‘The last straw:’ Woodard pulls the plug on West2nd

Developer Keith Woodard has abandoned his plan to build a $50 million castle of downtown luxury condos and retail space on a city-owned Water Street parking lot. “The project was a tremendous undertaking, and over time, the process of obtaining the  necessary approvals became very difficult and at times adversarial, causing continual delays and uncertainty,” […]

Anniversary prep: City on lockdown

During the weekend of August 10-12, the anniversary of last summer’s violent and fatal clashes, the city will be on lockdown—or so it seems. Interim City Manager Mike Murphy today announced additional measures that will affect many people in the downtown Charlottesville area during the Unite the Right anniversary weekend, including closing city parks and […]

Family ties: Fifeville diner feels like home

On a recent Tuesday morning, a frigid wind whipped through Charlottesville, but all was warm and cozy inside the Cherry Avenue Diner at 820 Cherry Ave. in Fifeville. Sparkly snowman decorations hung from the wall sconces lighting each wooden booth, and two waitresses bustled about behind the counter, one wearing a green elf apron and […]

The Bageladies zero in on expanded market

Not long after Janet Dob moved from Colorado to Free Union, Virginia, she received an unexpected email: “Are you the woman who made the bagels that my mom fed me every day before school?” it read. Email was still a relatively novel thing in the late 1990s, and Dob was touched that this college student […]