January 23, 2025: Charlottesville City Council gets update on school construction projects, holds public hearing on capital improvement program
Plus: A federal study calls for Amtrak’s Cardinal service to travel daily through Charlottesville
Arthur Dent couldn’t get the hang of Thursdays, but the rest of us have to keep trying anyway. Perhaps each of us has a literary character or two who are the embodiment of how we view our lives as our internal humanity is influenced by the stories we read, hear, see, and otherwise bring into our consciousness. You’re about to read another edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement which will hopefully influence you to know about what’s covered in the paragraphs to come. I’m Sean Tubbs, still throwing myself at the ground hoping to fly.
In today’s installment:
Charlottesville City Council gets an update on school construction projects including the $91 million renovation and expansion of Buford Middle School
The Federal Railroad Administration releases a study calling for daily service on Amtrak’s Cardinal route
Charlottesville City Council holds a public hearing on the draft capital improvement program
A look at Albemarle land use through the description of four sign applications, including one for the rebranding of an apartment complex in Albemarle County into a luxury establishment.
First-shout: WTJU’s Offbeat Roadhouse features The Lua Project this Friday
Every Friday night at 8 p.m, Offbeat Roadhouse on WTJU invites a different musical group into your home for an hour long concert live from WTJU’s performance space. Each week there will be Blues, Folk, Jazz, and Roots acts from around the globe.
Lua Project will pull into Offbeat Roadhouse Friday night, January 24, for a concert which will also be broadcast on WTJU. They will serve up a blend of traditional Appalachian sounds with the rhythms and melodies of Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the Andean highlands of Ecuador and Peru as they celebrate their brand new album, ‘Los Appalachianos’.
This is a free event, open to all. You can also listen to Offbeat Roadhouse on the radio (91.1 FM) or on-line, and even video stream it at WTJU’s Facebook page or YouTube channel. But concerts always sound better with you as part of the studio audience. WTJU is located at 2244 Ivy Rd in Charlottesville, right next door to Vivace.
Vist WTJU.net for a quick sample of the music!
Charlottesville City Council gets progress report on school construction
We’re in the lull between preliminary budget discussions and the release of Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders’ recommended budget in early March. That is to say, not much of a lull at all.
Charlottesville City Council met with the School Board on December 19 and wanted to get more information on previously funded projects in the capital improvement program. At their meeting on January 16, Mike Goddard of the city’s facilities development department had an update. He first explained how city schools put together their request. (review the presentation)
“Essentially we take need-assessments and it goes through a very linear process,” Goddard said. “We also include information from our facility condition assessments, which we do on a five year cycle, in addition to several other types of condition assessment.”
The biggest project underway is the $91 million renovation of Buford Middle School which will allow for 6th graders to attend the same school as 7th graders and 8th graders.
"This project is going well,” Goddard said. “No major complaints. We're on time, we're on budget. We have no reason for major concern. It's going to be tight budget wise, but they always are. Good projects are always tight.”
A previous Council had struggled to identify funding to pay for that project, which only moved forward after Council canceled a transportation project on West Main Street.
Goddard said work recently wrapped up on modernization of Johnson Elementary School which is the most recent recipient of an annual priority fund of $1.25 million a year.
“Essentially what we did here was replace all of the school furniture,” Goddard said. “That is a lifestyle upgrade for the school itself. And we also took what was just a black roof for the gym at Johnson and turned it into a usable teaching space with a little green roof element that the students are meant to take care of.”
Another recent project was the replacement of electrical switching equipment at Charlottesville High School at a cost of $1.5 million. What had been in place was from 1974 and was known to be a fire hazard. The roof at CHS has also been replaced at a cost of $6 million.
“I will tell you that this roof is solar ready,” Goddard said. “So it has all of the necessary accommodations for a solar project, which we are on right now.”
Goddard also gave a preview of upcoming projects which include priority improvements at Trailblazer Elementary School (formerly Venable), lighting of the track at CHS, and replacements at Summit Elementary School (formerly Clark). A big-ticket item in the future will be the renovation of Walker Upper Elementary School into an early learning center. The cost estimate is between $25 million and $30 million and work is expected to begin in FY2027.
“That's the Pre-K center that follows on the Buford project,” Goddard said. “So as soon as we kind of roll off that one, we roll right into the Walker.”
Goddard said many of the schematic drawings for Walker were done at the same time as the Buford renovation.
