museums are $28 for adults and $15 for kids 6-12. The garden maze costs $9 for adults and $7 for kids 6-12. The ropes course is $11 if you’re 48 inches tall or more, $7 if you’re not. For more information, go to luraycaverns.com.
At the start of last summer, the local visitors bureau ran a TV commercial aimed at driving tourism to the Charlottesville area, but pulled the campaign, which showed a happy, lively and beautifully landscaped town to the tune of a Dave Matthews song, weeks before the Unite the Right rally.
Perhaps the lyrics, “Wasting time / let the hours roll by / doing nothing for the fun / a little taste of the good life / whether right or wrong, makes us want to stay, stay, stay for a while,” clashed with what some anticipated would be the largest gathering of white supremacists in recent history.
Bri Bélanger-Warner, interim executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, says after the rally that left three dead and many injured, they gave the town, which National Geographic Travel recently named one of the best small cities in the U.S., some time to catch its breath before slowly reintroducing the commercial to local networks.
“We didn’t feel like coming out strong with a sales-y pitch about the destination was in good taste, so we preferred to just be quiet,” says Bélanger-Warner. Of course, after the tragic events, there was a new campaign.
Most residents will remember Cville Stands for Love—when the Virginia Tourism Corporation planted a giant LOVE statue in the middle of the Downtown Mall in an effort to repair the city’s image. Then-mayor Mike Signer posted to Facebook a photo of himself jumping for joy in front of the statue just five days after the rally.
“After a hard week, Cville is back on our feet, and we’ll be stronger than ever,” Signer’s Facebook post said at the time. “Love conquers hate!”
But some evidence shows that Charlottesville was not, in fact, back on its feet, and a number of local business owners are still trying to regain their footing.
“Our best indicator is our [hotel] occupancy,” says Bélanger-Warner, who pointed out a few figures on a proprietary visitors bureau chart, which showed that occupancy in Charlottesville and Albemarle County was slightly down in August and September, and had decreased as much as 5 percent by October of last year.
“Our occupancy was still 80 percent,” she says from her Downtown Mall office. “In the grand scheme of things it’s not alarming by any means, but it is a bit unusual to see a dip.”
By November, the percentages were back in the positives, and by December, January and February, they were up nearly 9 percent. But there was another issue at stake.
“Whereas our occupancy was way up, the amount of money that we got per room was way down,” she says.
Aside from November, average daily rates have steadily decreased since last October, and year-to-date they’re down 5 percent. Year-to-date lodging revenue is down 1.2 percent.
This could be attributed to the local hotel and inn market preparing for new competition, such as the Draftsman Hotel, which recently opened on West Main Street, and the Country Inn & Suites and the Residence Inn that both opened in 2016, according to Bélanger-Warner. Home2 Suites and the Fairfield Inn are scheduled to open this year.
Monticello, one of the top tourist destinations in the area, saw a decrease in visitors for the first few months of 2018, but its numbers were similar to 2014 and 2015. About 440,000 people visit Thomas Jefferson’s home annually. Photo by Jack Looney
The lodging industry wasn’t the only one hit. The number of tickets sold at Monticello, one of the biggest tourist attractions in town, was also down.
“Our visitation in the first few months of 2018 was not as strong as 2017, but is similar to what we saw in 2014 and 2015,” says spokesperson Mia Magruder Dammann. For the last 10 years, about 440,000 people have dropped by Thomas Jefferson’s home annually.
According to Magruder Dammann, several factors contribute to the number of visitors there, especially the weather. This weekend, Monticello will be debuting six new exhibits, and, based on past experience, it can “expect to see a bump in visitation this summer,” she says.
Though tourism can be hard to measure, another indicator is money spent at local restaurants. Last year, meals tax revenue was down nearly 3 percent from 2016, though, as the city’s Director of Economic Development Chris Engel points out, that was a record year for meals tax in Charlottesville. The meals tax total from 2017—$11,429,199—was a 16 percent increase from 2015.
