Board of Supervisors Special Meeting   5/24/2023

There we go.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm pleased to call to order the special meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors at 1 o'clock p.m.

on May 24, 2023 in Lane Auditorium.

May 24, 2023.

Thank you.

The supervisors who are present are Supervisor Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District,

Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, and myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley is on travel and not present today.

We do, however, have a quorum present.

I would also like to mention that present with us today are our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, the Clerk for the Board, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson, and our Senior Deputy Clerk for the Board, Mr. Travis Morris.

I'd also like to welcome and appreciate the presence of our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present today, Sergeant Angela Jamerson and Sergeant Andy Munsey.

Thank you.

I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 3 to discuss or consider the acquisition of real property in the Rivanna Magisterial District for a public purpose where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the county and

All right.

Motion by Supervisor Andrews, a second by Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you, board.

We will now go into closed meeting.

Yes, thank you.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

Alright, I'm sure that everyone who's present is curious about the reason for convening a special meeting by the Board of Supervisors today.

This afternoon we gather to take an action on what may be the most significant economic development opportunity ever for Albemarle County.

That action is to accept the assignment of a real estate contract for the purchase of approximately 462 acres of property along Route 29 North adjacent to Rivanna Station, a sub-installation of Fort Belvoir and home to several substantial federal intelligence agencies and the anchor to the defense industry in Central Virginia.

At this time, I'm pleased to turn the floor over to our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson.

Good afternoon, Chair Price, members of the Board, to our staff and community.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon.

This is a special day.

Today, we're here to make an economic development special announcement for Project Falcons.

Project Falcons has evolved over time.

On May 3rd, the Board received a Defense Sector Economic Impact Report from the Weldon Cooper Center that the defense sector generates $1.2 billion of economic activity in our community each and every year, making it the second largest sector in our local economy.

Rivanna Station, which is located along Route 29 North, accounts for over 50% of this impact.

The success of Rivanna Station and our community is essential to our economic vibrancy.

This report culminates in significant work that the County has been doing with the State, the Chamber of Commerce, Defense Affairs Committee, or DAC,

This work aligns directly to Project ENABLE.

The board adopted Economic Development Strategic Plan, specifically goal one, business retention and expansion, and goal three, partner with the Chamber of Commerce through the Defense Affairs Committee on the retention and expansion of Department of Defense facilities.

Rivanna Station is the sub-installation of Fort Belvoir on 29 North that is home to several defense intelligence agencies.

Through our engagement with the state and representatives from the Rivanna Station via the DAC in 2018, in that time frame, the county became aware of concerns around a proposed expansion of the National Ground Intelligence Center

Ninjic, one of the two main facilities on Rivanna Station.

The expansion funding was at risk due to both cost and requirement for securing sufficient parking for their site.

In order to meet their needs, staff from our Economic Development and County Executives Office work with stakeholders at the local, state, and federal levels to try to find a solution for the immediate concern of the addition

Project, and to create a longer-term solution to better support Rivanna Station in its current and future state.

The Army was able to secure the lease and funding to allow the expansion and the parking project to move forward.

During this process, however, there was a question raised about whether NINJIC's future growth needs could be best served by a project in St.

Louis, Missouri, the national headquarters of the NGA.

which was in the planning stages of what is now a current under construction 100 acre development.

Thankfully that did not happen, but it revealed a vulnerability that has driven the county's work effort from that time until today.

Today we're here to talk about the work that the county is doing to support both the current state of Rivanna Station and the future in this area.

In 2017, the State Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs, along with leadership with Rivanna Station, initiated a study to plan for its long-term future, which envisioned an expansion beyond the existing land holdings of the Department of Defense.

to retain the station and support its long-term vibrancy here in Albemarle, we began negotiations in earnest to purchase some portion of the land surrounding Rivanna Station.

The land was held by a single owner and our objective was to secure as much property as we could within an affordability gap.

CAP.

