The Albemarle Place shopping center is back on track, Brian McNeill writes in today’s Daily Progress, something like eight years after they first started promoting it. Last year it turned out that the developers never bothered to check if the city’s sewer line has capacity for such a huge development (it doesn’t), and that basically shut ’em down. But a big new sewer line is being built by the county (that’s your tax dollars subsidizing a 2M square foot private development), so now it’s feasible again. They’re still planning the same theater-hotel-grocery-offices thing, and promoting Charlottesville as, chillingly, “the Napa of the East Coast.”
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
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- A stretch of asphalt on the UW-Madison campus after a rain; permeable asphalt on the left, typical asphalt on the right. (By Tristan Porto, CC)
UVa, the city and the county are all rethinking how they get rid of runoff, Tasha Kates writes in the Progress. Every time a new house is built, a new sidewalk is built, or a new chunk of land is paved, that many square feet of grasses, trees, and soil cease to exist to absorb rain. So it all runs along the man-man ground cover, from which it has to be trapped, channeled, and ultimately dumped somewhere. It’s an expensive process that’s bad news, environmentally-speaking.
That old and busted process is being replaced with the new hotness: letting storm water sink stay where it falls. Over a thousand feet of Meadow Creek, long channelled through underground piping, is now a stream again, where water can run into. The JPJ has a plant-filled flood plain to slow down and absorb runoff. The city and the county have plant-covered roofs, which absorb rainfall. Next year the Nature Conservancy will improve over a mile of Meadow Creek along Greenbrier Park, once again allowing the creek to overflow into the adjacent floodplain. And Albemarle is exploring using pervious paving.
- By Erika A., CC license.
UVa’s new no-signs rule at sporting events is getting national attention, in the form of Rick Reilly’s article for ESPN Magazine. It was all started by people holding up signs demanding that coach Al Groh be fired. Confusingly UVa isn’t saying what a “sign” is. Could I wear a “Fire Al Groh” t-shirt? How about a “Keep Al Groh” t-shirt? Or a “Nike” t-shirt? As Reilly asks, if UVa can censor students at the stadium, why not on the Lawn? The tradition of saving signs at sports events goes back decades, and UVa banning them is awfully strange. Reilly proposes bringing blank signs, or signs that read “This Is Not a Sign.” I like it. (Via Scott Jolly)
By aripeskoe2, CC license.
Charlottesville’s looking to add a fourth sister city, Jennifer Black reports for CBS-19, and the proposed place is Winneba, Ghana. The fishing town has the same population as Charlottesville, and is the home of the University of Education, which has about the same number of students as UVa. Our three existing sister cities are all European: Besançon, France; Pleven, Bulgaria; and Poggio a Caiano, Italy.
Mayor Dave Norris is shooting to take action on the proposal by May, which is when the city holds their annual game hunting festival. The Aboakyir Festival, awesomely, pits two warrior groups against each other to see who can catch an antelope bare-handed. The antelope is a stand-in for a leopard, which used to be the target, but so many people died each year that they recently moved to less dangerous game.
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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