Martha Jefferson Hospital is due to move out of downtown in a few years, consolidating all of their operations up on Pantops, and they’re hoping to keep the neighborhood from hating them for it. Brian McNeill writes in today’s Daily Progress about what is permitted to replace the hospital under zoning regulations, what might end up there, and how it could affect the neighborhood. The whole area has developed around the hospital for the past 80 years; it’s going to be awfully tough to find something else to go in there that won’t radically disrupt the human settlement and usage patterns of what will long be known as the Martha Jefferson neighborhood.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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And after all the changes MJH got approval for from the city (one of which involved getting rid of a road- to put in that plaza off of locust).
I live in the Martha Jefferson neighborhood (really close to the building itself, actually — I’m like a block-and-a-half away), and ever since I heard the Hospital was moving out I keep imagining what might go there instead.
The problem is that it’s basically just one really big building with a lot of empty parking/green space around it… which is ideal mostly for some sort of office-type ‘corporate campus’ structure. Which is not really a thing that I’m excited about having in my nieghborhood.
I’d much rather they tear the thing down and fill that space with tightly-packed mixed-use buildings; spaces for local retail outlets, affordable housing, and public pedestrian space. I walk or drive past the hospital almost every day and ideas have been slowly gathering… and after I while I realized I was essentially thinking, “you could fit another downtown mall in that space.” I know that zoning issues would probably be absurdly prohibitive (for instance, you’re not allowed to build a building closer than 25 feet to the street in my neighborhood), but it’s a nice thought.
Then again, the building is most likely going to get bought by a single entity, so even if they did try to make it into a downtown-mall type area (and I’m not holding my breath), it would still technically be private property in the guise of public space… it would be another Barracks Road and not another Downtown.
All I really want is for us to build cities and organize space the way we did 80 years ago. It worked fine then, and the thing we’re doing now doesn’t work. The fact that this has become economically, legally, and logistically impossible is endlessly depressing to me.
Charlottesville thought MJH would never leave. They were bullheaded and this is the result.