On West Main Street, hope for a brighter tomorrow

By Rachana Dixit

Published: July 21, 2008

On summer afternoons, throngs of people bustle around the shops and restaurants on the Corner near the University of Virginia, creating a steady flow of pedestrian traffic up and down the University Avenue area.

Most of that fades away once the avenue continues east and turns into West Main Street, where vehicles, inconsistent storefronts and narrow, aging sidewalks replace the Corner’s crowds and neatly laid brick pathways.

Now, Charlottesville officials are planning to change that — allocating $1.75 million over the next five years to revamp West Main’s atmosphere and make the downtown-bound corridor more pedestrian-friendly.

“In the last 10 or 15 years, it just hasn’t reached its potential,” said Jim Tolbert, the city’s director of Neighborhood Development Services.

West Main Street was originally part of a continuous route into downtown, but modern engineering and 1970s urban renewal cut the road off from the city’s central area.

John Bartelt, owner of the Studio Art shop at 1108 W. Main, said the street was virtually deserted when he established his store in the mid-1970s. Though it has great potential, Bartelt said, “if we call this a neighborhood, it’s a very undeveloped one.”

He said when he goes outside, typically he’ll see people strolling over from the Corner, but they soon turn around and head back.

“There’s gotta be some place to go,” Bartelt said.

When Tolbert imagined what the street would look like in 10 years, he said he pictures it with wide sidewalks, tall tree canopies, parking structures, and cafes and coffee shops lining the street.

West Main Street has been one of the most examined roads in the city — studies were conducted in 1988, 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2001 — and it is the only one to be targeted for development in the short-term. Revitalizing the road, Tolbert said, is necessary to link two of the city’s largest moneymakers — downtown and UVa.

“I think [the City Council’s] vision was always to connect the university with downtown,” Tolbert said.

Aubrey V. Watts Jr., the city’s economic development director, added, “We think that the university is a particular economic generator in that area of the city.”

The project’s first phase will be redeveloping the southern West Main streetscape from Jefferson Park Avenue to Roosevelt-Brown Boulevard, nearly a quarter-mile stretch of road in close proximity to UVa. Tolbert said the university has partnered with the city to do the streetscape overhaul, including widening the sidewalks and adding trees to create a more pedestrian-friendly feel.

But the money the city has set aside is not enough to tackle improvements alone.

“The reality is that most of it will occur as we partner with redevelopment through there,” Tolbert said. “That funding is dependent on the private sector doing a portion of it,” Tolbert said.

The remaining restoration would most likely come bit-by-bit as the city receives opportunities to work with private developers. Many times, Tolbert said, developers who propose projects will give the city proffers. An example of this was when Richmond-based developer Bob Englander offered $200,000 for landscaping and streetscape improvements as a part of his nine-story, 79-unit condo tower proposed for 301 W. Main St.

The $350,000 budgeted for this year will be used if the project gets full approval and construction starts, and Tolbert said the next likely spot for West Main streetscape improvements would be from Ridge Street to Fourth Street.

There’s no set date for when the West Main Street upgrades might be completed. “It’s going to depend on the rate of development as to how fast it gets done,” Tolbert said.

Planning Commissioner Cheri Lewis said she thinks the city’s zoning ordinance overhaul in 2003 and height restriction changes could spur development on West Main, and therefore pedestrian activity. Lewis said 70- and 101-foot building heights are allowed on the street by special-use permit, as is denser, mixed-use development, creating less of a “suburban style.”

She said it’s time West Main got a makeover, and if these new developments pop up, so will people.

“That’s been in the works for so long,” Lewis said, referring to the project. “[The street] could be, it should be, pedestrian-oriented.”

Bartelt agreed.

“It’s time for the city to focus on other neighborhoods,” he said.