Goddard was followed by Kristel Riddervold, the city’s environmental coordinator. She said both city government and Charlottesville City Schools are committed to greenhouse gas reduction goals.
“Charlottesville has formal climate goals adopted in 2019,” Riddervold said. “Forty-five percent reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. And the good news, which we reported with you earlier this year, is that as of our 2022 emissions inventory, we're tracking towards that 2030 goal with a reduction of about 42% from the baseline.”
To bring the number down further, the city is working on a series of school-related projects.
For instance, Riddervold said the city seeks to electrify the school bus fleet and a pilot with four vehicles is in the works.
“We're currently receiving technical support through the National Renewable Energy Lab to do a school bus electrification transition planning work,” Riddervold said
The National Renewable Energy Lab is part of the United States Department of Energy. The future of that support could be in question given executive actions taken so far by President Donald Trump. What’s also potentially at stake are Internal Revenue Service guidelines related to tax benefits.
Riddervold said a project to put solar on top of the city-owned Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center (CATEC) will soon go out to bid with construction anticipated this summer. Solar plans do not stop there.
“There are new roofs for a series of elementary schools, but we don't currently have funding designated or identified to support the solar installs there,” Riddervold said. “And then besides the on-site clean energy generation, we have the opportunity to enter into solar power purchase agreements.”
There’s more work to be done on those agreements which could provide funding in the absence of federal funds. The cost to install solar on six schools, including CHS, is $10 million.
“We would be working with a developer and the best analogy is to consider it a lease,” Riddervold said. “So it's essentially a developer who designs, installs, owns and operates the system on a city or school or on a roof. And there is a negotiated rate for the energy that is being produced by that system.”
Those agreements are not yet ready for review by Council. That’s in part because of the way projects are funded.
“One of the things that we benefit from as a AAA bond rated city, as a municipality, is that we fund all of our CIP with the exception of a few housing projects with tax exempt bonds,” said Krisy Hammill, the city’s budget director. “It gives us a lower cost of borrowing, but with that comes with strings.”
Hammill said the new presidential administration may also have very different thoughts on the continued existence of such programs.
Federal study bolsters call for daily service on Amtrak’s Cardinal route
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed during the Biden administration called for a study of long-distance train routes across the United States and the report was issued shortly before Donald Trump took office.
“Congress… directed [the Federal Railroad Administration] to evaluate potential new Amtrak long-distance routes, with specific attention to routes in service as of April 1971 but not continued by Amtrak, when considering expansions of long-distance service,” reads the executive summary of the report.
Two long-distance routes travel through Charlottesville, including the Crescent which runs daily between New Orleans and New York City. The service had a ridership of 270,628 in FY2023.
The report specifically sought guidance on what would be required to increase service on the Cardinal from three days a week to daily. This train runs between Chicago and New York City and had a ridership in FY23 of 82,698. .
“The Cardinal also serves western Virginia, southern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky,” reads page 24 of the report. “The nondaily Cardinal is currently the only passenger rail service along much of its route, including in cities like Cincinnati, Ohio, and Indianapolis, Indiana.”
In a separate process, Amtrak selected the Cardinal in December 2023 to be upgraded to daily as well as the Sunset Limited between New Orleans and Tucson, Arizona. The study also recommends this step.
“FRA estimated that increasing Cardinal to daily service frequency could result in approximately 110,000 new annual riders, and an additional $11 million operating revenue from ticket and food and beverage sales,” reads the study. “Daily Cardinal service would provide enhanced connectivity to the passenger rail network in Chicago and along the [Northeast Corridor].”
There are currently two train sets that operate the Cardinal and two additional sets would be needed.
“For a one-night route, the set of railroad vehicles included in a train trip, referred to as a train set, is assumed to include two locomotives, one baggage car, three sleeper cars, one diner, one lounge (café/sightseer), and three coach cars,” the study continues.
The Cardinal currently loses money with a net loss of 19.57 million in 2023. That’s not as steep as the Sunset Limited which had a net loss of 44.65 million in 2023.
Second shout-out: Alliance Française de Charlottesville
The Alliance Française de Charlottesville promotes the French language and francophone culture through educational and cultural programs. Visit the Alliance Française website to learn more about group classes, private lessons, cultural events, and social activities for both kids and adults.
