Mayor Mike Signer and City Councilor Kathy Galvin insist there is nothing personal in the city’s dispute with Mark Brown over control of the Water Street Parking Garage. In meetings with reporters July 6 after the city rejected Charlottesville Parking Center’s June 24 proposed settlement of the escalating controversy over the fate of the garage the city co-owns with Brown, […]
Discussions for this year’s list of the most powerful in Charlottesville turned not toward one particular person but an entity that truly affects Charlottesvillians’ daily lives—the Virginia Department of Transportation. Don’t worry, you’ll still see some familiar faces (last year’s power-topper Mark Brown remains embroiled in a battle with the city over the Water Street Parking Garage), […]
Oliver Kuttner doesn’t do bland. And he doesn’t like building the same thing over and over. His latest project, the Treehouse on the corner of Garrett and Second SE streets, is testament to that. “I wanted to do a small building,” he says. “I wanted to make that corner interesting.” The result, beside his Glass […]
“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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
While many out-of-towners plan tours of Nelson County to learn the land by way of winery and brewery, Governor Terry McAuliffe has been extended a much more somber, or rather, sober, invitation. Over 1,200 Virginia residents signed Friends of Nelson’s request for McAuliffe to join locals and [...]
As part of a national campaign called Imagine a Day Without Water, members from the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, Albemarle County Service Authority and City of Charlottesville set up booths last week on the Downtown Mall and asked passersby to describe the many ways they use water. Making [...]
General contractor Martin Horn has been generating its own energy for months with an array of rooftop solar panels, and the company just gave passersby a new energy-saver to ogle. Martin Horn had already installed 82 grid-tied solar panels that produce 260 watts each, enough to run the office [...]