Charlottesville City Hall Inks $60,000 Lease For Two Small Bathrooms In York Place On The Downtown Mall

Charlottesville City Hall just “allocated” $60,000 per year of taxpayer dollars to “rent ” York Place bathrooms for Downtown Mall public use.

Yes, $5,000 per month. Yes, $60,000 per year.

The public restrooms are behind the door marked “sprinkler valve” in the narrow York Place hallway.

These restrooms are currently being remodeled to accommodate the massive demand headed their way.

I spoke to a member of the janitorial crew. While cleaning the hallway, she said that the “sprinkler valve” sign was utilized as a deterrent to disguise the public restrooms because, and I quote, “so many kids were terrorizing the hallway and shops and destroying the bathrooms. They are running around here unsupervised.”

Furthermore, I spoke with three business owners in York Place. Each of them is quite worried about the City renting small restrooms for public use within York Place. One merchant said, “this will create even more difficulty for our business at a time when we can barely pay our bills.”

The merchant said, “Children are running through York Place unsupervised, using drugs in the hallway and bathrooms, destroying private property and disrupting our businesses.”

The public restrooms should have been placed in City owned property instead of privately owned property. The public restrooms should not have been put in a tight hallway amongst locally-owned businesses that are struggling to pay their bills.

York Place is already being disrupted, especially on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The City should have utilized the transit station for the public restrooms, or the City could have paid for nice “bathroom closets” and positioned them at Central Place in the center of The Mall.

Instead, the City thought $60K per year (plus upkeep) in a private hallway amongst private businesses was the best approach.

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