Public hearing held for Charlottesville’s draft Capital Improvement Program
Several norms have changed in the City of Charlottesville since City Manager Sam Sanders took over in August 2023. One such change has been the end of a practice where City Council sat in on public hearings held by the Charlottesville Planning Commission.
The appointed body had such an event in December on the draft capital improvement program (CIP) and staff thought it would be good for Council to have one as well. (read the PC story) (read the materials)
“This five year plan is about $185 million,” said Krisy Hammill, the city’s budget director. “$131 million of that is to be funded by bonds.”
The rest is to be direct cash payments as opposed to bonds where the city pays back creditors over time allowing a project’s cost to be borne across multiple years. Any payments to the Piedmont Housing Alliance or Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville are cash payments, because the city will not own whatever those entities build.
Council can only officially authorize spending a year at a time, and FY26 anticipates $31 million in spending.
There have been no significant changes since the Planning Commission saw the draft in December.
Before the presentation was complete, Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston said he would like to increase the amount given to Charlottesville City Schools for their priority improvement projects, such as the work recently conducted at Johnson Elementary School. Currently the amount is set at $1.25 million a year.
The draft CIP anticipated spending $150,000 a year on small area plans. So far the city has one for Cherry Avenue and the Hydraulic Road area, as well as a “vision plan” for Starr Hill that was conducted by the New Hill Development Corporation
Councilor Natalie Oschrin asked if those are useful documents or if they just sit on a shelf. City Manager Sam Sanders said they are used.
“I would say that the Cherry Avenue plan is a live document, in our opinion,” Sanders said. “And a lot of the conversation that I've been a part of in the past 60 days has been tied to what that document actually says.”
One of Sanders’ initiatives is to work with the Salvation Army to repurpose their thrift store on Cherry Avenue as a low-barrier shelter for the unhoused.
The draft CIP also has a line item of $100,000 a year for bicycle infrastructure. Oschrin asked the city’s transportation planning manager if that was enough.
“I'm going to say yes,” said Ben Chambers. “We also have a built up balance in that account right now. We'll be spending some of that this year on improvements on West Main and Fifth Street.”
Chambers said those improvements will add protected lanes for bikes. He added that account also gets revenue from the permit fees paid by Veo for scooter and e-bikes that operate on city streets.
The only change to the CIP this time around is the addition of nearly $7.8 million over five years toward Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and Piedmont Housing Alliance’s redevelopment of the Carlton Mobile Home Park.
The draft CIP currently calls for $5 million a year over three years to go to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority for the redevelopment of Westhaven. Sanders said CRHA is currently working with residents to come up with a design and that work is not yet complete.
“We will be sitting down with CRHA in the coming month or so to try to get an update on that because we've already had some feedback that this split of 5 million over three consecutive years may not necessarily pan out and that there might be a need to adjust those figures outward,” Sanders said.
If that happens, that may create room in the next year for additional projects.
One request from the Planning Commission had been to establish a pool of money to allow Council to act swiftly to guarantee affordability for housing projects that are at the end of their mandated period of income restriction. Sanders said he is hesitant to create a new fund and said that’s what the contingency fund is for in the capital improvement program. He said putting out a number would be premature.
“There is a strategic advantage to it being in the CIP contingency where it's actually joined by other money that's for other purposes so that we're not revealing how much money we have available to buy anything,” Sanders said.
At least one Councilor suggested adding more money to the contingency fund in anticipation of making more purchases.
The only speaker during the public hearing was Emily Dooley, a member of the Charlottesville School Board. She said the school system is an the middle of a redistricting survey referred to as a rezoning to determine what students should go where.
“One request that I'm making tonight is to including is to consider including a member of the School Board on the Planning Commission, even in an ex officio capacity, as the work that this group does directly impacts the population that is attending our schools,” Dooley said.
There will be another joint work session with the Charlottesville School Board on February 10.
For more on the city’s budget, stay tuned to future editions of Charlottesville Community Engagement. You can also take a look at previous stories about the city’s budget at Information Charlottesville.
Albemarle Community Development sends out first project list since switch to new system
While the rest of the country waits to see what major changes will take place with a new presidential administration, observers of land use in Albemarle County are adjusting to a major change in the way the Community Development Department handles land use applications.
The Civic Access project went live on January 13 after a small period where new applications from A to Z were not accepted. This morning, the Community Development Department sent out a list of items received for review by the Architectural Review Board.
