Tis the season for another mammoth condo in student-ville. Three days before Christmas, “The Barringer at Monroe Lane” held a topping-off ceremony to celebrate the final piece of structural steel on its seventh story.

Designed by Daggett & Grigg Architects, and developed by Jim and Cynthia Stultz, the 50-unit Barringer is located adjacent to UVA’s hospital. Units range in price from $250,000 to $750,000 on five floors atop two levels of structured parking, bringing the total square footage of the building to 79,230.

Charlottesville is in the midst of a student-area condo flurry with one gated student community, the Woodlands, actually opening a sales office on the Downtown Mall.

Martin Horn, the locally based construction company building the Barringer, expects to finish work in August. Until then, eager web-surfers can check out the 24-hour webcam to keep tabs on the progress.

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As you may have noticed, every magazine or newspaper you pick up this week is running their ‘06 almanac issue. The news, the people, the trends, and the events that shaped another year past. Of course, The Hook is no exception. However, imagine our surprise as we browsed Richmond-based Style Weekly’s ‘06 music round-up, only to discover that it’s all about Charlottesville…well, sort of.

Style Weekly asked its regular music critics to pick their top five albums, favorite single, and favorite Virginia live performance for the year. While their artist choices traversed the musical landscape, the venues for Virginia live performances were awfully familiar.

As SW’s music editors put it, “To the capital city’s shame, nearly every favorite live show occurred in Charlottesville. But don’t think of music critics as pompous windbags, elitists or music snobs. Instead, think of them as lovers in a state whose motto welcomes them.”

Wow, talk about sour grapes! Indeed, three of SW’s four critics chose Charlottesville shows. And so,�to this city’s delight (and our snobdom?),we list them here… (more)

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While the death of James Brown grabbed headlines, the Charlottesville music scene is mourning one of its own, a young man who helped shape the local blues and bluegrass scenes: Phillip Allen Gianniny, aka Slate Hill Phil.

Gianniny, who founded the Slate Hill Boys and was a member of both the Hogwaller Ramblers and the Hackensaw Boys, died on the morning of December 23 at the home of his grandmother in Charlottesville. A cause of death was not revealed.

A self-taught musician, Gianniny could often be found playing banjo in front of the Paramount Theater on the Downtown Mall. In a world of goth and grunge, Gianniny was natty dresser whose crisp white shirts and dark suits (more)

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Since beating up UVA students in 2002 when he was a Charlottesville High student, Vernon Howard’s lengthy rap sheet has been relatively nonviolent. That changed December 16, when he allegedly fired a couple of rounds into a car in downtown Culpeper. According to the Culpeper Star-Exponent, Howard, in a light blue minivan, had an argument with three people. He left the scene and returned on foot 20 minutes later with a handgun, which he fired at an occupied vehicle. No one was injured.

Howard was arrested in Charlottesville December 20 and charged with 10 felony counts that could add up to more than 30 years in prison. “That’s a bunch of time,” says Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman, whose office has prosecuted Howard numerous times. Howard has been convicted of distribution of marijuana, obstruction of justice, and three times for driving on a revoked license.

“It’s disappointing someone who has been before the court is back again,” says Chapman. “Either he hasn’t benefited from the services offered and punishment imposed or he wasn’t adequately sentenced.”

Howard inflicted a broken cheekbone, concussion and bruises on his UVA victims. He has a pending case in Charlottesville General District Court for making threatening phone calls.

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Mead Johnson, maker of Enfamil baby formula, has filed suit against PBM Products in Gordonsville, claiming PBM’s packaging for the store brand infant formula it sells in Sam’s Club infringes on Enfamil’s “trade dress” by using the same distinctive cylindrical cannister, golden yellow background, and royal blue banner. With its Sam’s Club sales seriously slumping, Mead Johnson charges that PBM embarked on “an unlawful campaign to lure customers into purchasing their infant formula in the mistaken belief it is Mead Johnson’s Enfamil.”

PBM has manufactured store-brand baby formula since its launch in 1997. “This is not about consumer confusion,” said Paul B. Manning, CEO of PBM Products in a release. “We believe consumers clearly understand that store-brand formulas provide high quality nutrition equivalent to national brand formulas.”

Plus, the store-brand cannister is bigger, another way PBM “exacerbates” the harm, contends Mead Johnson.

