For the four members of Charlottesville’s Board of Architectural Review (BAR) (www.charlottesville.org) that were around in 2004, the night of February 20 offered a moment of déjà vu. The application for a nine-storey, 86,000-square-foot, 100-room hotel was the same exact submittal the BAR approved three years ago for the site of the former Central Fidelity Bank site (bordering Water Street and Second Street SE) on the Downtown Mall.
Much has happened since then. After Lee Danielson, the developer who put the movie theater and ice park on the Mall in the early 1990s, was unable to finalize this project, his former partner Ed White sold the site to developer Oliver Kuttner, who as recently as December was talking excitedly about his own designs. When Kuttner first made the acquisition for $3.7 million, he was contacted by Danielson, who asked for the opportunity to buy back the site if he could secure financing. As it turns out, Danielson was recently able to do so and is currently in escrow to repurchase the property.
 This rendering shows the plans for a Downtown hotel that re-emerged now that Lee Danielson has bought back the property from Oliver Kuttner. That means no $500 apartments, which Kuttner considered for his designs. |
“I think Lee Danielson’s project is a better project,” says Kuttner, admitting to a frustration over his own design. (Kuttner helped develop The Terraces and is involved in many Lynchburg projects.) “There’s a part of [me] that understands the building that I have in my mind and likes it, but I haven’t been able to successfully transfer it…on to paper.” The fact that Danielson’s design was already approved also played a part in Kuttner’s decision to sell. “It’s ready to go,” he says. “He spent a lot of money and time designing it. If it wasn’t being built then it would be a waste, and I didn’t want to see it be a waste.”
BAR approval was the next step, and it came quite easily as the board largely deferred to their 2004 decision, for both the demolition of the current structure (minus the bank’s marble façade) as well as the design of the new hotel.
“I’m very pleased and excited about the future,” says Lee Danielson, a California native. He says the sale should be completed in May or June. “While it’s been a long time, I’m happy for the city and also for me. It will bring me back to Charlottesville and I’m elated about it.” Construction on the Beacon-Charlottesville Hotel could begin this summer.
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