Cville Tomorrow News

Company tries to hold parkway estimate

5/27/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The company that has offered to construct Charlottesville’s part of the Meadowcreek Parkway for the lowest cost has said it will honor the price for as long as it can, according to a state transportation official.

“He’s agreed to continue to hold it as long as he can,” Jim Utterback, the Culpeper district administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said of the price submitted by Key Construction Co. Inc.

Key Construction, based out of Clarksville, had submitted a bid for $3.37 million to build the city’s section of the road, more than $2 million less than the original construction estimate.

Group: Boyd plan may be unsustainable

5/27/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

At a meeting of sustainability advocates Thursday night, people weighed in on what development could mean for Albemarle County.

“We have to start asking the question, ‘Where do we want to stop?’” said Jack Marshall, president of Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population.

He said the question is closely tied to a new push by members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to develop a new economic development plan. That plan is being spearheaded by Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd.

Massive foreclosure: Western subdivisions rocked by default

5/27/2010 * The Hook [full story]

In what could be Albemarle’s most spectacular foreclosure ever— totaling $17.4 million— holdings of two companies, including the developer of the pricey-parceled the Rocks subdivision in Ivy, will go on the auction block May 26 at 2pm at the county courthouse.

The Rocks LLC owes $12.5 million to BB&T, Branch Banking & Trust, which plans to sell off parcels that include 29 lots in the Ragged Mountain Farm subdivision on Dick Woods Road, according to foreclosure notices in the Daily Progress.

Another foreclosure that same day will sell parcels in Murphy’s Creek Farm off Blenheim Road to recoup another $4.9 million allegedly owed to BB&T. Lower Sherwood LLC is the debtor for the Murphy’s Creek properties, but it shares the same address— 1338 Stony Point Road, Suite 201— as the Rocks LLC.

With a price of $4.1 million, what could replace a dormant Ice Park?

Later, skaters

5/25/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

As its June 30 closing date approaches, the Charlottesville Ice Park faces the real possibility of lying dormant. There are currently no interested buyers or tenants for the venue, according to co-owner Roberta Williamson.

“I’m anticipating that it will be empty for a while,” Williamson told C-VILLE.

A darkened ice park may give families one fewer reason to visit the Downtown Mall, and it might even trigger the demise of the Mall’s vibrancy, says the park’s brainchild, Lee Danielson (with no apparent irony, given his role in the vacant tower known as the Landmark Hotel). Danielson and Colin Rolph co-developed the ice park and oversaw its opening in 1996. Roberta and Bruce Williamson purchased the park for roughly $3.1 million in 2003.

RSWA seeks to cut hours for recycling

5/24/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The Rivanna Solid Waste Authority is proposing to chop the hours of operation for the McIntire Recycling Center and the Ivy Materials Utilization Center, among other methods to help trim costs in its fiscal 2011 budget.

Under the proposal, beginning July 1 the McIntire Recycling Center in Charlottesville would be open for 40 hours over the course of five days and be closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The center is currently open six days a week, after the solid waste authority decided last year to close the center on Mondays.

The materials utilization center in Albemarle County (formerly the Ivy Landfill) would also be open five days a week instead of six, closing all Mondays in addition to Sundays.

Plans go green for Amtrak lot

5/23/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The owners of the Amtrak gravel parking lot, whose surface is rampant with dips and grooves, submitted another round of plans that add more “green” features but that effectively pushed back the date at which it can be paved.

City officials said the property owners submitted new plans for the lot — after other final plans had already been OK’d — that make it more environmentally friendly.

“We said, that’s your right to do,” said Jim Tolbert, director of Charlottesville’s Department of Neighborhood Development Services. Noting that the changes included more landscaping and a few rain gardens, Tolbert said, “They’re good changes. We were happy to see them, but we also want to see the lot paved.”

Fence in Crozet relocated

5/22/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

A recently erected fence outside a downtown Crozet shopping center was relocated Friday — reopening most parking spaces to shoppers.

Several business customers have used the lot at The Square for decades. But an orange mesh fence was installed a week ago after the Buckingham Branch Railroad discovered it was apparently leasing the parking lot and vulnerable to lawsuits if anyone were to get hurt in the area.

Buckingham Branch agreed to move the fence about 30 feet, toward the railroad tracks that run parallel to the businesses, after business owners agreed to accept legal responsibility if anyone gets hurt in the parking lot.

Crozet parking lot fence relocated

5/21/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

Business owners have reached a deal with Buckingham Branch Railroad to re-open most of the recently closed parking lot in Crozet.

Workers on Friday morning moved the orange fencing that had been blocking the lot, thereby restoring a row-and-a-half of parking spaces for the Square’s businesses, such as Crozet Hardware Co., Fardowners Restaurant, the Mudhouse and Parkway Pharmacy.

Under the deal, the business owners will assume liability for the parking lot, said Brenda Plantz, owner of Parkway Pharmacy.

Gym suit: McIntire Park deal draws litigation from fitness firms

5/20/2010 * The Hook [full story]

The local “Y” just can’t seem to find a break. First, the Piedmont Virginia YMCA got embroiled in an acrimonious battle launched by a City Council decision to push softball out of the town’s biggest park. And now the Y’s plan to take a piece of that park for its nearly $15 million fitness facility while accepting some public funding has drawn a lawsuit— backed by three of the biggest local players on the local fitness scene.

The contretemps started two years ago when the City agreed to hand over a little over three acres inside McIntire Park while paying $1.25 million in taxpayer money— coupled with the County’s allocation of $2.03 million— in exchange for various benefits including dibs on swim lanes for high school students and free admission for impoverished families. Opponents leapt out of the woodwork: the assertive Save McIntire campaign, softball players, even anti-Meadowcreek Parkway activists.

But long after the ink dried on the deal and the Y began finalizing plans, a new hurdle arose May 12 when Charlottesville’s top private health clubs appeared with a lawsuit portraying the dollar-a-year land lease illegal under Virginia state law.

State housing permits drop again in ‘09

5/20/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The number of residential building permits issued in the state last year continued to drop from a peak reached in 2004 and 2005, according to the University of Virginia.

Permit numbers are now down more than 70 percent from those years, according to UVa’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. In 2009, authorities issued 21,000 permits, the lowest level since at least 1970.