Building Blacksburg: A $600,000 Dance Hall, Eight Stories on North Main, and Parking Rules About to Change

Olaika, a new proposed restaurant by day, dance hall by night, is nearly finished at 130 Jackson Street N.W — the space most recently occupied by the axe-throwing and arcade venue.

The Roanoke Times reported in June that owner Sebastian Villena, 26, has poured more than $600,000 into the renovation over roughly a year, working with a group of partners who are mostly in their twenties — his best friend's father, three current Virginia Tech students, and one alum.

Villena is not new at this. He came to Blacksburg from Lima, Peru, noticed the town had no bar where people could really dance, and opened The Burg Resto-Bar off North Main while still a student — less than 100 yards from where Olaika sits now. He graduated from Tech in 2024 with a marketing management degree.

Clearly experts in social media marketing they have been documenting their journey on Instagram check out this video showing their progress and dilemmas: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY8B0MUPKm5/ 

Sources: "Recent Virginia Tech graduate bringing international-inspired restaurant to Blacksburg" by Ethan Hunt, The Roanoke Times · Town of Blacksburg — CUP-25-3

If you've driven past North Main and Kabrich lately, that's foundation work for The Rambler — an eight-story, 247-unit student housing complex that will permanently change the town's skyline at the downtown border.

The scale is real: 862 beds across studios, one- to five-bedroom apartments, and townhomes, in a building totaling roughly 578,000 square feet. The ground floor is the part most residents will actually use — a public Daydreamer Cafe plus retail, creating a new walkable stop on the north side.

Mayor Michael Sutphin explained the council's reasoning to WDBJ7: "One of the strategies that the town of Blacksburg had was to increase density in areas where there already was student housing and where it was along transit routes and there was existing infrastructure there."

For context on where the line gets drawn — Council rejected a similar six-story project on University City Boulevard in December 2025, and WDBJ7 reported that location was the deciding factor between the two proposals.

If you live nearby, the town posts active street and sidewalk work on its Current Road Closures.

Sources: "Construction begins on eight-story apartment building in Blacksburg", WDBJ7, Jan. 14, 2026 · Niles Bolton Associates — Rambler Blacksburg · Town rezoning file RZN-25-3

The town is planning a full overhaul of downtown parking — and the timing is deliberate. Officials plan to flip the switch during winter break or next summer, when students are gone, rather than mid-semester.

🅿️ What's changing:

   • Extended evening enforcement during the academic year

   • Old single-space meters phased out

   • New pay-by-plate mobile app, with alerts when spots open up

   • Parking vouchers through partnerships with local businesses

📅 When: Winter break 2026 or summer 2027

Deputy Town Manager Matt Hanratty framed it to WDBJ7 as a seasonal balancing act: "It's this balance of you have a parking issue when the students are here. There's a lot more demand for obvious reasons, so we can be flexible when the students are here, but also [give] the residents a break."