Imagine watching Barracks Road transform itself from a sleepy country outpost to a sprawling, bustling shopping center with multiple wings. University alumnus David Carr didn't just witness the transformation, he personally oversaw its development.
Carr served as the property management executive for Barracks Road Shopping Center for 34 years until retiring in 1994. Long before the crossroads of Barracks Road and Route 29 featured four-way stoplights and 24-hour grocery stores, he remembers the spot as the home of Carroll's Tea Room, a local bar and grill that was the most popular hangout for University students in the 1940s.
According to Carr, between the end of World War II and the mid-50s, Carroll's Tea Room was a "beer hall with a strong personality" where students met after late afternoon classes for a beer or two. Men comprised nearly 100 percent of Carroll's Tea Room customers, reflecting the University's all-male student body. Although the tea room's three small rooms filled with pine booths could not accommodate large crowds, undeterred students simply spilled out into the back porch, or, if needed, the parking lot.
"To get 50 inside was a crowd," Carr said.
Because the University then had about 5,000 fewer students, he said he usually recognized 49 of his fellow patrons. He divided those that frequented the bar into two categories: younger students entering the University in the post-war era, and those, like Carr, who enrolled after serving in the military. By February of 1946, Carr was both married and a veteran, having served several years as a Marine.
"I was a busy man," he said. "But I went by [Carroll's Tea Room] from time to time, enough to know the key players."
Carr could have been talking about himself. A prominent figure within the University community, Carr admits that he "wasn't much of a student." Looking back fondly at his "wonderful stay" at the University, however, Carr ticks off the impressive list of positions he once held: student body president and Honor Committee chairman, member of the baseball team and member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
After graduation, Carr chose to further his family's tradition of staying in Charlottesville (the earliest members of the Carr family moved to Albemarle County in 1736). He put in some time as division manager for State Farm Insurance in a building that Carruthers Hall later replaced. Then a handful of local and prominent businessmen approached Carr with an offer he couldn't refuse: the opportunity to manage the construction of a major shopping center across the street. Already interested in real estate, Carr was drawn to a project that he felt would dramatically improve daily life for the town he loved.
"My roots were here, always," Carr said. "I wanted to do something in Charlottesville."
Carr quickly developed a close relationship with the Thomas Jefferson Corporation, the first of three management companies to own Barracks Road Shopping Center. Although the only paid employee at the time, Carr credits the project investors with their time and expertise -- John Rogan also had built Boar's Head Inn, and Jim Wise was a retired attorney that handled all legal matters.
Initially, Carr and his teammates struggled to find store tenants willing to rent out space at Barracks Road. Unlike in more developed metropolitan areas, national companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. had steered clear of rural Charlottesville until this point. Carr called his birthplace a "sleepy community" in which families frequented the Downtown Mall, the sole commercial area in the county for everything from groceries to clothing to haircuts.
By the 1950s, however, the rise of the American strip mall and free parking for shoppers helped advance the development of Barracks Road Shopping Center. New merchants could have a stake in Charlottesville, and in 1959, the grand opening of Barracks Road Shopping Center introduced 21 new stores. A handful of these stores have remained an integral part of the shopping complex -- the post office, ABC store and Staples Barbershop still attract customers over 40 years later. And despite relocations and name changes, both Kroger and Hazel Eastham remain.
Carr said most residents "reacted very favorably" to such sudden commercialization of their hometown. Barracks Road was in an ideal location, as more and more patrons preferred to do their daily shopping there rather than on the Downtown Mall. It wasn't until 1976 that the Downtown Mall was recovered and distinguished as a pedestrian mall.
The more mountainous Route 29 South "doesn't lend itself to development," Carr explains, adding that the wealthy residents living off250 West strongly protested against strip malls in their neighborhoods. The creation of Barracks Road, and the construction of stores and restaurants that ensued, was inevitable because, as Carr said, "Every town has a 29 North."
The onset of suburban shopping demanded new traffic patterns as well. Between 1964 and 1970, Arlington Boulevard and Millmont Street were built and Barracks Road was widened to four lanes.
By 1970, the 11-year-old Barracks Road introduced Wilco, a subsidiary of Woolworth and the forerunner of today's discount stores, as well as the more upscale shops of the North Wing. Within 10 years, Virginia Real Estate, the shopping center's second management company, liquidated, and Carr decided to disengage himself from Barracks Road. The new management transition, however, extended from one to six years. Consequently, Carr stuck around until 1994, while maintaining his company, Carr Realty Management and Sales, Inc.
Although he graduated many years ago, Carr maintains close ties to his alma mater. In the 1980s, during his term on the Board of Managers for the Alumni Association, Carr oversaw the expansion of Alumni Hall and played a role in the formation of the Jefferson Scholars Program. He is an avid basketball fan and claims not to have missed more than a couple of games since the 1930s.
And although he settled comfortably into retirement several years ago, he hasn't severed all relations with Barracks Road Shopping Center. As the closure of Wilco, Baskin-Robbins and Farmer Jack made room for Harris Teeter, Bed Bath & Beyond and Kinko's, Carr remains impressed with the new management.
He still has a Barracks Road office, which he visits a few times a week to check his mail. He doesn't see the need to go shopping very often. But he does frequent the 24-hour CVS, which he calls the "most amazing store."
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