There aren’t many developers with “rock star” status in Virginia, but the backers of the “Coal Tower” project in downtown Charlottesville are a genuine exception. The owner of the 10.7-acre, by-right development is the Dave Matthews Band. The band plans 315 residential units, offices, retail and several restaurants, according to the Daily Progress.
City officials approve:
The Coal Tower project, as it has been dubbed, fulfills the city’s goal of clustering high-density, mixed-use development near downtown. The result, city planners and the developer say, will be hundreds more residents who can get to the Downtown Mall for work and recreational purposes without having to use a car.
“We said we wanted to put more people into the core of the city and that’s what this does,” said Jim Tolbert, director of the city’s Neighborhood Development Services.
Of course, there’s always someone with a beef. Some neighbors are concerned that the eight- and nine-story buildings will be out of scale, and others fret about local traffic congestion. I haven’t seen the plans so I can’t speak to the specifics. But from a high-altitude perspective, urban infill and redevelopment is the very best kind of development that can take place. It takes advantage of existing infrastructure, pumps up the city tax base and generates less traffic per resident than greenfield development.
The Dave Matthews Band rocks in more ways than one.