There were a few reasons for that decision.

Number one, the Department of Defense had a strong preference to have as large of a buffer from neighbors as practical because it enhances base security.

Number two, we knew the layout of the envisioned Rivanna Station expansion could utilize approximately 100 acres and we felt that

there existed further opportunity for development there that would have adjacency benefits for the defense sector.

Number three, this gives the county site control of the land to extend Boulders Road to create the second connection to Highway 29 as envisioned in the comp plan and the Department of Defense planning.

And finally, last, county site control ensures that the DoD doesn't wind up with incompatible uses or neighbors on adjacent parcels.

Our negotiations focused on securing as much development area land holdings in order to eliminate a lot of risk to Rivanna Station's future.

Because it was one landowner, we felt we could get the best deal for the county by negotiating one large deal as opposed to piecemeal assemblage over a longer period of time.

Site control provides certainty as we bring partners to the table to build together the best possible project.

After several rounds of anonymous negotiations through a real estate broker, we were able to secure a final price of $58 million for 462 acres of land.

The contract was negotiated through an LLC, Rivanna Stations Futures.

Today we are asking the Board of Supervisors to accept assignment of the real estate contract for this property.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Henry.

Good afternoon.

Chair Price, members of the board.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Trevor Henry, Deputy County Executive along with JT Newberry, Director of Economic Development.

Department.

Before I start actually the comments, I want to just thank the board for this opportunity.

This is a momentous occasion, and I am honored and privileged to be here to be part of this.

Albemarle County has been home to Rivanna Station since 1997 when the Department of Defense purchased property along Route 29 North at what is now Boulders Road.

The National Ground Intelligence Center, NGIC, was the original mission housed there.

And since that time, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, or NGA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, have operations there as well.

Mr. Richardson mentioned this.

We have, currently, NGIC has approximately a $90 million expansion project underway and in construction.

It is both parking deck and an extension of lab space.

The DoD to date, through this investment, will have invested nearly $312 million at this site over the past 26 years.

Our organization has approximately 2,100 civilian and military personnel on the 75 acres of land.

The work of the NGIC, NGA, and DIA are auto support, the intelligence community with data and analytic insights needed to advance national security interests here and abroad.

This work is important and is growing in the complexity of the challenges facing the nation and the globe as those complexities increase, including a range of fields of biotech, AI, cybersecurity, aerospace, materials engineering, and even agriculture and public health.

These are all impacting

our world today and factor into the work of our intelligence community.

As the board may remember hearing on May 3rd, the median salary for employees working at Rivanna Station is approximately $100,000.

And these are not just employees at the site, they live in our communities, they have children in our schools, they coach, they are ingrained into the fabric of our community.

Mr. Richardson also mentioned the defense sector as the second largest impact in our region.

This slide illustrates what that entails with the largest footprint being Rivanna Station itself.

Rivanna Station actually accounts for 52% of that $1.2 billion in impact.

And I'll just note that this is a sample of the contractors in our region.

It is not comprehensive to everybody in our region, just a sampling of it.

We have military units, defense contractors, and supporting organizations that with Rivanna Station comprise that total package of $1.2 billion in annual economic impact.

The convener of these players and the work that we do in support of that is the Defense Affairs Committee of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The DAC has worked for several years to better support the thriving ecosystem of defense and defense-related industries in our community.

The Board of Supervisors has supported this effort with real dollars, with it being the primary majority funding support for the Defense Affairs Program Manager position.

Colonel Letty Bien presented the regional revenue impact just two meetings ago.

and so I'm going to hand off to JT.

We're going to toggle back and forth for the next few minutes.

Thank you Mr. Henry and thank you Mr. Richardson.

Good afternoon members of the board.

My name is JT Newberry.

I'm the interim director of economic development and I'm going to spend the next few slides going just a little bit deeper on that history that Mr. Richardson and Mr. Henry have touched on.

