As many 2nd year-and-above UVA students and Charlottesville residents may remember, early last May there was a huge fire that pretty much destroyed the Excel Inn and Suites, a motel across from the Cavalier Inn on Emmett Street. The fire was major news around Grounds that day, as all Lambeth residents were reportedly ordered to close their windows to avoid any smoke inhalation.
One thing I distinctly remember was that UVA students received no alerts whatsoever about this massive fire from the official "UVA alerts" system; in fact, this Cav Daily article about the event was published on the same day as the fire, well within the time that the alerts system could have notified students. But that debate is for another day.
What I'm really wondering is why the complete eyesore that is the burned wreckage of the Excel Inn and Suites is still standing. Now, I do understand that UVA does not own the land that the Excel Inn and Suites stands on, otherwise they probably would have bulldozed it to the ground months ago.
But if UVA is so concerned with creating "a more scenic entrance to Grounds from Emmett Street" that they are knocking down Cavalier Inn and the Villa to create more green space, wouldn't it be of utmost concern to find some way, any way, to rid incoming visitors of the burned hotel that currently stands before them? That seems like a much more urgent issue to me.
Of course, after a little investigation, it appears that this issue of land ownership over the Excel property is much more complicated than I initially realized. According to this news story from October, supposedly all aspects of the building that "were at risk of collapsing" from structural damage have been removed. The issue at that point was that the landowners were mired in a struggle to get money from an insurance investigation with the hopes of eventually rebuilding the hotel.
So as I suspected, this whole issue comes back to money being doled out to the appropriate parties, not what is best for the UVA and Charlottesville community in the short term.
According to this story, the owners said back in October that they would have an update about the property's progress in January of 2018, but January came and went with no visible, publicized updates about the property. However, apparently, progress has been made on the matter in recent months. This article from last month details that there are plans in the works to redevelop the Excel property as "the Gallery Court Hotel," named after the property's original name back in the 1950s.
It's encouraging to me that at least there are plans in the works to redevelop the property once it is finally knocked down and this dreadful eyesore of burned wreckage is removed from Emmet St.
This latest development seems to suggest that once the permit for the new building is approved by the Charlottesville City Planning Commission, the owners can move forward with the demolition of the old Excel site.
But, as any homeowner trying to do the tinest bit of renovations on the exterior of their house knows, it can take quite a while and be logistically complex to get any kind of land-related permit. Especially in Charlottesville, which has such a rich, Jefferson-inspired architectural history, I'd imagine that it must take forever to get just about any new building approved.
What I've learned is that even the seemingly simple task of bulldozing a hotel that was completely destroyed in a fire cannot be done without drawn-out debates over money and subsequent developments.
Fear not, UVA students who thought that there had been absolutely no progress on the Excel situation. Progress seems to have been slow, but relatively steady, or at least existent to some degree.
So feel free to continue thinking about how ugly the burned Excel is every single time you see it. But, perhaps the knowledge that (to quote Sam Cooke) "a change is gonna come" will put a bit more spring in your step the next time you walk down Emmet St.
