Good evening, brickheads. We just got something in our in box that’s pretty exciting—the city’s Downtown Mall restoration bulletin. Now, normally this is a bit of a snoozer, especially to we here at Brick Watch who are way ahead of the City of Charlottesville when it comes to brick knowledge. However, this one has the words FINAL EDITION in big red print on it. The end is nigh folks!
For as long as we can remember, Brick Watch has been quoting April 25 as the end date for the rebricking on the Downtown Mall. We have written about it in business articles, in construction updates, in fashion related pieces, we have practically built a cult to worship the coming of April 25…but lately we’ve heard a few nasty whisperings that May 1 is the actual date of completion.
Well, we Brick Watchers can’t just sit around not knowing, so we turned to the prophet of rebricking, Chris Weatherford (if you don’t know by now, he’s Barton Malow’s Project Manager. We’ve only interviewed him a billion times. Keep up, brickies…), to find out if this myth holds any weight.
Much to our chagrin, it turns out May 1 is a significant date, indeed. "May 1st is the technical completion date," said Weatherford. "April 25 is the date when all the contractors are done, giving us a week to tidy up."
So basically, we were right, even though we were technically wrong. With all the ruckus now going on at the 2nd and 4th street crossings, the 25th can’t come soon enough. (And, well, neither can May 1.)