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In early December, Neighborhood Development chief Jim Tolbert quietly issued a request for proposals to manage a nation-wide juried design competition for the Water Street parking lots. According to Tolbert, various community members had requested that a design competition be held to offer potential developers some creative options for what Tolbert refers to as, “the most valuable piece of land left in the City.”

Bounded by Water Street, South Street, Second Street East and Second Street West, the Water Street parking lots have long been seen as sites for future development. Last year, the Charlottesville Parking Center Inc., which owns the 125-space lot in front of Live Arts (the city owns the adjacent metered lot, home to the City Market), attempted to sell the lot for around $7 million, a deal that never came to pass.

Ironically, the lot was incorporated in 1959 by local businesses to make sure there was adequate parking for Downtown shoppers. (In the spirit of full disclosure, it should be noted that The Hook owns one share in the corporation.) However, ever since the Water and Market Street parking garages became available, and downtown land prices began to soar, the temptation to sell the high-value properties has grown stronger and stronger. (more)

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Year in Review, cat shooting means tougher gun laws, attorney vie for judgeship

ON THIS WEEK’S COVER:
The Year in Review 2006
It’s our annual double issue recapping the year that was and from arrested adolescents to zealous zoning, we’ve got the highs and lows in Charlottesville area news and culture from 2006. Plus, we give you the skinny on some of our most prominent citizens in Secrets of the HotSeat Sitters, our arts editors single out the best and worst of the year, and our own clairvoyant, the one and only Madam Hook, gazes deep into the future to tell you what 2007 has in store.

ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: (more)

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With former governor Mark Warner bowing out in October and Senator George Allen losing his seat in November, it seemed as though the 2008 presidential election would come and go without a Virginian joining the race. But as of today, Jim Gilmore is lacing up his running shoes. In a series of interviews with various Virginia newspapers yesterday, the former governor announced, “it is my intention to run [for president],” and that he will form an exploratory committee to investigate the feasibility of a campaign. “A void exists,” he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “There is just no conservative right now who can mount a national campaign.”

Has “Gov. No Car Tax” got a chance? UVA professor and political pundit Larry Sabato isn’t so bullish. “The odds aren’t all that favorable but, (more)

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Online magazine Salon has named the man Senator George Allen dubbed “macaca”– UVA fourth-year Shekar Ramanuja Sidarth– its Person of the Year for changing history with a camcorder and introducting “Allen– and the rest of us– to the real America.”

Sidarth captured a moment that led to Allen’s defeat of a presumed safe seat and upset the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. Says Salon, “He becomes a symbol of politics in the 21st century, a brave new world in which any video clip can be broadcast instantly everywhere and any 20-year-old with a camera can change the world. He builds a legacy out of happenstance.”

3:45 Update: Time Magazine has also taken notice of Sidarth’s role as an unlikely political player and has named him one of 15� “online citizens” who are exemplary of how the Internet makes “You” the Person of the Year.

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On the same day that Albemarle Police announced three new felony charges against Elvis Gene Shifflett, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo held a press conference to announce an investigation by State Police has exonerated the officers who shot Shifflett.

“These are split second decisions,” said Longo, adding that Sergeant Melvin G. Davis and Officer James Morris believed their lives or lives of others were in imminent danger when they shot at Shifflett as he tried to make his escape from Brookhill Avenue on October 20. Charlottesville Police will now conduct their own investigation of the officer’s conduct, to ensure officer’s followed the department’s protocol for use of deadly force.

Shifflett had been on the run since October 13, when he allegedly tried to shoot his ex-girlfriend, who is the mother of Shifflett’s 13-year-old child, as she emerged from Charlottesville Juvenile and Domestic Court.

Longo spent approximately 15 minutes during today’s afternoon conference detailing the events that led up to Shifflett’s shooting.

Police spotted Shifflett early in the morning on October 20, Longo said, and during pursuit, Shifflett wrecked the car off Rt. 20S near the Visitor’s Center and then fled, leaving a female passenger and a loaded semi-automatic in the car.

Charlottesville and Albemarle police officers, along with a K-9 unit, tracked Shifflett to nearby Brookhill Avenue in Albemarle County. Albemarle County Police officer Richardson saw Shifflett in the cab of a “flatbed wrecker,” said Longo, and called out to him to show his hands. Shifflett– who Longo said had been lying sideways in the cab of the truck– rose up and appeared to aim his hands at Richardson as if he was holding a gun. (more)

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On Wednesday, Gropen sign and display company employees Darrell Muler (standing) and King Scott were busy putting the finishing touches on The Woodlands latest marketing move– a swanky new sales office across from the Mudhouse, which will join the Ryan Homes sales office with an address on the Downtown Mall. The office opening came just in time for Wednesday’s groundbreaking for The Woodlands, a $60 million luxury gated condo resort community south of town on Sunset Avenue extended, which is being marketed almost exclusively to wealthy college students…or rather, their wealthy parents.

