The 100 block of E. Main Street on the Downtown Mall is losing another tenant, as the Charlottesville Community Design Center moves down the Mall to the former Visitor Center. But plans are on hold for what was to go in place of the CCDC and the three adjoining buildings: a new nine-story building on the Downtown Mall at the intersection of First and Main streets that would build out the entire block to Market Street and wrap around the existing Wachovia building.
 Plans to create a nine story building at this site have been in the works since 2003, but developer Keith Woodard now says they are on hold. |
"At this point, we’ve put the project on hold for an uncertain amount of time," says developer Keith Woodard, who owns a large number of rental properties, particularly around UVA. "We think we may have to go a different direction with it."
Woodard has owned most of the property since 2003, and he proposed a building that, if constructed, would have been one of the largest on the Mall. Slated to include office, retail and about 80 condo units, the building was also to feature an underground "automatic valet" parking structure, so that a person would drive into one of three entry/exit stations, park on a steel palate, get out and swipe a magnetic strip, which would activate a system that automatically takes the car to its designated rack.
But the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review (BAR) didn’t like the massing or that Woodard wanted to demolish an interior wall, and denied a demolition permit in April 2006. Woodard appealed the decision to City Council, which opted to defer in July 2006. The decision was cheered by some local residents, fearing a monolithic structure that would destroy historical buildings and blot out the sun, and derided by several local developers, who thought the city was throwing away a building that would bring in tons of tax revenues and brighten a long vacant part of the Mall.
The project was part of what motivated the city to re-examine its Downtown zoning to reduce massing on the Mall. City Council has yet to pass those changes, though it has agreed in concept to altering the zoning to seven stories on the Mall.
Meanwhile, Woodard hired a new architectural firm, VMDO, added the parking lot behind the Wachovia bank building, and resubmitted a site plan. He was considering whether to apply for a special-use permit.
"We did substantial study into what we thought would be permitted by the BAR, and that restricts the size of the building substantially and makes it not feasible to go ahead with our plan," says Woodard.
Woodard did not take the new plans before the BAR. "We haven’t seen that project in front of us in probably a year," says Chairman Fred Wolf. He did acknowledge that massing has been a major issue.
"When lots get grouped together, one of the things that the [BAR] design guidelines look for is some kind of recognition of the rhythm or scale that is generated by a series of lots developed individually," says Wolf. "That’s not to suggest you need to create six different buildings, but there certainly is a different scale when you have six different individual property owners developing them separately versus one massive structure. In the past, that’s been one of the challenges of that property."
City Planner Brian Haluska says the new plan has received one round of comments and that Woodard needs to reply by April 22 to keep the project alive.
"We’re weighing our alternatives at this point," says Woodard. "It’s just on hold for now."
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