"Coal Tower Project" is Following Economics-Driven Local Trends: Scaling Down, Building Apartments Instead of Townhouses or Single Family Homes

Developers recognize where this market's heaviest future demand is: rentals. The younger generation(s), call them Gen Y or Millennials, are saddled with too much debt for most to buy a home,  and the short-term buyer has vanished from the Charlottesville Area market.  Nationally, the homeownership rate is dropping to a level not seen since the 1990's.  There are no major private sector jobs filling the gaps made here during the Recession.

The "Good News": there are currently 100's of new apartments, and townhouses, coming to this area in response to these changes.  Now Coran Caphshaw's Coal Tower Project is adjusting itself accordingly, and now called City Walk, as reported by The C-Ville:

The original plans...called for a residential development [of] 315 residential units, 250,000 square feet of commercial space, and mixed-use buildings around the property, including a nine-story tower. [Now there will be] a four-story central building that’s going to be an apartment complex with an attached garage.

There will also be a walking trail from the Belmont Bridge to Carlton Ave. in Woolen Mills, where the apartments will be located.  Developers hope to break ground in 2012, and secure funding from the Federal Gov't office of Housing and Urban Development.  Read the details here.