March 8, 2025: UVA group learns of fundraising progress, continuing concern about scale of Center for Arts, and a protest vote against capital spending
Plus: Albemarle Architectural Review Board adopts criteria for Crozet’s future town center
Does every edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement need an introduction? Must there always be an informational anecdote in this position before you move on to the other information? There are no real rules for how this particular journalistic endeavor works, but customs have developed over the past 55 months and 26 days since the first edition. I’m Sean Tubbs, and this Saturday edition exists to help me win a video game. Skip to the end for details.
(Here’s the first edition, though I warn you it is behind the paywall)
In today’s installment:
The Advancement Committee of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors gets an update on fundraising and learns of a fund to help some undergraduate students fully participate
The Albemarle Architectural Review Board adopts criteria for future buildings to be constructed at the future redevelopment of the Barnes Lumberyard
One member of UVA’s Buildings and Grounds Committee continues to protest capital spending
The chair of that committee remains concerned about the scale of the proposed Center for the Arts
First-shout: Piedmont Master Gardeners seek items for Green Elephant Sale
If you are cleaning out your garage or basement this winter and have garden implements or yard ornaments you no longer need, the Piedmont Master Gardeners will take them off your hands
The Piedmont Master Gardeners are seeking donations of new and used garden tools, hoses, decorative items, outdoor furniture, and virtually anything else that can be used to maintain or enjoy a home landscape. From February 1 through April 30, these "Green Elephant" donations may be dropped off at 402 Albemarle Square between 10 a.m. and noon on Wednesdays or Saturdays. The Master Gardeners are not able to accept plastic pots or opened chemicals.
The Green Elephants will be offered for sale to the public during PMG’s Spring Plant Sale, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 3, at Albemarle Square Shopping Center. Proceeds will support the many free and low-cost horticulture education programs the Piedmont Master Gardeners offer to the community.
To arrange a pickup of large items or for more information, contact the Piedmont Master Gardeners at greenelephant@piedmontmastergardeners.org.
UVA continues to meet fundraising goals
BOV’s Advancement Committee learns about Cavalier Fund
The Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter covers local and regional government in the area as well as the University of Virginia. UVA is governed by a 17-member Board of Visitors whose members are appointed by the Governor. The body meets quarterly, though there were two emergency meetings in February.
Other than the Health System Board, The first committee meeting of the BOV’s March 2025 meeting was for the group tasked with making recommendations on fundraising. On March 6, the Advancement Committee got an update from UVA’s vice president of advancement. (meeting book) (meeting presentation)
“As we look at the fiscal year to date, as far as total commitments, as of today, we have crossed $475 million in total commitments so far since July 1st of last year,” said Mark Luellen. “That's slightly above our pace from last year and about a little bit over 25 percent higher than our five year average in total commitments for this point of the year.”
Luellen said that’s ahead of pace for the fiscal year, but so far there have been no gifts in excess of $50 million.
“And as of today we're at about 80 gifts of a million dollars or more since June 30th, with obviously a few months to go,” Luellen said.
Another fundraising highlight is that the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have surpassed their goal of $750 million. Luellen also said there have now been over 252,000 individual gifts to the “Honor the Future” campaign. While there are very large gifts, they’re in the minority.
“Ninety-seven percent of the total gifts have come from gifts of $10,000 or less and 94 percent are from $5,000 or less,”
The Advancement Committee also heard about the Cavalier Fund, a philanthropic effort to help cover the costs for some students to be able to have a full experience at the University of Virginia. Kenyon Bonner has been the vice president and chief student affairs officer at UVA for just over a year.
“The Cav Fund, for short, was established to ensure that every undergraduate student has access to similar holistic educational experiences while attending uva regardless of their financial resources,” Bonner said. “And this includes access to activities not usually covered by other student funding resources such as extracurricular activities, student recreational experiences, CIO fraternity and sorority membership, service opportunities and spring break opportunities.”
The fund disbursed $95,623 in the fall of 2024. Recipients can receive up to $1,000 per academic year for support and must demonstrate financial need. Bonner said this can open up opportunities for students who otherwise could not participate.
“There were 182 student fund funding request for support in the fall and the approval rate was nearly 75 percent,” Bonner said. “And the average payment for each student was $669 per student.”
One of the recipients is Lukas Lehman, a fourth-year in biomedical engineering whose mother is a public school teacher and whose father is a restaurant manager.
“I came to UVA and I quickly learned that education expands far beyond the classroom, which is amazing, but also that comes at a financial cost,” Lehman said. “I was lucky enough to join a lot of organizations on grounds like Engineering Student Council or the Honor Committee where there is no membership fee.”