However, downtown restaurant owner Will Richey, the man behind several eateries including The Whiskey Jar, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest and Revolutionary Soup, says the fourth quarter of 2017 was “just terrible” for Downtown Mall restaurants, “and it was all because of the July and August events distinctly.”
Things didn’t start turning around until March, he says, and March, April and May were much stronger than the fall. The business owner attributes that to the “wonderful” people of Charlottesville and Albemarle, who support local businesses in a way that Richey says isn’t often found elsewhere.
“I think we are back on track downtown, though I do think things would be slightly better without some of the downtown issues that have been accosting us over the last years, like hyped up parking issues that are not really issues, panhandling and, of course, last summer’s social unrest,” he adds.
Restaurateur Will Richey says the last quarter of 2017 was “just terrible” for Downtown Mall restaurants, but he reports a turnaround in March. He says downtown issues such as panhandling, “hyped up parking issues” and the events of August 12 all contributed to a decline in business. Photo by Robert Llewellyn
As for the local entertainment industry, Kirby Hutto, the general manager at the Sprint Pavilion, says it’s not a great indicator of tourism.
“Our patrons honestly are not true tourists,” he says. “They’re coming here to see the show. All of our performance metrics are based on how popular the artist is.”
And folks at the Paramount, the historic theater on the Downtown Mall, say they haven’t seen any decrease in sales: More than 113,000 people attended at least 300 events at the Paramount last year—one of them being a public funeral for Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old killed in the August 12 car attack—and director of marketing Maran Garland says recent events and attendees are consistent with their yearly projections.
The Paramount aims to benefit central Virginia artistically, educationally and charitably, says Garland, and to help drum up business by keeping local restaurants and hotels in mind when setting times for events.“When we can partner with our neighbors to achieve our mission, and support downtown, it is a win-win for all,” she says.
When asked about trends in the wedding industry, a slight disagreement exists between wedding professionals, but they can all agree on one thing: Last year wasn’t so hot.
Barb Lundgren has been planning local weddings for more than 20 years, and says that as the tourism industry has surged in recent years, “we’ve lost a little bit of our small-town charm.”
While her business, Barb Wired, is currently down about a third, she attributes it mostly to the stiff competition in one of the local area’s most competitive industries. Lundgren says it’s hard to estimate an accurate figure because couples are becoming more last-minute in their wedding planning.
In 2016, Borrowed & Blue co-founder and former CEO Adam Healy calculated that the wedding industry had a $158 million economic impact on Albemarle County. He said then that the local wedding market has been ranked as one of the top five for destination weddings on the East Coast. (Borrowed & Blue shut down in October 2017, and its online assets were bought earlier this year by weddings e-commerce startup Zola, based in New York City.)
“One of our challenges in the industry is that we don’t have enough hotels,” Lundgren says—a sentiment that Bélanger-Warner at the visitors bureau echoes.
Although some Charlottesville and Albemarle residents are opposed to new hotel development, Lundgren says many couples have to cancel or change their dates because there aren’t enough available rooms to host their guests.
Wedding photographer Jen Fariello echoes other industry players: Work slowed down last year, but she attributes it to the 2016 election more than anything. She says business is currently up 25 percent from last year. Photo by Ron Dressel
And the hardest part of Bélanger-Warner’s job, she says, is turning down wedding parties, sports teams or potential conference attendees who want to stay in town at a time when she can’t find a big enough block of rooms for them. Including the two hotels that are set to open this year, a little more than 4,000 rooms are available in the city and county in close to 60 lodging establishments including hotels, bed and breakfasts and inns.
“It happens regularly enough that, intuitively, we know that there would still be room for a few more hotels,” says Bélanger-Warner.
But despite the lack of places to stay, local wedding photographer Jen Fariello says business is booming.
“Last year was a weird year,” says Fariello, “but 2018 and 2019 have made a strong recovery.”
