The city of Charlottesville is wrestling with a basic question that will shape the city’s future for decades to come: How tall is too tall?
Developer Keith Woodard has submitted a proposal to build a nine-story building at First and Main, on the Downtown Mall. According to Dave McNair wtih The Hook, the tower would provide room for two or three stores on the ground level, office space, 70 to 80 living spaces in the upper floors and a parking deck that would move cars to street level by means of an automobile elevator rather than space-consuming ramps.
The proposal has many virtues: It would bring people downtown, creating 24/7 patronage for local establishments. It would accomodate 70 to 80 households that would have to find housing elsewhere, presumably in growth-shy Albemarle County. The building would utilize existing roads and utilities. And, presumably, residents living in proximity to downtown’s shops and offices would generate fewer, shorter automobile trips than they would if they lived in conventional subdivisions.
On the other hand, there is the problem of scale. The complex would dwarf the buildings around it. Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall works effectively as an organic whole. The intrusion of a massive building could ruin the chemistry that makes it so special.
There are strong pros and strong cons to the project. Any decision by local planners is bound to be controversial. But Charlottesville’s transition from big town to small city is continuing apace. The First & Main project is not an aberration. Comparably sized buildings are in the development pipeline.
(Image credit: A2RCI Architect Greg Brezinski, as reproduced in The Hook.)