Tiny mall details, much to discuss

It was a good thing the City Space had extra chairs.

The space in the Charlottesville Community Design Center was packed to the brim Monday during a community meeting for the imminent overhaul of the Downtown Mall, a $7.5 million renovation that’s slated to begin in January.

“This is probably the biggest crowd we’ve had in here,” said Jim Tolbert, the city’s director of Neighborhood Development Services.

The meeting was one of the last times public input will be taken on the near-final construction plans. And one small object carried most of the attention: the much-discussed 4-inch-by-12-inch brick.

Several business owners and residents questioned the plans for the bricks. But unlike before, the comments were not especially focused on the bricks’ size — instead, the debate zeroed in on what material would be used to keep them in the ground.

Resident David RePass was adamant about using mortar instead of sand, mainly citing the importance of maintaining the mall’s original design by esteemed architect Lawrence Halprin. RePass said unless the bricks are outlined or framed by mortar, no pattern or design can be seen. He used the example of Third Street, which was recently renovated and re-bricked using sand.

“It looks much better than it did before, but that’s not the point,” he said. “There is nothing to differentiate from one brick to the next.” Many at the meeting were in agreement, pressing city officials to do more research on the kinds of mortar that could be used to maintain the bricks’ herringbone pattern.

Tolbert pointed out that sand is a more accepted medium for bricklaying than is mortar. Project Manager Joe Schinstock of the MMM Design Group, which is overseeing the project, added that the heavily damaged mortar currently on the mall —allowing bricks to shift in the ground and even come out of the walkway — is a result of salt penetration from de-icing the pedestrian path in the winter. Schinstock said between 10 percent and 15 percent of the mall’s bricks are already broken.

Plus, he added, “the sand goes in a lot quicker,” which is essential to keeping the construction within its tight timeframe.

But others echoed the notion that the mall needs to be fixed up, and they argued that personal feelings cannot get in the way of long-term maintenance.

Morgan Perkins, owner of the mall’s Sage Moon Gallery, said, “I think it’s time for us to do what we have to do with the mall.” She added that visitors are not going to want to visit “if it’s seedy and ugly.”

The project’s timeline also was subjected to skepticism. Construction originally planned to take five years now has been crunched into five months to curtail potential negative effects on the mall’s businesses.

City resident Colette Hall, head of the North Downtown Neighborhood Association, pointed out that the construction timeframe has already been bumped from four to five months in just two weeks.

Resident Jay Oschrin shared Hall’s doubts about the construction timeframe.

“If you think you’re going to get this done in five months, you’re insane,” he said.

But construction logistics aside, some pointed out that the social cohesion of the mall needs to be maintained. University of Virginia architecture professor Beth Meyer said the mall is supposed to be public and enjoyed by the entire community, “regardless of what you can afford to buy.”

“I think Halprin [the mall architect] would have been much more committed to this social vision [than to discussions of] granite or brick,” Meyer said.

Schinstock said the community’s input will now be communicated to the City Council, which is expected to vote on the project’s timeline this month. If the project is to begin next year as planned, Tolbert said a decision has to be made by the council’s July 21 meeting.

“It’s an ambitious schedule,” Schinstock said. “We have to be serious about getting it done.”