Rumors of Albemarle Place’s demise are greatly exaggerated

in Albemarle Growth on with 3 Comments

While rumors were out as early as June (and probably earlier) that Whole Foods was moving to the K-mart shopping center, but the Daily Progress has an informative article this morning on the status of Albemarle Place saying that things are moving along quite well, thank you.

Following up on the great discussion at Cvillenews about the rumors of the demise of Albemarle Place …

If it were to become a park, there isn’t much surrounding residential density from which to draw pedestrian traffic.


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Does that look pedestrian-friendly to you?

Online, the location looks ideal for “walkability” – 74 out of 100, even. That is, until you actually drive here and see that in crossing Emmet Street one is literally taking one’s life into one’s hands. Life sometimes looks different in real life when compared to the internet.

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3 Comments

  1. Will October 31, 2007 at 16:31

    The Sperry folks would certainly enjoy the walkability to new lunch spots in Albemarle Place – of course, we all know that’s just what C’ville needs, more lunch buffets

    That said – crossing 29 on foot is sort of like driving on the capital beltway or flying in an airplane – scary to some, but after a while, you do get used to it 🙂

  2. Will October 31, 2007 at 16:33

    There was a (rolls eyes) after “needs more lunch buffets” that got stripped as HTML (or something).
    So yeah, “rolls eyes”.

  3. TrvlnMn November 1, 2007 at 12:02

    They (the developers and/or the county) need to consider providing either pedestrian overpasses (catwalks) or underpasses so that the road can be crossed at various points without the hindrance to the flow of traffic that crosswalks and crosswalk lights cause.

    That Albemarle Place had originally planned and advertised their development as “pedestrian friendly” but had given no apparent thought or planning toward people crossing 29 on foot to and from their development further illustrates/demonstrates poor planning. I wish I could say it was only the developers that were the source of poor planning but that lack of fore site seems to be endemic to the Charlottesville/Albemarle area.

    I’d also like to point out this quote from the DP article:

    Construction is still expected to start next year, Graham said, although there continues to be concern about an area sewer pipe and whether it has enough capacity to handle the new development. The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has plans to replace the aging pipe, which serves much of Charlottesville and everything south of Rio Road on U.S. 29. The $19.2 million sewer project is expected to be completed in December 2009.

    So does this mean that the sewer problem is getting passed on to the taxpayers? Wasn’t it the Planning commission that said “No!” to Albemarle Place because of the inadequate sewer capacity? But they’re going to do it anyway??