Liquor Manufacturer Opening in Nelson

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 8, 2008 in Business. 1 Comment

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard about a manufacturer opening in the area, but today it happened. The Virginia Distillery Company intends to start their business with a plant in Lovingston, Erin McGrath and Aaron Lee write in the Nelson County Times. The company is already in business as an importer, but is raising the $5M necessary to start manufacturing. They’ll employ nineteen people. The CEO, in explaining why they chose Nelson, says that “it looks like a piece of the Scottish Highlands has been lifted up and gently dropped down into Virginia.” (Close: try Germany and West Virginia.)

There are ten distilleries, 157 wineries and 37 breweries in the state, with Starr Hill rapidly becoming the area’s 800lb gorilla. Incidentally, they run tours of their Crozet plant (the old ConAgra facility) every Saturday, which I mention only because I’ve been planning to visit tomorrow.

Bridges Need Fixing

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 7, 2008 in Transportation. 5 Comments

There’s been a lot of attention on bridge safety since the bridge collapse in Minnesota last year, and two of our bridges find ourselves in the news for safety reasons today. Belmont Bridge will be replaced soon, Seth Rosen writes in the Progress. Chunks keep falling off of the bridge, which dates from the early 60s, leading to the structure being rated at 49 out of 100, which is a pretty lousy sufficiency rating. The city’s looking for bids, and figure it’ll cost them around $9.2M, with the work starting late this year. Nearly all of that money will come from state and federal funding. Some folks weren’t happy that it was installed in the first place — it’s a pretty significant barrier between Belmont and downtown — so here’s hoping that some pedestrian improvements are made with Belmont Bridge 2.0.

The other bridge news is that delays will continue in replacing the Advance Mills bridge, which was shut down last year because it’s just not safe. Locals have been stuck taking a pretty goofy detour down a dirt road to get across the river. The BoS planned on installing a temporary bridge, which VDOT supports, but the Federal Highway Administration says that’s a waste, and that the next step is a new permanent bridge. And that leaves Advance Mills residents without a bridge until 2010 or 2011.

Clinton, Obama Coming to C’ville

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 7, 2008 in Politics. 71 Comments

The two remaining contenders for the Democratic nomination for president will be coming to town, NBC 29 reports. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have campaigned here already, but after last Tuesday’s primaries left the pair tied, next Tuesday’s primary here is suddenly mighty interesting to them. Obama’s campaign says that he’ll be in town on Sunday or Monday — no specific’s yet — while Clinton’s campaign confirms that she’ll be speak to Larry Sabato’s political science Introduction to American Politics class at UVa.

Council Declines Fixed Affordable Housing Spending

Published by Waldo Jaquith on February 5, 2008 in Development, Politics and Taxes. 49 Comments

A hundred and twenty five people showed up to lobby City Council to deal with the shortage of affordable housing, Seth Rosen writes in today’s Progress. They were asking the city to set aside $1.7M annually for affordable housing. As WCAV reports, council didn’t go for it, instead simply passing a resolution that they intend to increase spending on affordable housing next year. Three fifths of council wasn’t willing to support locking in an annual rate of funding. The hope is that, instead, the General Assembly will pass legislation that would allow the city to allow developers to build more densely than zoning would otherwise permit in exchange for making contributions to an affordable housing fund.

20,000 New Residents Since 2000

Published by Waldo Jaquith on January 29, 2008 in Development. 6 Comments

The population of the Charlottesville area grew by 11.4% since 2000, adding 20,000 residents, the Progress reports. The area included in this is Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene and Nelson. Urban areas in the state have been growing the fastest, while rural areas have seen population declines. (The Progress inexplicably labels Danville and Petersburg as “rural,” despite Danville having a larger population and size than Charlottesville, and Petersburg having nearly the same size population and being twice the size of C’ville.)

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