Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene have a vision for the stretch of West Main Street near Sixth Street. The local developers want to turn the former C&R Auto Service—thousands of square feet arranged in three neighboring buildings, currently vacant, dark and dirty—into a medical and retail hub for the adjacent communities.
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A lot of give-and-take: While Gabe Silverman and Allan Cadgene plan to give one part of West Main a shot of life, neighbors want the pair to devote more attention to the Amtrak parking lot dust. |
But while neighboring businesses applaud the developers’ idea, some of the same neighbors could bring legal action against Silverman and Cadgene for another property owned by the pair—the West Main parking lot at the Amtrak train station.
When vehicles move through the unpaved lot, they create dust clouds that cover parked cars, windows and patios of neighboring West Main businesses and residences. “I can get on the patio to set up all the tables on a really windy day, and I blow parking lot dust out of my nose when I go to the bathroom,” says Peter Castiglione, co-owner of Maya Restaurant. Castiglione has photographed and filmed his struggle to keep his property dust-free.
On October 12, Castiglione’s lawyer, Edward Lowry, sent a letter to Silverman and Cadgene that gives the parking lot owners 10 days to respond with a “binding assurance” that the dust problem will be fixed. The letter is co-signed by other business owners and residents. According to Castiglione, Silverman and Cadgene have contacted Lowry, and are in conversations regarding the lot.
“We are not asking them to pave it. We are asking them to abate the dust problem,” says Castiglione, who claims Silverman and Cadgene previously gave their word that the problem would be settled. “Their property is in our property. It’s in our lungs, we are breathing it, it’s becoming part of us. We just want it to stop.” Follow-up calls to both Silverman and Cadgene about the lot were not returned by press time.
A week before the letter from Castiglione went out, Silverman told C-VILLE that outside buyers were interested in the parking lot property and constructing a multi-story building. The lot is on the market for $13.5 million.
For some neighbors, the state of the lot clouds their opinions of development ideas for the C&R buildings, purchased for $1.8 million from Wade Crawford in early September. Ray Masters, president of the Starr Hill Neighborhood Association, says he would love to see the “underutilized portion” of West Main “renovated and used,” but has reservations that stem from the parking lot.
“We have been patient, we have tried to work with [Silverman] and we just don’t seem to be getting anywhere,” he says.
When Silverman spoke with C-VILLE about his recent acquisitions, he said the stretch of West Main Street has restaurants and little else. (Silverman and Cadgene own the Main Street Market complex, which houses the Orzo restaurant.) “What we don’t have are anchors for these communities to either side,” said Silverman, who described the Sixth Street-West Main intersection as a “no man’s land.”
Silverman wants to open the buildings to medical professionals, from family practitioners and endocrinologists to dentists—“things that a neighborhood can take pride in having.” He added that he is also interested in high-end retail spots, and has talked with the owners of Relish, a fashion boutique in Washington, D.C.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” says Laura Galgano, co-owner of the popular Blue Moon Diner, which sits across from Silverman’s new purchase. Given the neighborhood business association’s recent Midtown street fair as well as plans to redevelop the nearby Jefferson School, Galgano says Silverman’s plan is “right for the kind of center-of-town community building that this area was known for.”
While Silverman said requests for space in the C&R buildings are already pouring in, he added that he hit a few snags finding doctors able to open their own practices. (UVA doctors, he said, are not allowed to practice outside of the University.) But he is in talks with practitioners from Martha Jefferson Hospital and Richmond to fulfill his vision.
“For somebody like a family doc, we’ll build to their needs. And I have considered dragging my feet and taking on the rent for a while,” he said. Changes to the buildings, which are located in an Architectural Design Control District, would require approval from the Board of Architectural Review. “It’s a business for us and we don’t mind if the profit comes way down the line.”
