Cville Tomorrow News

Some assembly required

11/30/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

Developer Bill Atwood's new project faces a tough deadline

In the middle of my interview with local architect and developer Bill Atwood, I realize that his shirt is improperly buttoned. At first, I take the jaunt of his collar as part of the overall look—black Ray-Ban Wayfarers, white hair that has grown comfortable with disarray. Think Jim Jarmusch, or Ric Ocasek.

“You’re not going to see him in a blue blazer and a tie very often,” says his wife, Bebe Heiner, founder of The Women’s Initiative. “You’re not going to see him in a crew cut, either.”

But it’s a button misfire, all right—a tiny mistake in the middle of his shirt.

UVA investments fare well despite "unpredictable market"

11/30/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

At times, the past two years have been debilitating for UVA’s endowment. Managed by the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIM CO) and constituting a large chunk of the University’s overall investment pool, the endowment dropped $600 million during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2008. However, the endowment seems headed back to its pre-financial crash glory days, currently valued at nearly $3 billion in a $4.7 billion investment pool.

The endowment began the first fiscal quarter of 2008 at roughly $4.6 billion. By mid-October of the same year, in the midst of the national economic meltdown, it plummeted to $2.9 billion. By mid-2009, however, UVA’s overall pool had picked up positive returns on investments and once more reached the $4 billion mark.

Since then, UVIMCO had to deal with more than market forces to ensure a steady endowment performance. In March, UVIM CO CEO Christopher Brightman unexpectedly resigned, citing “personal reasons” for his departure amidst an allegation of adultery with his executive assistant.

Ragged Mountain dam needs a closer look

11/30/2010 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

“Stonewalled” is how Bob Fenwick puts it, and he’s not talking about the Lower Ragged Mountain Dam. After members of pro-dredging advocates Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan (CSWP) were denied entry to a November 22 review of one proposed design for the dam, Fenwick, a CSWP member and former City Council candidate, remarked that Tom Frederick, executive director of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, “has stonewalled us since Day One.”
 
As city-county relations continue to simmer over competing ideas for preserving the community water supply, no meeting seems innocuous. Weeks after Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris called an October meeting with the director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) a research trip rather than a lobbying effort, Frederick and RWSA Legal Counsel Kurt Krueger defended the decorum of the dam expert panel review.

“If the purpose of opening up these meetings to the public is to provide transparency, I think you need to offer all sides of the issue,” said Frederick. (Two members of CSWP drove Norris to his DEQ meeting but denied they acted on behalf of the group). Krueger said that a decision to make the meeting public must be made by the RWSA board, rather than “e-mails outside of the purview of the public.” When Norris asked where, in previous meeting minutes, the RWSA board agreed to make the workshop private, Albemarle County Supervisor Ken Boyd responded that the board never agreed to make it public, and decried the “character assassination” of Frederick.

UVa developing strategy for increasing enrollment

11/27/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The University of Virginia is considering a move to accelerate the pace of its student enrollment growth, but only if the state agrees to pony up to help the university cope with the added costs.

UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan has proposed the addition of 1,400 more undergraduate and 100 more graduate students beyond the university’s existing enrollment growth projections, to be phased in over four or five years.

“We assume the [Board of Visitors] will not condone this growth without assurances that we have adequate housing, dining, recreation spaces, need-based financial aid and faculty and staff to serve the new students and protect the undergraduate experience,” Sullivan said. “Furthermore, we expect the state to provide appropriate funding for the additional Virginia students, and we made this clear in our suggestions to the commission and in our discussion with members of the General Assembly.”

Belmont contest winners making home more energy efficient

11/28/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

Susan and Mike Kruse have lived in their Belmont home for six years, and, just as people who were once strangers can get to know and discover each other’s quirks over several years, they developed a pretty good idea of what their 1930s house was like.

Or so they thought.

Because of when the house was built, Mike Kruse said, the couple already knew its walls weren’t insulated, that better windows might help keep air inside, and the house was leaky around its doors.

New Crozet library could come sooner with donations, grants

11/25/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

With a completion date for a new Crozet library nowhere to be found in Albemarle County’s five-year financial plan, some officials hope the library can be financed sooner than expected with grants and donations.

A team of library officials, county supervisors and county staff members is recommending that the Board of Supervisors front as much as $292,000 for the completion of library design and construction drawings.

“They’re really trying to get this project, to use the current term, shovel ready,” said John Halliday, director of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.

Council makes choice for new city manager

11/24/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

The City Council has chosen a finalist to become Charlottesville’s next city manager, Mayor Dave Norris confirmed Tuesday, but officials are not releasing the person’s name pending employment negotiations.

Councilors met in a closed meeting Tuesday morning to discuss the position. The three finalists in the running were Maurice Jones, the city’s acting city manager; Richard Brown, the city manager of East Providence, R.I.; and Paula Hertwig Hopkins, an assistant city manager of Columbia, Mo.

Hopkins said Tuesday afternoon that she had not yet been contacted by the city, and Jones also said he has received no indication one way or another about an offer. Brown would not comment beyond confirming that he was one of three finalists.

Landmark Hotel suit headed to Ga. court

11/24/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

A judge has rejected an attempt by the attorneys for the owner of the Landmark Hotel project to block a change of venue for a lawsuit filed by the project’s lender.

U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon has issued an order denying Minor Family Hotels LLC’s motion to appeal the bankruptcy’s court decision to remand Specialty Finance Group LLC’s suit back to Georgia.

Attorneys for Minor Family Hotels and Specialty Finance Group appeared Monday in Charlottesville’s federal court on the “emergency motion.” Neither Betty Shumener, a California-based lawyer representing Minor Family Hotels, nor Bob Alpert, an Atlanta-based lawyer representing Specialty Finance Group, immediately returned a request for comment.

Silverman will bid out paving contract in coming weeks

11/23/2010 * C-Ville Coffee [full story]

The fate of the parking lot at the Amtrak train station on West Main Street may be at a turning point. The owners of the lot, local developers Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene, will finally pave it.

“That’s what we have been trying to do all this time, is to pave the parking lot,” says Silverman. The lot has been unpaved since the developers bought it in 1997.

After an attempt by the owners to use a product called Durasoil to abate the dust problem, area residents and business owners were prepared to pursue a lawsuit they had temporarily shelved. Peter Castiglione, co-owner of Maya Restaurant, previously retained lawyer Edward Lowry, who contacted Cadgene and Silverman about the threat of legal action if the dust problem was not resolved. Cadgene, a lawyer based in San Francisco, responded to a request from Lowry for “binding assurance” to try and bust the dust with Durasoil—which, according to its website, is an odorless fluid meant to bind with any surface.

Landmark Hotel suit remanded to Georgia court

11/22/2010 * Daily Progress [full story]

A lawsuit involving the lender for the stalled Landmark Hotel project has been remanded to the Georgia court where it was filed, but attorneys for hotel owner Minor Family Hotels LLC are trying to bring the case back to Virginia.

Minor Family Hotels argued its “emergency motion” on Monday in Charlottesville’s federal court. The motion, which was filed Friday, asks the court to hasten the oral argument and decision in the agency’s appeal of the bankruptcy court’s decision to remand Specialty Finance Group LLC’s suit to Georgia.

U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon didn’t rule on the motion during Monday’s hearing, and he did not state when he plans to issue a ruling.