Theater vs. new roadway?

Regal Cinema’s plans to move forward with expanion of its Seminole Trail site, despite the fact that the theater enlargement sits squarely in the pathway of a planned road extension, provides unintended commentary on local transportation politics and economics.

“We’re moving forward expeditiously,” said Russ Nunley, Regal’s vice president for marketing and communications. “Regal’s aware of a proposed road on or near our property. But we are unaware of where that project stands with respect to its financing, location or timeline.”

The road is Hillsdale Drive Extension, which would connect all the way to Hydraulic Road. Its proposed route does not seem to be in much doubt, except seemingly by Regal officials: It almost certainly would have to go through the new theater if built. There is scant room to do anything else.

Financing and timeline? Well, that’s a less predictable story.

Local governments and agencies finally seem firmly behind the extension, after a long period of public comment and debate.

But the $27.4 million for right-of-way and construction costs will not come until at least fiscal 2015, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Six-Year Improvement Program. (About $3.1 million has been spent so far on its preliminary engineering.) Given the current state of Virginia’s transportation funding, even that timetable may be optimistic.

No wonder Regal is moving “expeditiously.”

Local officials already are saying that having the theater expansion completed in the proposed path of the roadway likely will complicate construction even further.

If there is no room to route Hillsdale around the theater, then the only option is to condemn the theater property and demolish it for the roadway. But the commercial improvements to the property will make it decisvely more expensive to buy or condemn, jumping up the road project’s price and consuming more tax money.

If there is room to reroute the road, then the result still is likely to be increased cost. Presumably the current route already is the most efficient and least expensive; engineering and building the road along a longer route would necessarily consume more money.

Regal officials may or may not know local politics well enough to have taken it into their considerations, but it is tempting to speculate: Are they aware of our area’s propensity to endlessly debate public improvements, so that changing conditions on the ground often overtake and render obsolete our plans for, say, new roadways? If they possess that awareness, are they explpoiting it in their effort to “expeditiously” get the new theater built?

Meanwhile, Regal’s Ross Nunley notes that being served by Hillsdale Drive Extension (an altered route, of course) “certainly wouldn’t hurt us.” And he said the theater is willing to work with local officials on a compromise routing solution.

Also, one should remember that an improved and expanded cinema will generate increased tax revenue which is good for Charlottesville.

But if the theater manages to stop the roadway, that will not be good for Charlottesville or the rest of the community.