“Hike” Heiskell won’t roll over for Ford Motor Company

The second-floor office is no bigger than 15′ x 20′, but it opens onto the world through a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Court Square. A bookcase laden with few books, but with 30 3"-thick binders labeled “Ford Motor Co.,” “Bronco II,” “Exhibits,” “Cases,” “Decisions” and the like, serves as a backdrop to a large, wooden lawyer’s […]

With Southwood, Habitat continues expansion

There’s a new player in the development market looking to become major: Habitat for Humanity. The local chapter of the nonprofit Christian housing builder stepped into the development market last year with the purchase of Sunrise Trailer Park in lower Belmont, a property currently housing 21 families, and stepped up its game dramatically with a recent contract on Southwood Mobile Home Estates, which currently has 371 trailers on 100 acres near Old Lynchburg Road.

No changes for Bundoran project

The Bundoran Farm project will continue as planned, says new Qroe CEO Robert Baldwin Jr., son of former CEO Robert Baldwin, who died June 14 in an Albemarle plane crash while he and Regional Director David Brown tried to land on the Bundoran property that Qroe has been developing.    Baldwin acknowledges the heavy blow from […]

Feds propose restrictions to Upward Bound

Changes are in the pipeline for Upward Bound, a federal high school program administered locally by UVA that is designed to increase college attendance rates for those most at risk: low-income students and those whose parents didn’t attend college. Local programs stand to lose autonomy in how they recruit high school students to receive Upward […]

Dick Laurance takes final bow

Dick Laurance was named UVA’s project director for construction administration in 1992, and has been building full steam ahead ever since. He’s overseen many giant construction projects in his day (including the Scott Stadium expansion), but none was bigger than the recently completed $129 million John Paul Jones Arena. We sat down to ask him all about it.

How to handle getting sued, UVA-style

It’s a fact of life—if you’re a big university, you’re gonna get sued. The Virginia Attorney General’s office currently has 48 open suits on the books for UVA. So how does the University separate the biggies from the nuisances, fight to win and look good doing it? Sheldon Steinbach, an attorney who’s been with the […]

UVA Marching band begins summer training

It’s totally tempting to pull out every American Pie reference (flute jokes anyone?) for a story about the Cavalier Marching Band. Really, how hard is it to make fun of a group that wears weird hats, roll-steps in formation and rocks out to the grooves of John Philip Sousa? But, band Director Bill Pease won […]

Romance, James Webb style

Burly and bellicose verbal bombs are already falling in the Senate race between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democratic challenger James Webb.
Allen’s camp: “By announcing his opposition to the Flag Protection Amendment, James H. Webb, Jr. puts himself firmly on the side of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer.”
Webb’s camp: “People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield.”

City earns runner-up spot in slogan competition

Sure, we know that Charlottesville is home to the occasionally top-ranked public university in the nation. And we cannot deny the awesome truth of the city’s No. 1 ranking by Frommer’s in 2004. Still, who wants to rest on those laurels forever? Now, we don’t have to: Charlottesville has been awarded runner-up in a survey […]

Fundraising begins on gay marriage issue

Although Virginia residents still have four months until they will decide on a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage statewide, they are about to be barraged by groups eager to sway voters one way or another. Based in Richmond, the Commonwealth Coalition was formed specifically to fight the Marshall/Newman amendment. “We are working […]