Clean slate: Capshaw's Fifeville apartments break ground

The last vestiges of the urban forest that long provided the backdrop to Union Station– home to Amtrak and the recently departed Wing Wing Café– were felled last week to make way for an upscale apartment complex. A few small structures, including the old Glass & Plastics building, had already been demolished.

"They've cleared the whole site, and it looks spectacular," says Gabe Silverman, owner of Union Station. "It has changed the way I view the building."

Silverman's view will soon include eight new four-floor structures containing 225 apartments– as well as 293 parking spaces and a health club, according to documents on file in City Hall.

The six-acre site, partly owned by Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw, will also feature two mini-parks and numerous pedestrian connections to the Fifeville neighborhood. The architect is Edward Winks of Richmond.

The developer, Nathan Metzger of Atlanta, says the location, about halfway between UVA and the Downtown Mall, provides another bonus for residents. "They can walk to restaurants, and they can walk to work, and that's pretty neat in this day and age."

Eugene Williams, who owns several rental properties in the mixed-race neighborhood, welcomes the development.

"Gentrification does a lot of good things," Williams says. "I translate gentrification into integration."