Corner losing 2 musical favorites

Ending weeks of speculation and rumor, the owner of Plan 9 Music confirmed Monday that his store on the Corner and the adjoining Satellite Ballroom will close at the end of May.
The moves potentially pave the way for a CVS pharmacy to relocate to the building that houses the popular music venue and CD store, though no deal has been completed.
Plan 9’s 10-year lease in the Anderson Brothers Building ends May 31 and the company decided several months ago that it did not intend to renew, said Jim Bland, who owns the Richmond-based chain. Satellite’s operators, who sublease space from the music store, were not able to forge a deal with the building’s owner, Terry Vassalos, to remain, Bland said.
“We had known some time ago that we wanted to leave, but we tried to work something out for [Satellite] to stay. In the end, it wasn’t to be,” Bland said.
The music shop has been struggling in recent years, Bland acknowledged, as many Corner denizens have eschewed the CD in favor of downloading music online, both legally and illegally. A University of Virginia technology study released earlier this year found that 77 percent of the student body owns a digital music player.
Plan 9 will continue to operate its store in Albemarle Square shopping center, and no full-time staffers from the Corner branch will lose their jobs, Bland said.
“I know we are going to disappoint some of our loyal customers across the street at the university, but hopefully they will come out to see us in Albemarle Square,” Bland said.
Regular customer Jason Jones, a Belmont resident, visited the Corner shop Monday, as he does nearly every week.
“I’ll miss it a great deal,” he said. “I think it’s wrong. I think it’s a big mistake. I know they’re not making a great deal of cash, but it’s more important — vitally — for this place to be here.”
He said he enjoyed visiting with the store employees, getting recommendations for music and discussing shows he had seen at Satellite.
“I’ll come here until they close and after that I won’t come back to the Corner,” he said. “I have no other
reason to be here.”
The loss of Satellite, which opened four years ago, is a setback for a local music scene still reeling from the closure last summer of Starr Hill Music Hall. When Starr Hill shuttered, owner and music mogul Coran Capshaw entered into a partnership with the owners of Satellite, which can accommodate about 500 people.
“It’s going to be a blow,” said Jeyon Falsini, an independent promoter who books shows around Charlottesville. “It’s going to slow down the momentum we’ve been building.”
The ballroom’s operators are looking for another space in town to present shows. They have several options, none of which is on the Corner, said Kirby Hutto, who manages the Pavilion, also owned by Capshaw.
“It’s a challenge to find large, empty spaces in the city right now,” Hutto said.
“We understand the need to have that size venue in the market to help us develop the artists we want to have play at the Pavilion and, down the road, at [the John Paul Jones Arena].”
Come next year, music aficionados will have another local spot where they can catch national acts: a newly renovated Jefferson Theater. However, the major refurbishing of the venerable building has yet to begin and the venue, expected to have a capacity between 700 and 750, will not be ready for another 12 to 18 months, said Hutto, who is overseeing the renovation.
If no replacement can be found for Satellite, Charlottesville could have trouble attracting mid-sized and rising bands that cannot sell out the Paramount Theatre or the Pavilion, some say.
Some booking agencies likely will divert their bands to Richmond until the Jefferson opens, Falsini said.
“We might find ourselves hanging out in Richmond a lot more than usual, just like they come to us now,” Falsini added.
An architectural firm representing CVS first broached the idea of moving into the Anderson Brothers Building to city officials several months ago, according to Mary Joy Scala, Charlottesville’s preservation and design planner. But Scala has not heard from them since.
Parker Hallam, who works for the firm Jacobs Carter Burgess of Baltimore, declined to comment on any potential CVS project at the site. Vassalos, who owns the building, did not immediately return a call.
Because the building is located in a historic district, any redevelopment would have to be vetted by Charlottesville’s architectural board.