COVER- King of the Road: The unstoppable Wendell Wood

A few weeks ago, we contacted developer Wendell Wood to ask if he would respond to rumors that he was building a palatial mansion in Southern Albemarle County. When he called back, he didn’t want to talk about his house, though he neither confirmed nor denied the rumors. He just changed the subject.

“Why would you want to write about some house I’m building?” he said. “The real story is the expansion around NGIC and how it’s going to bring 1,500 new jobs to the area. Now that’s a story.”

Wood offered instead to show us his new 122,000-square-foot high-security office building adjacent to NGIC, the National Ground Intelligence Center, on Route 29, which he plans to lease to the federal government when the new structure is completed in March. As is often the case with big developments, getting approval on the project was not easy.

As is also often the case, Wood got his way.

For four decades the developer has been buying up land and, as he puts it, “making things happen” along 29 North in a kind of real estate chess match that has become his life’s work. Wood uses a simpler analogy, comparing land buying to eating a pie.

“You take one piece, then you come back and take another, then another,” he says, “but it’s that last piece of pie that is the most valuable.”

But he’s clearly oversimplifying; he has had a hand in developing nearly everything familiar along 29 North, from the the Barracks Road Shopping Center to Fashion Square Mall, Wal-Mart to the Hollymead Town Center, and the NGIC, to name just a few. And it has made him rich. In 2001, Virginia Business Magazine listed him as one of the 50 wealthiest people in Virginia with a net worth of $160 million. MORE

Poet to Architect: Remaking the way we see things

In 1996, when poet Lisa Williams began working for architect William McDonough and German chemist Michael Braungart as they wrote their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, she didn’t know much about environmentalism or ecology. All that was about to change. As Williams helped craft the language of the book, its ideas about the creative processes of nature and how humans can redesign industries using nature as a model began to ignite her imagination.

“I was tremendously inspired by their revelatory description of nature,” says Williams, a former MFA student at UVA, who now teaches poetry at Centre College in Kentucky, “as well as by particular images and pieces of information I came across.”

Cradle to Cradle goes far beyond the idea of recycling and reuse, advocating instead for the complete elimination of waste in the manufacturing process– its title is a take on “cradle-to-grave analysis,” the study of a product’s life-cycle. For example, the book itself is “treeless,” made of a polypropylene synthetic that looks and feels like paper, and which can be as easily recycled as a yogurt container.

In essence, the book embodies its premise– that designers can create products, manufacturing systems, buildings, and developments that mine the intelligent designs of nature– such as nutrient recycling and the unique power of the sun– to allow commerce and nature to benefit from each other. Read more

Critical violator: Twice-closed Tavern vows a cleaner menu

Recently, The Tavern, the long-lived breakfast joint on Emmet Street where “students, tourists, and townpeople” meet, became the place where the salmonella bacterium met with a long history of health code violations.

Health inspection records show that over 60 food handling and preparation violations have been served to The Tavern since January 2003, including 13 during a single inspection last summer. Many of those were “critical repeat” violations, meaning the Health Department had already asked the managers to comply. To put that in perspective, Mel’s Café on West Main has had four critical violations since 2003, Orzo has none since opening in 2006, and Golden Corral has had 23 since 2003.

In early July, that track record came back to haunt The Tavern. MORE

Single-streamin’: Why not try private sector recycling machine?

Developer and entrepreneur Peter van der Linde has a proposal that could save the City and the County millions and make recycling “everything on the planet except food waste” as easy as tossing it into a trash bin. The problem is, no body appears to be listening.

In the Rivanna Sewer and Water Authority’s ongoing strategic plan to improve waste management and recycling services, one idea under review is the feasibility of building a $7 to $10 million Materials Recycling Facility (MRF). However, as previously reported in the Hook ["Coming soon! van der Linde's amazing recycling machine," February 14], van der Linde already has one– an $11-million, 100,000-square-foot recycling center near Zion Crossroads that includes a 270-foot state-of-the-art sorting machine, that he now hopes will be operational in 60 to 90 days. MORE

Mauling the Mall? Don’t change the bricks: Halprin

While discussing the proposed $7.5 million renovation of the Downtown Mall, city planners and the MMM Design Group, the Norfolk-based design firm contracted to do the work, have repeatedly vowed to remain faithful to the original Lawrence Halprin design. Interestingly, no one bothered to consult Halprin himself. MORE

Hook wins big!

The Hook, the paper I work for, took home the Virginia Press Association’s highest award this year at the annual ceremony in Norfolk on March 24, of which I’m very proud. In addition, we won 20-something other awards…including two for yours truely. I’m also proud of the fact that our gag staff photo idea made it on to Wonkette!

Photo: art guru Mitchel Jarrett, editor Hawes Spencer, reporter Lindsay Barnes

Welcome!

Well, as you can see, I moved my blog over to WordPress, by far a more superior blogging setup. You’ll also notice there’s nothing here. You’ll just have to click on the link to my old blogger blog to access my archives over the last few years. Eventually, I’ll move things over. Anyway, here’s to WordPress!