She says 2017 was pretty bad for everyone in the industry, but she doesn’t think it can be attributed to the August incident because, in the wedding world, generally a couple books services such as a photographer and venue for their big day between six months and a year out. “Nobody quite knows why, but that would really have to do with whatever was happening in 2016. I think a lot of people chalk it up to the election.”
Adam Donovan-Groves, another local wedding planner, says he sees that decline every election year, because people are concerned about the economy and their wedding budgets go down. By the second and third year after an election cycle, however, things are usually back to normal, he says.
“We’re right where we’re supposed to be,” says Donovan-Groves, who just booked a wedding for 2020. Fariello is fully booked for the year, and is currently booking for fall 2019. She says business is up by at least 25 percent from last year, and she hasn’t even hit fall, her busiest season.
“It’s really a thriving industry here,” she says, and, like Lundgren and Donovan-Groves, also attributes any overarching industry-wide decline to new competition and venues, since vendors have seen how well others have done in Charlottesville and Albemarle and set up shop. “There’s just lots more of everything now,” says Fariello.
While the nation watched last August, as brawls between neo-Nazis and their counterparts ensued in our streets, all eyes will be on Charlottesville again this summer. But it could be for good reason, according to Forbes, which, in May, named our Monticello region as the best 2018 summer wine trip.
King Family Vineyards, nestled on the Monticello Wine Trail in Crozet, didn’t see any disparity in sales last year, and actually saw a 4 percent overall increase.
James King says, historically speaking, the alcohol industry is one that fares well during economic depressions.
“When the economy’s bad, people want to forget their troubles,” he says. “Not to say that alcohol’s a recession-proof industry—it’s not—but we really didn’t see a difference [in 2017].”
A good indicator of a successful 2018 is that they’ve been busier earlier than usual this year in their tasting room, and every year has been a record year since his family first opened its doors in 2002, he adds.
“We’re on track to sell a bunch of wine and have the best year ever, and I hope that’s the case for everyone else,” says King.
A new radio ad from the visitors bureau encourages the community to stay local and play local this summer.
Bri Bélanger-Warner, interim executive director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, says the best indicator of tourism is hotel occupancy, which fell to 80 percent in October. Photo by Eze Amos
With an aggressive wedding industry, national accolades racked up by area wineries and breweries, increased hotel occupancy in the city and county, and the city’s sales tax revenue up 5.75 percent from the same months last year—after being down 3.34 percent in 2017, the first dip in four years—Bélanger-Warner says the bottom line is that “tourism is healthy.”
And that’s good, because the local area relies heavily on the industry that employs more than 5,000 people, and where domestic travelers spent more than $600 million in Charlottesville and Albemarle in 2016, according to the Virginia Tourism Corporation.
There would be severe repercussions if local tourism saw a sudden nosedive, says Bélanger-Warner.
“It would have a huge impact because all of those people who come here from out of town stay in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, shop in our stores, get gas in our gas stations, go to our wineries, go to our orchards and our historical attractions,” says Bélanger-Warner, and if all of those people stop coming, businesses would suffer and there’d be a loss of revenue. Or, put simply, she says, “We are in trouble.”
While filling the role as executive director of the visitors bureau, answering why people would want to come to Charlottesville and Albemarle is a big part of the job.
“Why wouldn’t they?” she says, laughing. “It’s the best of all worlds.”
It’s a beautiful city with a vibrant downtown, top-notch restaurants and the “fun vibe” of its many festivals, paired with a rural countryside that offers agritourism, historical attractions and, of course, wine, says Bélanger-Warner. And the area isn’t so large that it loses its authenticity.
“It’s not so big that you’re stuck in traffic 24/7, but you have all you need,” she adds. “In some of the bigger touristy cities or destinations, it’s geared at tourists so much that you get a gift shop every two seconds with the cookie cutter souvenirs and takeaways, where here, I feel people really want to share how they live and who they are in a very authentic kind of way.”
Those hit the hardest last year have high hopes for this summer, too.
Says restaurateur Richey: “I’m looking forward to a good summer—hopefully a regular C’ville summer without any crazy.”
