next story | previous story | home
| By Mike Gangloff The News & Advance Her chickens haven’t hatched, but Louise Gregory is counting them anyway — ticking off the number of deposits put down on unbuilt condominiums at Lynchburg’s Riverviews building. She has to show a bank there’s enough interest in the planned artists’ colony to justify a loan, the last piece of the $3 million needed to turn the old warehouse into seven floors of living and work spaces. While more deposits wouldn’t hurt, Gregory, the president of Riverviews’ board of directors, figures the nine condos spoken for so far is enough. “We are there,” she said Friday. It’s a significant statement for a project that’s been in one planning stage or another for years. Gregory wants to wrap up the financing agreements next month and immediately begin construction on 36 condos, studios, a gallery and more. The people putting down $1,000 deposits now (refundable until work starts) may be able to move in this summer, Gregory said. But so far, the only sign of actual living quarters at the corner of Jefferson and Ninth streets is a partially finished model condo up on the third floor. For Lynchburg architect Hal Craddock, who designed the model and plans to live in it, the 375 square-foot space will be a place to sleep on nights he doesn’t return to his residence in Richmond. “It’ll probably cost me less than a motel three nights a month,” he said. A long-time advocate of riverfront development, Craddock moved his firm’s offices to a building farther down Jefferson Street five years ago. Craddock’s condo also will give him a chance to indulge some decorating whimsy. At home, his wife is in charge, he explained, chuckling. But at Riverviews, Craddock plans something more eclectic. “I have a kind of shockingly contemporary side of myself that I don’t get to show at home,” he said. Beyond the decorating possibilities, Craddock said he’s attracted by the idea of artists living in the same building and sharing ideas, all within easy reach of downtown and the James River. “I just think it’s going to be a really dynamic place to live,” Craddock said. “... I think it’d be an exciting choice for any age group.” Painter Ann Van Degraaf, who also has a home elsewhere (near Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, in Van Degraaf’s case), echoed Craddock’s enthusiasm. “I like the idea of being downtown,” she said. Van Degraaf rented space at the building before and painted a series of Riverviews-related images. “So the place does inspire me,” she said. Joan MacCallum, Riverviews’ treasurer, said getting commitments for the first quarter of the condos hasn’t been hard, despite the lack of anything solid to show buyers. “We have been marketing to a specific group of people — artists,” MacCallum explained. “It’s the kind of thing that appeals to them, rehabbing an old building.” Of course, even after the condos are built, there will only be so much for buyers to see. Beyond a few basics, the condos’ interiors are being left to the buyers to construct. “There’ll be a wall around the bathroom,” MacCallum said. The artists who organizers talked to weren’t interested in one, two or three-bedroom layouts, she added — they wanted space. “You get a kitchen and the bathroom and the rest is up to them,” MacCallum said. In Craddock’s model condo, for example, the kitchen is tucked into an alcove off the central room. The bedroom is a loft above the kitchen and entrance. Most of the space is open, with wood floors, a high ceiling and lots of light from a large window set in the uncovered brick of the warehouse’s outer wall. Bob Eakin, a painter, isn’t buying a condo but plans to rent a studio at Riverviews. It will give him room to work with larger canvases — “stuff you couldn’t try at home,” he said. “You need the space and the height.” Monthly rent for studios is 58 cents a square foot. Eakin is one of several artists who have leased sections of the building for the past two years, though all moved elsewhere as crews began preparing the building for condo construction. The residential spaces range from 375 square feet to 1,525 square feet, and vary in price from $22,000 to $106,000. They’re available to anyone who “can convince me they can pass as an artist,” Gregory said. Financial assistance is available for lower-income artists. It’s more expensive to get a space on the upper floors and on the side of the building that looks across the James River. But the view of the railroad, the water and the Amherst County cliffs is proving to be the most popular, Gregory said. “The building’s going to fall over toward the river,” Gregory joked, “because that’s where everybody’s going.” |