Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall is closed to traffic but open to musicians, jugglers and other performers. Each week, thousands of people stroll the eight blocks of brick paving, past 150 shops and restaurants in historic buildings. Once the city’s Main Street, the mall is again the center of civic life.
“We love the place. I love coming down here and seeing all the people – seemingly from all walks of life. Lots of opportunities, different shops. I enjoy drawing things that I see, and being out here in public is a way to share with the community. It’s changed a whole lot. It’s beautiful now – a lot of people, a lot of excitement, Fridays people come down and dance and have fun!”
But it wasn’t always so. In the 60’s, merchants worried that a lack of parking was leading people away from the city – to the new Barack’s Road Shopping Center. In desperation, they hired a hot new landscape architect from California.'
“I studied Lawrence Halpern’s work when I was at university. My wife's aunt actually lived in San Francisco, and you see a lot of his work around the Bay Area as well.”
Tim Hess is a landscape architect from Charlottesville who admired Halpern’s ground-breaking creations: Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, the park over a freeway in Seattle, the FDR memorial in D.C., the sculpture garden at Virginia’s Museum of Fine Arts and many more. Halpern mixed elements of nature with modern furniture and fountains to compose each area with input from whole communities.
"He really wanted to get all of the players involved," Hess explains.
His plan was controversial – build parking garages nearby and close Main Street to cars, trucks and buses. Some people thought that was nuts, but on July 3rd, 1976, the first few blocks were unveiled. Since then, the downtown mall has evolved with construction of a large entertainment pavilion at the east end, the Omni Hotel and high-rise CODE building and plaza on the west.
Two through-streets were opened so that suppliers could more easily access businesses, and now Hess’s firm – Oak Valley Custom Hardscapes -- is rebuilding them to make those intersections safer. The giant willow oaks planted in 1976 have grown – some now 60 to 75 feet tall.
“It provides a nice, filtered shade,” Hess says. “We’re about 10-15 degrees cooler on the Downtown Mall in those sections with the trees.”
Shops sell everything from crystals, CBD and Chinese antiques to rare books, cheese and home furnishings from Caspari, whose sister store is at 7 Rue Jacob in Paris.
“Originally, it was more department stores and hardware stores and things like that. That has since changed to more of a trendy, niche market, and this is what people from all over the world come to experience – that sense of community. That’s what Halpern was after," Hess says.
Planners hope to capitalize on the unique nature of the mall when they celebrate its 50th anniversary with a lantern parade, inspired by this one – an annual event in Cary, North Carolina.
“We were looking to do something that was very participatory, very multi-gen. We think that the arts are such a competitive advantage for downtown Charlottesville. Over the next several months, we have a lot of different lantern-making workshops that are happening.”
Greer Auchenbach is executive director of Friends of Downtown Charlottesville, a group promoting a range of activities on July third.
“The day starts with a tour of the Downtown Mall at 10, and then there’s a fabulous exhibit – Then and Now – created by the historical society at Vault Virginia. At 4, we’ll have the official plaque dedication for 50 years, free ice cream, the Cville Band, probably some face paint.”
Live music begins at the Ting Pavilion at 5:30, followed by the parade and a light show on the CODE Building. Also on display for the entire month of July, an official LEGO competition with models of the mall at the Downtown Transit Center.
