The controversial deal has drawn the ire of State Senator Creigh Deeds.
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Any homeowner seeking a loan or a refinancing might be wise to hire Patricia Filer. If her appraisal of Biscuit Run is any indication, she has an ability to find value above and beyond what the market will bear.

Biscuit Run— a massive undeveloped neighborhood saddled with debt and trapped by an unforgiving housing market— appeared to be rescued by a year-ago deal that hinged on a mysterious appraisal. When Courteney Stuart penned her investigative cover story two months ago, she theorized that the only way the tract’s wealthy investors could have paid off their delinquent loans and retained their investment was finding an appraiser willing to value the place four times higher than one arm of the state did.

Apparently, they found such an appraiser in the form of Filer at Orange-based Piedmont Appraisal Company. A story by freelance reporter Will Goldsmith asserts that Filer valued the land at $87.7 million.

“That’s a big number,” says State Senator Creigh Deeds. “That’s just a big number.”

But as Goldsmith reports (more)

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The parcel lies west of the new South Lawn project (still a parking lot in this old image).
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Two prominent Charlottesville businesspeople squared off in City Council Chambers Monday over their respective efforts to buy a piece of publicly-owned land with one of them calling the process “unusual” and the other branding it “unfair.”

Corner District restaurateur John Crafaik was the apparent high bidder in a Request for Proposals process that the City of Charlottesville conducted in October. However, a fellow proposer appeared in Council December 20 to urge Council to accept his company’s matching bid.

Littlejohn’s restaurant owner John Crafaik, appearing with architect Gate Pratt, urged Council to accept his proposal to pay $250,000 to construct a neo-classical student apartment building. After all, he noted, he turned in his proposal with the apparent high bid by the deadline.

However, the president of Management Services Corporation stood up to tell Council that his company had a better idea. Noting that his company owned all the adjacent parcels (more)

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Click to see the location on a map.
PHOTO BY CHARLES WERNER

A kitchen fire fed by grease appears to have destroyed a house on the Southeast side of town and blocked Rougemont Avenue, according to a dispatch from fire chief Charles Werner.

Werner says that all occupants got out of the house safely, but the picture he sent along suggests that the house has been nearly or completely destroyed.

The flames leapt up a wall, according to information Werner received from an occupant. Fire crews battled to extinguish the fire and protect adjacent homes, but the street— between 6th Street and Hartmans Mill Road— has been blocked.

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The president tried to save Perriello’s old job with a Charlottesville rally on Friday, October 29.
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

Nothing’s official yet, and the president has even delayed his announcement to the new year, but a report by the influential Politico news service suggests that outgoing Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello could be in line for job with the Obama Administration.

“The administration is looking for fresh blood and is super-grateful to Congressman Perriello,” says Politico’s Mike Allen. “So I can see him getting a great offer if he decides to serve in the federal government.”

Charlottesville-based pundit Larry Sabato notes the midterm elections created quite a swarm of ousted Democrats. Of the two outgoing governors that Politico depicted along with Perriello to illustrate its story— Ohio’s Ted Strickland and Michigan’s Jennifer Granholm (the latter turned out not by voters but by term limits)— Sabato contends that each would get precedence over Perriello as Barack Obama prepares to hire.

“I’m sure Perriello’s on the list,” says Sabato, “but there’s a long list.”

Perriello is a native of the Albemarle County community of Ivy, and his (more)

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Huguely allegedly played golf at Farmington Country Club with his dad the day that Yeardley Love died.
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Besides being accused of murder in the death of UVA classmate Yeardley Love, George W. Huguely V has been branded a spoiled rich kid. But according to an action taken by a local lender, the Huguely family appears to be enduring the kind of financial setbacks that have affected many property owners in the ailing American economy.

According to property and other public records, an 8.34-acre parcel of land along upscale Morgantown Road owned by a company controlled by the accused killer’s father, George W. Huguely IV, has fallen into foreclosure proceedings.

The auction, under the auspices of Charlottesville attorney Rick Carter, was slated for the steps of the Albemarle County courthouse at noon on Tuesday, December 7. According to a source, that auction was called off. The reason, says Carter, is that the land-owning company has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Purchased five years ago for $485,000 in a transaction funded by Virginia National Bank, the originally 10.34-acre property was replatted a year later with a two-acre parcel sold off as the building site. The remaining land appears to contain no house.

An early deed of trust from VNB shows indebtedness of $325,000. How much debt remained on the property at the time of the foreclosure action could not be immediately learned.

The Albemarle assessor values the tract at $333,800. The property is held by a West Virginia partnership whose general partner, and the person signing the documents, is George W. Huguely IV. The company’s legal address is a building in Bethesda, Maryland, that also serves as the headquarters for the Huguely Companies. Efforts to reach the elder Huguely were not immediately successful.

In 1993, a West Virginia firm (more)

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