Roughly 10 years ago, the Board of Supervisors was in a position to approve a big box shopping center on the southern edge of Charlottesville—until supervisor Walter Perkins, a timberman, took a stroll on the property and was captivated by a stand of beautiful hardwoods on a knoll. “Walter walked amongst those trees and he couldn’t bear the thought of having them cut down and a big retail store put in on top of them,” remembers Sally Thomas, a current supervisor who was also on the Board at that time.
 A rendering of the Avon/Fifth Street shopping center shows what fun the pedestrians will have. Critics wonder if it will feel like Big Box, USA, rather than Charlottesville. |
With the Board likely to vote down the project, developers withdrew the proposal. But Perkins left office in 2003 and died in 2004—the same year that the Board approved a comprehensive plan amendment that allowed for a big box center, effectively predetermining the outcome of a March 12, 2008 vote to rezone the property to allow for a 470,000-square-foot retail center between Fifth Street and Avon Street. Her hands tied by the 2004 decision, even Thomas gave her approval.
Often new development draws out angry neighbors to denounce the project. But this time, a handful of neighbors showed up to ask the supervisors to approve it, most of them particularly excited by the prospect of not heading up 29N to shop at a home improvement store or a grocery store (the Food Lion on the other side of Fifth Street apparently isn’t good enough).
The county appears to have gotten a better deal than if the project 10 years ago was approved. This one, backed by Hunter Craig and Coran Capshaw, includes a connector road between Avon and Fifth streets, green roofs covering 25 percent of the building space and a pedestrian link with the Willoughby neighborhood. The plan also includes the possibility that some of the retail will be two stories, a feature that developers originally dismissed.
It was enough to earn glowing praise from county leaders. “While we would always love to see an ideal pursued, I think this applicant has come farther towards that end point than pretty much anything that I’ve seen since I’ve been on the Board,” said Supervisor David Slutzky.
Morgan Butler from the Southern Environmental Law Center has long pushed the project to become more compact, and though he was resigned to its approval, he asked the Board to continue raising the bar. “This proposal has drastically improved, but at its core, it’s still a regional big box shopping center,” said Butler.
Jeff Werner of the Piedmont Environment Council went further: “It’s frustrating as a city resident to watch Albemarle just sort of slowly change the perimeter of the beautiful city of Charlottesville into Anywhere, USA, Big Box,” comparing it to Fredericksburg.
Supervisor Dennis Rooker disagreed. “If you drive along Route 3 in Fredericksburg, you’re
not going to see anything like this project,” he said, pointing out its pedestrian network, environmental features and tree-heavy buffers. “We haven’t seen those in a project to date.”
Steve Blaine, the attorney representing the developers, says that the site plan process should take 18 to 24 months.
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