Downtown project could get go-ahead

Plans for the Downtown Mall restoration, a $7.5 million overhaul slated to start in less than six months, could be set in stone tonight.

The City Council is set to vote on the entire project and the accompanying $4.5 million advancement of funds, which was needed to crunch construction into four months instead of the originally planned several years.

“I hope we can get it squared away,” Councilor Julian Taliaferro said.

Jim Tolbert, director of Charlottesville’s Neighborhood Development Services, said the city is looking for councilors to confirm the design decisions that have been made — such as using sand to lay the 4-inch-by-12-inch brick in a herringbone pattern — and to bump up the money into this fiscal year’s budget instead of allocating money over many years.

“We think we’ve addressed as many of the concerns as we can,” Tolbert said. “Council committed to this project many years ago because there’s a real need for it. The mall’s deteriorating and yet it’s one of our biggest economic engines.”

Councilor Holly Edwards agreed about the

critical need for renovation to begin.

“Is it a painful process? Yes. Is everyone going to agree about it? No. Does that make the repairs less urgent? No,” Edwards said.

During construction, the pedestrian path will be torn up and replaced with new bricks. The current bricks on the mall were laid using mortar, some of which has deteriorated significantly and caused the bricks to shift or become loose. Some new amenities include mall-wide WiFi, more dedicated space for vendors and new benches.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 over a long, drawn-out construction period.

Mary Loose DeViney, vice president of Tuel Jewelers and a member of the Downtown Business Association, said she remembers going through the first round of mall construction, when it was created in the mid-1970s. Tuel has been around since 1945.

“We have lived through the mall construction, and it was tough,” she said. “There were boarded-up buildings and we lost businesses downtown. It was not very good.”

Taliaferro said he thought the original plan to do the renovation in a piece-meal fashion would have had many adverse effects.

“I think it would have been a total disaster,” he said.

To let visitors know the mall is still open during the revamp, the business association is orchestrating a marketing campaign.

“I think business is concerned any time there’s disruption,” DeViney said, “whether that’s a long-term project on the mall or whether there’s a water main break on Water Street.”

Joe Schinstock, project manager for MMM Design Group, which is overseeing the project, said no design changes have been made since a community meeting was held three weeks ago.

Schinstock said there will never be a consensus on all aspects of the project, even when closely following the fundamentals established by esteemed architect Lawrence Halprin, who designed the mall.

“There will be people for and against every part of this project,” he said.

If the city gets a full-speed ahead notion from councilors, Schinstock said the next step would be finalizing construction plans by October and obtaining large-scale items, including bricks and benches.

“When you’re buying three-quarters of a million bricks, you don’t just go down to your corner brick store,” he said.

Subcontracts for construction will also be decided in the coming months.

Schinstock said councilors must make a decision at tonight’s meeting because without one, it is unlikely construction would start in January.

“We have no fluff in our schedule to wait around,” he said.