A website that goes by the name Don’t Be Stupid UVA would, naturally, get my attention, iconoclast that I have come to be in my middle age.
The site is a project of Madison Spencer Architects, a Charlottesville firm led by one Madison Spencer, who, it turns out, is himself not afraid to criticize the otherwise sacred.
DontBeStupidUVA.com was a summertime project to contemplate what might have been designs for the Ivy Corridor, which for some reason was designed around the Emmett-Ivy Parking Garage that went up in 2003.
Older alums will remember the 14.5-acre parcel as having been home, back in the day, to bank branch offices, a Hardee’s, a 7-Eleven.
The University committed in the area of $750 million on an arts center, hotel and conference center, student housing and two academic buildings – the Karsh Institute for Democracy and the School of Data Science.
All around the parking garage as its centerpiece.
That’s the first why? raised by Spencer, on the website and in an interview with AFP earlier this week.
“One of the big mistakes was leaving that parking garage in place. That thing has been superseded,” Spencer said, backing up the assertion with findings from a study that his firm commenced in June that found the garage to be used only minimally, even on the days of home football games.
“I was there myself last week at 6:45 p.m. for the Delaware football game, and that thing was less than 50 percent, and I would, in fact, I would guess 35 to 40 percent occupied. The fifth deck, the fifth-floor level, the fourth-floor level, were empty,” Spencer said.
“If that’s the demand on what would be a peak day, right, then that building doesn’t make sense. Why is it even there? And it will be further superseded when that North Grounds parking lot comes fully online there by JPJ Arena, and obviously the Newcomb Hall Bookstore garage is taking care of everything to that side, and the Alumni Hall building has its own parking garage, too.”
The development plans for the corridor treated the parking garage as sacrosanct, which is why we have a stretch that is essentially equal in size and scope to Central Grounds with, not an architecturally significant building like The Rotunda, but a parking garage as its centerpiece.
The point of DontBeStupidUVA.com is, it’s not too late to correct for that foundational mistake.
“In the span of basically three and a half months, we generated all of this, and for whatever reason, the University of Virginia has been thinking about this Ivy Corridor precinct for, I would guess, 15 years. So, how the heck did they get it so wrong? There are dozens of people in that university architect’s office, and we know they were paying a lot of consultants a lot of money. How did they miss the boat so entirely?” Spencer said.
Where I get the sense that Spencer is a kindred spirit – he’s catching some flak for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes with regard to the Ivy Corridor work, and doesn’t care.
“Sometimes I feel as if you have to do that to get attention, and I’m willing to ruffle feathers,” Spencer said. “I don’t need a job at the University, I don’t care if they are mad at me or hate me for calling a spade a spade. But you know, that’s just that’s what I do. There are perhaps some things that could be done to fix this and improve this. That’s where the attention needs to be.”
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Chris Graham
