Parking garage ‘soap opera’ leads city to reject Brown’s offer

Mayor Mike Signer and City Councilor Kathy Galvin insist there is nothing personal in the city’s dispute with Mark Brown over control of the Water Street Parking Garage. In meetings with reporters July 6 after the city rejected Charlottesville Parking Center’s June 24 proposed settlement of the escalating controversy over the fate of the garage the city co-owns with Brown, […]

The Power Issue

Discussions for this year’s list of the most powerful in Charlottesville turned not toward one particular person but an entity that truly affects Charlottesvillians’ daily lives—the Virginia Department of Transportation. Don’t worry, you’ll still see some familiar faces (last year’s power-topper Mark Brown remains embroiled in a battle with the city over the Water Street Parking Garage), […]

Elevated space: Inside Oliver’s Treehouse

Oliver Kuttner doesn’t do bland. And he doesn’t like building the same thing over and over. His  latest project, the Treehouse on the corner of Garrett and Second SE streets, is testament to that. “I wanted to do a small building,” he says. “I wanted to make that corner interesting.” The result, beside his Glass […]

City lawyer: Condemnation of Water Street Garage has begun

How many lawyers does it take to schedule a hearing? Well, if it has anything to do with the highly contentious battle between the city and Mark Brown’s Charlottesville Parking Center, that would be five attorneys in Charlottesville Circuit Court today to set a date for CPC’s petition for the appointment of an emergency receiver. During the hearing, the […]

Escalation clause: City threatens eminent domain of Water Street Garage

In this week’s episode of Charlottesville v. Mark Brown over the Water Street Parking Garage, the city makes an offer to buy Brown’s shares of the garage. If he declines, it plans to initiate eminent domain proceedings, according to the city’s outside attorney. “For months Mark Brown has been trying to bully the City into […]

Stopped light: Long wait at downtown signal triggers questions

On Water Street, buses regularly back up at a traffic light at Third Street SE that has the Water Street Parking Garage on one side and a half street dead-ending on the Downtown Mall on the other. Water Street traffic can idle at this light for nearly a minute, by this reporter’s count. The Charlottesville […]

Reservoir reservations: Critics still question Ragged Mountain plan

Perhaps nothing this century has shaken the Charlottesville area more than the drought of 2002, when carwashes closed, restaurants served on paper plates and the water supply was within 60 days of running out. And perhaps nothing has divided the community more than the multi-year battle waged over the plan to build a 129-foot-tall mega-dam […]

Downtown Charlottesville sees hotel boom

Between the Corner and downtown Charlottesville, five hotel projects are in the works—and that doesn’t include the recently opened Residence Inn on the corner of West Main Street and Ridge-McIntire Road, nor Graduate Charlottesville, which opened last year. City and tourism officials say this hotel-building frenzy is an economic windfall for the area and provides […]