Forget the motor mile—Preston Avenue is repositioning itself as the music mile, thanks to a little love from Coran Capshaw and his people. Red Light Management, operating under its moniker Starr Hill Presents, will lease a roughly 5,000-square-foot space at 608 Preston Ave. from the development team, led by Andy McGinty, that is renovating the adjacent King Lumber building. The deal is conditioned on approval of a special use permit, which Red Light is in the process of getting from the city.
Preston is already home to Outback Lodge, the music venue behind Mona Lisa Pasta. Along with Gravity Lounge, it is largely all that’s left of the city’s small venue circuit for those bands that don’t have the cachet to play the Pavilion or John Paul Jones Arena. Satellite Ballroom, a 500-600* capacity music hall on the Corner that had soaked up most of the recognizable acts that can fill a space that size, closed in May after it lost its lease to CVS.
 Red Light Management wants to open a temporary music hall in this building behind the King Lumber building on Preston Avenue.^ |
With a capacity of up to 500, the as-yet-unnamed Preston Avenue venue will fill Satellite’s void until Red Light is finished fixing up the Jefferson Theater. As the site makes for a long walk for UVA students, venue operators are looking into running extended bus service from the University.
“We anticipate that this venue will operate from September 2008 until December 2009, at which point we hope to have the refurbished Jefferson Theater on the Downtown Mall open and we will move our operations to that location,” wrote Kirby Hutto on behalf of Starr Hill Presents in a letter to city Neighborhood Development Services. Capshaw bought the Jefferson Theater, located on the Downtown Mall, in 2006.
Representing the project, Gate Pratt of Limehouse Architects got the Preston Avenue music hall through an initial hurdle at the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) at the July 15 meeting. The BAR had to weigh in on whether the music hall would have a negative impact on the adjacent King Lumber building, an individually protected property.
The BAR had no problem with the venue. “In looking at the building that we’re talking about, I can’t see anything that could be done that would not improve it,” said Chairman Fred Wolf.
Still, some BAR members were incredulous that Red Light would be able to move so quickly through city permitting. “You expect to have this open in two and a half months?” asked BAR member Brian Hogg.
“It’s ambitious,” answered Pratt.
But what else do we expect from the Capshaw clan?
* Originally, this article incorrectly gave Satellite’s capacity at 350. It was updated Thursday, July 24.
^ This article originally pictured the wrong building and was updated Wednesday, July 23.
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