Another new apartment complex is being planned for a stretch of land on the southern side of Interstate 64 in Albemarle County.
The 80-unit Timberland Park will be built next to the Woodlands of Charlottesville, a high-end rental complex.
“The visibility of this development building is expected to be similar to those other developments that are nearby,” county planner Margaret Maliszewski said.
Albemarle’s Architectural Review Board on Monday approved an initial site development plan and preliminary design for the project.
“It’s a good-looking project,” ARB member Chuck Lebo said.
Final approval of the architecture will be handled by county staff.
The project will be composed of four apartment buildings and a 2,016-square-foot community center. There will be 24 two-bedroom units and 56 three-bedroom units. The residential structures have a maximum height of three stories.
Nearby to the east are the Cavalier Crossing apartments, as well as another residential complex that is currently under construction.
Fifth Street Apartments is being developed by-right by Dominion Realty Partners and will include 200 units. That complex also borders I-64.
Timberland Park is being developed by a limited liability company from Charlotte, North Carolina. Earlier this year, they purchased the land for $1.65 million from the company that built the Woodlands.
The project is being developed by-right on land that is zoned for up to 15 residential units per acre. The 7.7-acre parcel was assessed in 2016 at $959,000.
I-64 is one of Albemarle’s 21 entrance corridors, which means developments require a certificate of appropriateness from the ARB.
Maliszewski said there still would be a band of trees between 80 feet and 130 feet deep between the development and I-64.
“The trees in that area help provide some screening,” she said. “It isn’t expected to be complete screening. The buildings will be seen through the wooded area, and that visibility will increase in the winter months.”
This past weekend, grocer Wegmans opened a long-awaited store in the new 5th Street Station about a mile away.
“The development of 5th Street Station is fueling all kinds of southern neighborhood growth from parcels and projects that have been sitting idle for a long time, just waiting for something like this to happen,” said Rex Linville, co-chairman of the county’s Fifth and Avon Community Advisory Committee.
Linville said development here, as well as elsewhere in the southern urban areas, should prompt the county to fund sidewalks and other urban amenities called for in the Comprehensive Plan.
“Since the county’s zoning allows this by-right, the county should be paying for those improvements and other improvements that would link those paths into the improvements that the city of Charlottesville made to Old Lynchburg Road in recent years,” he said.