However, Lehman applied for the fund to help cover the costs of joining the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and has risen to become its president. In that position, he’s helped the group do more for the town.
“I increased our involvement with Habitat for Humanity in the community and we started volunteering a lot more with them,” Lehman said.
Abel Alexander is a first year student in computer science. He applied for funding to attend a “hackathon” conference at Harvard University last October.
“Hackathon is just a 24 to 48 hour coding competition where the main objective is to create a computer software project that can foster a positive impact in the community,” Alexander said.
The project he and his team worked on sought to improve the user interface for emergency communications dispatchers. He specifically used the Cavalier Fund to help pay for airfare to Boston.
The next story in this series will be from the Buildings and Grounds Committee.
Albemarle ARB approves criteria for future buildings in Barnes Lumberyard section of Crozet
There are many areas in the greater community that will likely look very different in 20 years as whatever will happen will have happened. For over 20 years already, planning has been underway for the eventual future of the former Barnes Lumberyard in Crozet.
“The site of the proposed development lies in the heart of Crozet,” said Margaret Maliszewski, a planning manager with Albemarle County. “It's generally located south of Three Notched Road and the railroad tracks, west and north of houses along Hilltop street and east of Crozet Avenue and Oak Street.”
The Barnes Lumberyard began operations as the Crozet Lumber Company in 1922 and was a casualty of the Great Recession of 2008. The last employee stopped work in August 2011 and an entity called Crozet New Town Associates purchased the property in December 2014. The company is involved with a public-private partnership with Albemarle County to redevelop the space as a mixed use area.
On March 3, 2025, the Albemarle Architectural Review Board took a look at the proposed design criteria that will be used to review future buildings. They had previously seen the criteria in January 2024. (review the materials)
“The proposed criteria address the appearance of buildings and ARB comments from the previous review with requirements addressing the depth of recesses and projections, changes in detailing, material limitations and limits on wall mounted lighting styles,” Maliszewski said.
Much of the discussion at the ARB is highly technical but worth reviewing to get a sense of what might be possible in the area. The Board of Supervisors rezoned the property to Downtown Crozet District in 2019. That zoning has the purpose of establishing “a district in which traditional downtown development, as described in the Crozet Master Plan” according to the county code.
The Crozet Master Plan was first adopted in December 2004 and has been updated twice. The firm brwarchitects has put together the criteria.
ARB member Frank Stoner recused himself from the proceedings given his company owns Crozet New Town Associates. Taro Matsuno also recused himself.
The other three members expressed support.
“I appreciate the applicant's willingness or focus on place making,” said ARB Member Frank Hancock. “And I think some of the things we're drilling down on really speak to trying to create a unique place or build on an energy that exists in Crozet.”
ARB member Dade Van Der Werf called the criteria very thorough and thoughtful but pointed out that staff would have final approval on individual applications. He asked for at least one change to limit the potential that a building could be 600 feet wide.
“I certainly trust and respect the development team and the folks involved in this project,” Van Der Werf said. “I know they've got the best interests of Crozet and the community at heart, but would like to see that consistent visual buffer as a way to help ensure some greater degree of continuity in the development without our oversight going forward.”
The item was approved with conditions. If you want to know those, take a look at the final action memo for the meeting.
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.
Ellis continues to vote against any capital spending at UVA
The construction of new buildings and infrastructure at the University of Virginia is organized and financed through the adoption each year of a Major Capital Plan. At the winter semester meeting of the Board of Visitors, the Buildings and Grounds Committee reviews any additions or deletions before taking a vote in June. (meeting book)
“However, before we get to June, there are two projects that the Health System would like to move forward sooner than June,” said Colette Sheehy, the senior vice president for operations and state government relations at UVA.
Both projects are at the North Fork Discovery Park, which is owned by the University of Virginia Foundation. Both are capital projects to “fit out” existing buildings rather than construct a new one.
The first is an expansion of the mail order and specialty pharmacy which has grown past the 10,000 square feet in which it currently operates.
“One area of growth is in specialty and mail order pharmacy services, which serve a wide group of patients, providing convenient home delivery and increased access to specialty medications,” Sheehy said.
The request is for $6 million for a new location and the Health System would like to move forward.
Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed Bert Ellis to the Board of Visitors in the summer of 2022. He was an early critic of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at UVA. He’s also a critic of spending and at the December meeting of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, he was the lone vote against approval of a schematic design for the North Grounds Parking Garage.
On March 6, he was the lone vote against moving ahead with the pharmacy.
