The City has announced a new effort to compel developer John Dewberry to either finish or sell the unfinished hotel project on the Downtown Mall he bought at auction in 2012, and that has sat unfinished for over 18 years. The effort follows a similar one by government officials in Atlanta to compel Dewberry to finish another long-abandoned building project, and they recently voted to use the city’s blight tax to significantly raise the amount of property tax Dewberry will have to pay. Charlottesville isn’t going that far…yet.
“The unfinished Dewberry project has been a scar on downtown for far too long,” said City Manager Sam Sanders. “The City continues to believe the best outcome would be for the owner to sell the property to someone ready, willing, and able either to finish the building or remove the existing shell and start over. What we are no longer willing to accept is an indefinite continuation of the status quo.”