“Application numbers may not be sequential,” reads the email. “Applications may be viewed by contacting the staff reviewer listed.”
Before the switch the materials for those applications could have been reviewed online using the county’s documentation archive. That includes every single rezoning from 1968 to 2024.
Today’s email is for four sign reviews to be reviewed by the ARB.
Sign-2025-00002: Pizza Hut Sign
This is for the franchise at Twentyninth Place and the description reads “Rebranding Pizza Hut” but neither the materials nor the application are available for review. According to the trade publication Restaurant Business Online, the Plano-based chain is piloting a new concept. You can find out more on the Pizza Hut corporate blog.
Is that being tested here? I’ll have to ask more questions than I had to before, or just get a copy of the application materials. For now, I can tell you the application cost $237.50 Because I’m not an applicant, I can’t see who the applicants are. An additional description under the “more info” tab yields “rebranding pizza hut with updated channel letters.”
Sign-2025-00003: Albemarle Employee Care Clinic Tenant Panel Sign
One of the new health care clinics being built for Albemarle employees will be located at 1885 Seminole Trail just north of Woodbrook Drive. The description for this is “Facing refresh for the monument directory sign in front of the "Ron Martin Warehouse". Includes new tenant logos for both sides.” This fee is also $237.50.
Sign-2025-00004: Boyd Tavern Sign
This is for a “sign refacing of Boyd Tavern monument sign” at 4842 Richmond Road and this permit also cost $237.50. Searching for other records for that site, a zoning clearance was applied for on January 16 for a market and deli that would be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. This has the permit #ZC-2025-00003 and these materials are also not available. The zoning clearance has a fee of $62.40 and has a due date of February 17, 2025.
Sign-2025-00006: Attain on 5th Sign
Last year, an investment firm called Bonaventure purchased the 144-units at Cavalier Crossing and filed building permits to upgrade the units so they can charge higher rents. The project is now being rebranded as “Attain on 5th” but you would not know this from Civic Access which only states this is for “installation of one (1) non-illuminated, single-sided freestanding aluminum monument to replace the existing monument off of Wahoo Way. New monument will be installed a couple feet further into the property than the location of the existing monument.”
A general search yields that a request for a building permit to upgrade the clubhouse is under review. The work is valued at $1. This permit is B202403670AC.
*
Change is difficult. There are a lot of great improvements with Civic Access and I suspect this final segment each day may include more stories that guide my adjustment. My role is to get information out about what’s happening. That’s the sort of thing a Town Crier does, right?
Reading material for #798
Trump freezes IRA funding, Kate Magill, Manufacturing Dive, January 22, 2025
After a flurry of panic, White House narrows IRA funding restrictions in prior executive order, Kimberly Adams, Marketplace, January 22, 2025
Architects denounce Trump's call for ‘traditional and classical’ architecture, Gareth Harris, The Art Newspaper, January 22, 2025
Long Bridge builder and designer named, completing $2.3B project’s team, Dan Egitto, ARL NOW, January 22, 2025
FRA releases study on restoration of long-distance passenger rail routes, Melina Druga, Transportation Today, January 22, 2025
#798 is now complete
This is another edition written on a train as I head out of Charlottesville on a Northeast Regional train. If you’ve not had that experience, perhaps you will in the future. I find working on a train to be a great challenge. Audio production using a mouse is a bit trickier under these conditions. But I love writing about my community while I travel through others.
For many years, I barely left Charlottesville. Now I spend a lot of time visiting my parents as they don’t live close by anymore. I’m grateful for the train and the idea of travel. I am very much looking forward to coming home, because there must be some reason I spend so much time doing this work.
The kind of journalism I do is not for everybody. Much of what I do in this newsletter is now as fine-tuned as you might see in legacy media. Yet, I am hopeful I can further explore partnerships and other ways to get the information out to other outlets. I can’t do this alone.
And I’m never alone, knowing that there are thousands of you reading this work now. I’m grateful for emails I get with questions. I’m grateful for comments. I’m especially grateful for those who have opted to make some sort of a financial contribution to the work!
I thought about writing the media kit for advertising for Information Charlottesville but I got to work as soon as I boarded the station. I didn’t have anything written, and here we are. Perhaps you will find some of it to be useful?
In any case, thank you very much. Today’s YouTube video got me through part of today’s writing!