“Before the vote, I will make my stand once again to all my colleagues that I will be a no vote on any additional capital expenditures until I see a budget for 2025/2026 of at least 100 million less than what we've been spending,” Ellis said.
The second addition to the Major Capital Plan is $2 million for planning and design for a clinical lab facility within the Town Center 4 building.
“The Health System has a clinical lab on 11th Street and it's just clearly outgrown the capacity,” Sheehy said. “We looked to see if we could find a space closer, close into the hospital to build another building, another clinical lab building, which we couldn't really find one.”
The Finance Committee also discussed both projects at their meeting on March 7 as they are the body that considers whether to spend money. However, UVA Executive Vice President said both projects are intended to generate revenue.
“The team is looking at where there is growth margin,” Davis said. “They are identifying locations where they can expand, where there's profitability.”
Other committee members were skeptical about why North Fork was being considered. Davis responded that North Fork is within Albemarle County’s development area and has been recently rezoned to allow for housing. Sheehy told the committee that Cville Biohub just cut the ribbon on its biomedical accelerator space.
Ellis was once again the lone vote against adding the project.
Nau continues to express concern about scope of proposed Center for the Arts
At the December meeting of the University of Virginia’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, several members expressed concern about the size and scale of a proposed Center for the Arts planned for the eastern end of the Emmet/Ivy Corridor.
“There's been a lot of discussion between that meeting and today,” said John Nau, the committee’s chair. “I've received phone calls, some very, very concerned about scale and need and cost.”
As presented in December, the Center for the Arts would be the new home for both the Fralin and Kluge-Ruhe art museums, UVA’s music department, and a 1,200-seat performing arts center to be named for Richard and Tessa Ader. I reported on the schematic design for C-Ville Weekly.
The Aders donated $50 million toward the $315 million preliminary budget and UVA was counting on a $200 million contribution from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Nau spent the morning of March 6 at the University of Virginia Architect’s office to find out ways to shrink the scale of the building. He wants a larger discussion at the June meeting with a new architectural rendering.
“There's no question there's need,” Nau said. “And I will come off of this simply by saying that its scale has got to fit the footprint. And that's what we worked on today for well over an hour trying to figure out scale.”
Nau said he felt one option would be to decouple the museums’ move from the performing arts center.
More from the Buildings and Grounds Committee and the rest of the Board of Visitors’ meeting in future editions of the newsletter and on Information Charlottesville.
Reading material for #827
The food and beverage business is booming around Nelson County’s Wintergreen Resort, but can it last?, Emily Hemphill, Charlottesville Daily Progress (paywall), March 6, 2025
Hundreds of Virginia workers file UI claims tied to federal jobs, Jahd Khalil, VPM, March 6, 2025
Republicans fight to restore party-run primaries, challenge new state law, Markus Schmidt, Virginia Mercury, March 6, 2025
A bipartisan group of General Assembly members introduced about 20 bills to deal with data centers. Only 4 survived., Tad Dickens, Cardinal News, March 7, 2025
Holding the land, losing the future: Farming experts say federal funding freeze threatens small Shenandoah Valley farms, Ryan Fitzmaurice, Northern Virginia Daily, March 7, 2025
HUD cancels Section 4 contracts at affordable housing orgs, Mary Salmonsen, Multi-Family Dive, March 6, 2025
#827 came out on a Saturday afternoon, after all
I’m at the point where I agonize if there’s no new content on a given day. There’s so much to sift through and I make my living writing these stories. There’s an old adage in journalism that you’re only as good as your last story.
When I woke up today, I wasn’t sure what I would do. There’s an old video game, Tapper, where you’re a bartender and you have to serve a demanding crowd of customers. In my brain, there are all of these meetings that I need to write up and summarize, and if I don’t stick to it, I’ll lose the game.
I know there’s a really big story from the UVA Board of Visitors meeting but I can’t just jump ahead to when that happened. I have to go through everything. There’s also a big story from Albemarle County’s budget hearing the other night. City Council had a budget work session.
But, somehow I realized I didn’t write up the ARB story because I wanted something out there about the future. To me, planning is an act of hope because things don’t always turn out like you planned.
Two of these stories have already been posted to Information Charlottesville. I didn’t plan that. The other two stories have a third one that will come out in #828 now.
I had hoped to announce the winner of the first Cvillepedia Quiz. I don’t have time to write a second one because I have to make a certificate. There were two entries and I’m grateful. Much of what ends up in this newsletter is an experiment and I am grateful for the practice.
Now, an obscure LCD Soundsystem track.