Council OKs mall renovation

By Rachana Dixit

Published: July 21, 2008

With the Downtown Mall renovation, there’s no turning back.

City councilors unanimously decided Monday to move forward with the Downtown Mall restoration project, crunching the construction timeline into four months and advancing $4.5 million into this year’s budget for the overhaul.

But community discussion about the entire project, a $7.5 million endeavor set to begin in January, took an interesting turn in light of recent events.

Because of recent shootings on Sixth Street Southeast and Page Street — the former incident killing 19-year-old Joshua Anthony Magruder — several residents discussed the need to create a strong sense of community and connect all of Charlottesville’s economic groups through the project.

“I’d like to believe the rehab of the mall will provide rehab economic opportunities in the city,” Councilor Holly Edwards said, additionally pointing out that the city’s public housing sites and the Downtown Mall were constructed around the same time.

Several community members who attended Monday night’s City Council meeting said the mall renovation could provide an opportunity for residents who have no jobs.

Charlottesville resident Karen Waters said it is harder for some people in the area to find employment than for the project to be completed.

“Find a way we can have local people do the work,” Waters said, “so that some of these young people who are resorting to violence in the neighborhoods are able to do some of this work.”

“I’d like to think there would be an opportunity for a lot of people,” Edwards added.

During construction, the pedestrian path will be torn up and replaced with new 4-inch-by-12-inch bricks, costing $5 million of the project’s total budget. A report by Law Engineering in 1998 said at that time, 10 percent to 15 percent of the Downtown Mall’s bricks were cracked and unusable. Since then, increased wear and tear has caused the mortar to deteriorate significantly and allow the bricks to shift or become loose. The overall project cost does not include the rebricking of side streets.

But before the vote, downtown business owners pressed councilors to start the overhaul as soon as possible.

“The seedy condition of the mall is noticed more by our visitors than by those who love it and are willing to overlook a few blemishes,” said Morgan Perkins, co-owner of the mall’s Sage Moon Gallery.

Other new amenities include mall-wide WiFi, more dedicated space for vendors and new benches. Additionally, councilors agreed that studying LED lights for the mall’s fixtures and potentially adding newspaper corrals should be considered as part of the final design.

Originally, the mall’s renovations were spread out over four years, with about two blocks being completed per year. But the city quickly got the message from the business community — there are more than 120 shops and 30 restaurants on the Downtown Mall — that many shops could not survive a long, drawn-out construction period.

Joe Schinstock, project manager for MMM Design Group, which is overseeing the project, said in an interview last week that no design changes had been made since a community meeting three weeks ago.

Schinstock said the next step will be finalizing construction plans by October and obtaining large-scale items, including bricks and benches.

But Beth Meyer, a professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, said the reason the mall is such a strong economic force is because the businesses are located in one central area.

“One of the reasons it is [an economic center] is because individual businesses gather around a social space,” she said.

Meyer added that the mall should not only be treated as a valuable economic hub, but as a place for all the city’s residents and visitors.

“It’s a cultural and historic treasure,” she said.