As readthehook.com/blog reported, the local Woodlands is one of seven nearly identical ‘Woodlands’ developments that the Atlanta-based Dovetail Companies have been promoting in college towns in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Texas. Featuring 24-hour security, swimming pool, state-of-the-art weightlifting and cardio studio, movie theater, tanning salon, practice putting green, sand volleyball courts, and a shuttle bus to cart students to and from UVA, The Woodland’s appears more like a spring break destination than student housing.

Atlanta-based developer Nathan Metzger and partner Coran Capshaw did the same thing in 2003–opened an off-site sales office on the Mall (where the Charlottesville Community Design Center is now) when they were developing the Riverbend Apartments on Pantops and Walker Square in Fifeville. At the time, we were in the midst of a (more)

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There was no smile on Crozet native Kelly Dinelle Payne’s face when Richmond Circuit Court Judge Beverly Snukals sentenced the two-time drunk-driving killer to 46 years behind bars, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“I could say I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t begin to scratch the surface,” Payne said, according to the TD. Payne’s grinning mugshot in March belied the seriousness of her crime: on March 7, driving her boyfriend’s truck in Richmond, she was involved in an accident.

She fled the scene and then struck and killed Ashokkumar M. Patel as he walked home from work. She left the scene of that accident as well.

Payne had already served jail time for killing a 13-year-old Tennessee girl while driving drunk. In total, she has 21 offenses on her record– six of them for drunk driving, and all related to her tendency to consume intoxicants.

Payne’s attorney, Dean Marcus, argued that Payne is no longer a threat, and asked Judge Snukals to reduce the sentence the jury had recommended to between 23 years four months and 29 years two months.

“This is not a mean person,” Marcus told the judge, according the Dispatch. “This is not somebody we have to worry about. This is not somebody who’s going to rob people or hurt people.”

Snukals, however, disagreed. “I think Ms. Payne is someone the court needs to worry about,” she said. Dean plans to appeal the sentence, according to the Dispatch, claiming that Payne’s conviction of both felony murder and manslaughter violates the Constitutional double jeopardy clause.

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It’s not quite “Virginia is for lovers,” but the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau unveiled the fruits of a 22-month, roughly $65,000 branding strategy this morning at a breakfast with the region’s movers and shakers.

The slick, new logo is supposed to evoke the domes of the Rotunda and Monticello, and the nearby mountains. Charlottesville is the focus of our new brand, ditching the unwieldiness of including Albemarle in every city/county venture (see convention center name). And by adding Virginia, that will help with brand confusion over which state we’re in.”Pursue Charlottesville” is the new mantra for the region, and that comes with its own graphic, evocative of Declaration of Independence script. So Jeffersonian.

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Snocap muscles in on iTunes, Cafe No Problem returns?, ACAC boosts Downtown business

ON THIS WEEK’S COVER:
Never mind the iTunes, here’s Snocap
Shawn Fanning and the people who brought us Napster are poised to change the music industry once again with their new company, Snocap, and they’re doing it with a little help from their friends in Charlottesville. What will this mean for independent acts, the big record companies, and consumers? Lindsay Barnes investigates this potential next big thing.

ALSO IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE: (more)

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UVA has announced that the construction around Culbreth Theater means no Heritage Repertory Theater this summer. Heritage, an annual array of Broadway-style plays geared to older audiences, has offered a mix of professional and amateur acting since 1974.

The announcement came late last week, 10 days after the university revealed that construction of a 554-space, $12 million parking deck necessitates closing Culbreth Road as a thoroughfare for at least a year. Besides the garage, UVA is also constructing a new $16.7 million studio arts building called Ruffin Hall just off Rugby Road in this same “arts precinct.”

Could UVA’s decision about Heritage turn into a fiasco like the Major League baseball strike of 1994, when many fans developed new entertainment habits? UVA hopes not. Heritage boss Bob Chapel is quoted in the announcement as looking forward to “continuing this tradition.”

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