The band played on July 4, despite hackers. Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello photo by Jack Looney
For more than a week, Thomas Jefferson’s home has reverted back to a time when it didn’t have online ticketing and phone service. And despite the ransomware hack that hijacked its computer and phone systems, the 18th century estate has soldiered on during one of its busiest weeks of the year, when people throng to its July 4 naturalization ceremony.
Trouble was first spotted on June 27, a Tuesday morning. “It was pretty obvious we had been the victim of ransomware,” says Ann Taylor, executive VP with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The malware encrypted files, making them inaccessible without the encryption key or rebuilding the files from backups, she says.
Because the attack is under an ongoing criminal investigation, she declines to give particulars of how much was demanded—and whether the foundation paid up, which some victims of hacks have done and still not gotten the encryption key.
But it’s not like it’s the first time the mountaintop manse has found itself without 20th century conveniences. “We have manual protocols for power outages,” says Taylor.
It’s been a minor inconvenience for visitors unable to buy tickets online in advance, she says, but that hasn’t prevented them from coming to the third president’s home. Guests are getting the $3 discount usually given to those buying online, and at the ticket counter, staffers unearthed old-fashioned, mechanical credit card machines.
Taylor praises the staff and volunteers who have rallied to maintain operations. “Certainly it’s been inconvenient for staff, working on cell phones,” she says. And the IT staff has been working around the clock. “Fortunately we have great partners willing to come onsite and help us rebuild the systems,” she adds.
This morning, 10 days after the attack, Taylor says she still can’t say when those systems will be up and running.
“It’s gratifying so many people turned out July 4 to welcome 75 new citizens,” says Taylor. Attendance was 2,349 for the ceremony, more than last year. And from July 1 to July 4, more than 11,200 people visited Monticello, keeping pace with last year, she says.
Charlottesville Works Initiative’s Ridge Schulyer says there’s nothing wrong with starter jobs, but it’s tough to support a family on minimum wage.
Photo Elli Williams
Two recent reports demonstrate the highs and lows of area economics. Tourism in Albemarle and Charlottesville brought in more than $553 million in 2014, while 18 percent of families in this area don’t make enough money to pay for basic needs.
The Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau reported a $29 million increase in revenues tourism brought to the area last year. “Increases across the board in Charlottesville and Albemarle County were quite impressive,” said Kurt Burkhart, the bureau’s executive director. Increased visitor spending upped tourism-related employment 3.5 percent, according to the bureau’s press release.
The news is not so bright for area poor families in Charlottesville and Albemarle. The Orange Dot Project Report, an initiative of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, released September 21, says that 5,661 families in the city and county—18 percent—do not earn enough to pay for housing, food, clothing, energy, transportation and child care, which require an income of between $35,000 and $40,000 a year, according to the report.
“Some jobs in hospitality pay a decent wage and people can earn a decent living,” says Ridge Schuyler, who works with the Chamber’s Charlottesville Works Initiative. “Others don’t.” A single mom working full time for minimum wage makes $14,400 a year, says Schuyler. “It’s very difficult for a parent to raise a family on a starter job,” he says.
The Chamber launched Works Initiative a year ago to use neighborhood-based peers to identify people ready for jobs at the next level and to provide training in careers such as nursing, bookkeeping and firefighting. The initiative has enrolled 39 people.
In other job news, Chick-fil-A announced it will hire 80 people for its new store on Pantops. The company declined to say what the pay range will be, but spokesperson Callie Bowers says the pay is generous and more competitive than other similar businesses. Also, there’s no working on Sundays.
The Marriott Residence Inn looming on the corner of West Main and Ridge-McIntire will have 124 rooms and boasts great views.
Image: Design-Develop LLC
Two upscale hotels are under construction on West Main Street, and rather than creating an oversupply of hotel rooms, tourism officials say they will hardly make a dent in prime season demand.
This summer, the former Red Roof Inn on the Corner will unveil itself as Graduate Charlottesville, part of a new chain hitting college-town markets like Athens, Georgia, and Oxford, Mississippi.
