On September 12, the UVA Board of Visitors agreed to enter into a lease with Charlottesville CIty Schools to take over a 5.2 acre property in Fifeville that UVA had purchased in October 2023 for $3.5 million.
Both UVA and Charlottesville City Schools submitted applications to take over the former Federal Executive Institute after the Trump administration closed it as part of its purge of the federal bureaucracy.
“As you know, they were highly disappointed in not being able to acquire the FEI property,” said J.J. Davis, executive vice president and chief operating officer. “So you tasked us all with the challenge of is there an approach here for a win win?”
UVA purchased the land with the idea of using it for a child care facility and a planning study was conducted.
“The planning study at the UVA side sort of suggested this was much more complicated and further down on the priority list,” Davis said.
Charlottesville City Schools had wanted to use the FEI property for its pre-K education center rather than build at Walker Upper Elementary School. Oak Lawn is adjacent to the Charlottesville Middle School campus which is under construction to accommodate sixth grade beginning next academic year.
There’s no cost estimate yet for how much it would cost the City of Charlottesville to build at the property, and there are restrictions on what the city can do.
“Those conditions obviously would mean that the city could in no way monetize the property at some future date,” Davis said. “So there is a deed restriction within that and that the second is that we would regularly, periodically provide updates and reports.”
The resolution authorizes Davis and other UVA staff to enter into the ground lease as well as other negotiations.
Though the Oak Lawn property in Fifeville will eventually be used for Charlottesville City Schools, the City of Charlottesville itself will be the holder of the lease and the eventual owner.
“The transaction is tied to the idea that we will first prioritize schools as what we will use that site for,” said City Manager Sam Sanders. “So we are going to begin that engagement as soon as we get the lease done.”
Any negotiations on the lease will be conducted by City Attorney John Maddux.
A next step will be to get both Public Works and Parks and Recreation leadership on the ground to determine what maintenance activities will need to be performed.
“Then we will start the feasibility analysis of what can become of the property,” Sanders said. “So we’ll be working to get the lease done shortly and then we’ll get into planning the future of that site.”
Other stories on this topic:
- UVA Health unveils concept plan for Oak Lawn, June 23, 2025 (C-Ville Weekly)
- UVA purchases Oak Lawn property, October 18, 2023 (Information Charlottesville)
- UVA to begin planning process for Oak Lawn, February 5, 2024 (Information Charlottesville)
- Open house scheduled Saturday for UVA’s plans for Oak Lawn, April 11, 2025 (Information Charlottesville)
Before you go: The time to write and conduct research for this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment comes from the September 16, 2025 edition of the program as well as the September 17 edition. To ensure this research can be sustained, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing monthly through Patreon.
Discover more from Information Charlottesville
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
