A year after the city of Charlottesville bought out a developer and killed plans for an apartment complex on the banks of the Rivanna River, a riverside business owner has partnered with investors to acquire three nearby properties reviving the vision of a bustling Rivanna-fronting commercial district.
“People don’t realize what a recreation corridor the Rivanna is poised to become,” Rivanna River Company co-owner Gabe Silver told The Daily Progress. “A really awesome pedestrian and bike place to play.”
Silver and his wife Sonya, who have been renting kayaks, canoes and tubes to river-goers since 2016, came together with other investors last year to form Rivertown Circus LLC and proceeded to acquire the real estate along East High Street housing Högwaller Brewing and SugarBear ice cream parlor, formerly the Double Horseshoe Saloon.
Silver’s vision for future East High Street development is to provide future businesses the one thing his business has that no one else does: Rivanna frontage.
Silver was emphatic that the sort of future development he envisions would not resemble the quashed 245-unit apartment project. He called those plans, which would have pushed the Rivanna River Company into a smaller footprint, “pretty harrowing.”
“We wanted to have a little bit more control over our future and the future of this place,” he said.
It’s not the first time someone has had a vision for how the riverfront by East High Street could be reimagined.
One of the bolder proposals submitted for that part of the city came in a year 2000 city-funded study. Neal Payton — a former University of Virginia planning faculty member who now heads the West Coast office of Washington, D.C.-based architecture firm Torti Gallas + Partners — proposed a short stretch of shops, offices and residences near Free Bridge to face the river.
“We thought we could maybe create some kind of riverfront,” Payton told The Daily Progress, “a kind of promenade that could overlook the park.”
Payton and his team showed how three existing cross streets — Hazel, Grace and Willow — could punch through the East High streetscape and provide pathways for replacing machine shops with medical offices. Along the river, the planners designed a street open on one side for expansive views of the Rivanna.
“We didn’t want it to be a back-door space,” Payton said. “We wanted it to be a front-door space.”
Part of a larger design project called the Charlottesville Commercial Corridor Study, the proposal became a part of the ever-growing library of documents shown to decision-makers and then shelved. And while former Charlottesville Planning Commissioner Bill Emory recalls some pushback against this “Venice on Rivanna,” Payton isn’t perturbed.
“Venice on the Rivanna doesn’t sound terrible to me,” said Payton. “It certainly was aspirational.”
Silver agrees.
“It’s interesting,” said Silver. “I think they got some of those things right on.”
While Silver said the aesthetic shown in the Torti Gallas rendering looks a little too much like Northern Virginia, he does think taller structures might help enliven the area.
“Could you have some three-story buildings?” asks Silver. “I think you could. It’s just how it’s done.”
Silver said he appreciates the area’s “hodgepodge” of long-running businesses, including auto shops, restaurants and his own. He wants to see East High Street continue to evolve.
Likewise, nearby property owner Kimberly Cosner Lilley, whose family operates the long-running Charlottesville Wrecker and Cosner Bros. Body Shop., has high hopes for the corridor.
But she urges letting attrition dictate future changes.
“Don’t tear everything down and make these faux row houses,” Lilley told The Daily Progress. “Make it quirky and fun, and use the the historic qualities of these old buildings. They’re great for breweries, these big warehousey-, servicey-type businesses — or retail, whatever.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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