“It’s a unique product branded around that old collegiate feel,” said Kris Altman, corporate marketing director for Charlestowne Hotels, which is managing Graduate hotels for owners A.J. Capital Partners. And by old collegiate feel, he’s not talking keggers or Animal House. This is a more refined product “with added amenities you may not have had before” during those old college days, said Altman.
That would include pedicabs, a second-floor game room and a coffee shop on the first floor with a walk-up window. And general manager Yolunda Armstrong points out with its primo location on the Corner across the street from UVA, “It’s the best location in town.”
The Graduate is a story taller than its predecessor with a ninth floor addition that will have a restaurant and bar, as well as event space. And Graduate Charlottesville is all about events, particularly wedding party accommodations and a bridal dressing room. Another perk: a shuttle service to get guests within a three- to five-mile radius, said Altman. And the hotel is offering bike rentals as well.
The new 135-room facility is “not your standard Holiday Inn Express or Red Roof Inn,” said Altman. When it opens—anticipated date: July— it will be a 3½ to 4 star hotel, said Altman.
He’s not concerned about the fancy new Marriott Residence Inn going up down the street. “They’re a different market,” he said. “If I was the Omni, yeah, I’d be worried.”
The 120,000-square-foot Marriott is rising like a monolith at the corner of Ridge-McIntire. “It’s going to be spectacular,” promised owner Charles Wendell of Virginia Inn Management, and he hopes to be open between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Wendell, who’s from West Virginia, has a local connection: “My wife and I began our married life in Charlottesville in 1970,” he said. And his son went to UVA.
This is Wendell’s 21st hotel, and it won’t be like the typical Residence Inn. “Rather than the standard interior, we hired a special interior designer and upgraded the whole space,” he said. “It’s not generic at all.” The interior has “great height, and a “great feeling of walking into a special hotel,” he enthused.
Around back, there’s room for 20 cars near the entrance and the garage has 119 spaces.
The pool is already in, and the hotel will have a big exercise room and meeting space, he said. Its courtyard in front of the lobby on West Main features a firepit, and Wendell thinks it will be an excellent spot for locals to have a drink.
The seven-story hotel that was once the site of Random Row Books and City Clay will have 124 rooms, and on the second and third floors, two large suites look out on the Lewis and Clark statue. On the seventh floor, “anywhere you look the views are spectacular,” said Wendell, quickly amending that to say the views are good from anywhere in the Marriott, which overlooks Staples, the federal courthouse and of course, the Omni.
Wendell says the hotel he built in Morgantown, West Virginia, was voted one of the top three in the Marriott system of 650 hotels, and is one of the few winners not managed by Marriott.
The new hotel will not have a restaurant, he said, because there are plenty of good eateries already around. He does think it will bring something else: “a presence.” He said, “This hotel is going to be transformative for West Main Street.” And Wendell, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina, envisions West Main becoming like Charleston’s happening, restaurant, bar and gallery-laden Upper King Street.
Off West Main, a third hotel is under construction within the city limits, and it’s not the still-skeletal Landmark Hotel on the Downtown Mall.
The Country Inn and Suites is going up on Emmet Street at the site of the partially demolished Days Inn, where the former Red Lobster restaurant was razed for the new hostelry. The Country Inn will have 86 rooms, about half of which are suites, said owner Bhupendra Patel, who’s headquarterd in Midlothian. The project should be completed July or August 2016, he said.
Despite more than 300 new rooms coming onto the accommodations market in the next year or so, Bri Warner with the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau doesn’t foresee a glut.
“From our standpoint, at certain times of the year during the high season—April through June, September through mid-November—we have to refer people out of town,” she said. Charlottesville has become the hub of a wedding-destination boom, she said, and even with 3,600 rooms currently and the additional 345 rooms on the horizon, during prime marrying times, they’re going to be sold out.
Correction 4/24/15: Charlestowne Hotels was misspelled in the original version.
