CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – A funding snag has brought the mixed-use development, where a grocery store is also desired, to a halt at 501 Cherry Ave., according to City Manager Sam Sanders.
Updating City Council on what will be needed toward affordable housing needs in the next city budget, Sanders said, “There is a gap, there has been considerable effort to work to eliminate the gap that exists which is why there’s been no movement at the site.”
City Council approved a rezoning for the development back in March, and the effort to construct a grocery store on the site predates that decision as developers conceived the project.
Calling the project “stuck,” Sanders told Council, “The request that has recently come in from PHA (Piedmont Housing Authority) in making this project possible is now an additional $700,000 in addition to the $1-million performance grant, so that this would make it possible for the project to move forward.”
That agreement makes the 71 proposed residential units “affordable” with the objective to rent them to households with incomes 30-to-60% AMI (area median income).
The city has already earmarked $3.1-million from its capital improvements program (CIP) to support the project along with the $1-million grant.
Sanders said, “This would still be supporting the development, which is right now stuck, because your investment is into the residential units that will come from this project.”
“You would now be supporting the possibility of the grocery store joining those units on site with the other features of this project.”
The developer Woodard Properties and the Fifeville Neighborhood Association have been actively seeking a grocer interested in locating there in what’s defined as a food desert, and last week chose the Charlottesville Food Co-op to operate such a store.
Sanders said the $700,000 at this time will build a commercial shell unit into the property that a grocery store can fill.
The co-op is now trying to raise $4-million working with various partners and the city toward the effort.