As Mr. Richardson explained, it was in 2018 that the county was first approached by representatives of Rivanna Station about their growing space needs and so from an economic development perspective, that meant we conducted a BRE visit, a business retention and expansion visit to better understand how we could play a role in figuring out a customized solution to serve their growing needs.

A 2017 study commissioned by the Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs provided a roadmap for us to follow to meet those growing needs.

And so a group of consultants developed an art of the possible concept that you see on the screen here that shows how the Rivanna station could expand.

And so I'll use the laser pointer on the screen to highlight

The area that's outlined in red is the existing fence line of Rivanna Station and the proposed expansion is highlighted in green and it's comprised by the orange buildings, yellow, red, and blue structures that you see on the concept plan.

Those are comprised, together those are about 600,000 square feet over approximately 100 additional acres.

and importantly on this concept plan, as Mr. Richardson noted, both the DoD and our comp plan includes the extension of Boulders Road.

And so significantly across the state, Rivanna Station has a strategic advantage over other installations in that it has vacant adjacent land.

Other military installations around the state do not have that.

But as we learned from representatives there, it was control of the land itself that was standing in the way of Rivanna Station growing.

And so by policy, the Department of Defense does not seek to own land.

And so a willing set of partners needed to step up and come to the table to solve this issue.

Thank you, JT.

We see enormous potential in the envisioned expansion of Rivanna Station.

This is an image of the St.

Louis NGA project mentioned earlier by Mr. Richardson.

It's called N2W.

And shown here is a 97-acre campus under development that will be home to 700,000 square feet of office space and provide a modern headquarters.

According to the agency, N2W will deliver a modern, flexible, and collaborative facility offering open and innovative partnering spaces, advanced technology solutions, and a sustainable environment that serves the agency's mission and employees over the next hundred years.

This project came to be through a public-private partnership that involves DOD, City of St.

Louis,

State of Missouri, and academic partners to support research, collaboration, and learning.

N2W is an example of what success looks like when the state and local government partner with the federal government to grow a mission in place.

That's what we're talking about here today.

Based on the discussions that we've had with our partners at the state and their consultants that are well connected into the intelligence community, we believe there is a strong desire to replicate this model

and this concept on the East Coast.

Albemarle County sits in an ideal spot with the existing station present in the county.

We are driving distance from Washington DC, but we're outside of what is often referred to as the DC churn.

We are served by a nearby very active airport and a world-class university.

Yeah, so Virginia is an ideal location for the intelligence community.

Some of the accolades that are consistently received by the state are shown on the screen.

We're consistently a top state for veterans, cybersecurity, and business in general.

As Mr. Henry mentioned, we're just a short flight or ride from Washington, D.C., but still outside of that churn of the day to day of the D.C.

area.

and of course we're not far from the broader existing footprint of the intelligence community in Northern Virginia.

But why Albemarle County?

Albemarle County itself has a great economic environment.

We have a town and gown dynamic that provides a pipeline of highly skilled talent who will eventually become tomorrow's leaders.

The private sector businesses that we have here are focused on technology, research, development,

and a range of industries that are ideally suited to the intelligence community, especially that R&D and technology transfer piece.

I do want to talk a little bit more about Albemarle County, though, and just highlight that we're a growing community across many different areas.

Each year our population grows about 1.8%.

and the university's growth is a big factor in this, especially if you consider the Virginia Biotechnology Institute, which will become a nationally recognized biomedical research facility.

But we have other economic activity centers too, many of which the board has visited.

Our entrepreneurial ecosystem includes those R&D companies like Rivanna Medical, Bonamose, Agrospheres, PS Fertility,

We've got tech companies in our community, Willow Tree, Silverchair.

We've got energy companies like Apex Clean Energy, Hexagon Energy, and Lumen.

And we are investing in that entrepreneurial ecosystem through programs like Venture Central and Catalyst.

So between UVA and PVCC, there are about 8,500 students that graduate with degrees and certificates each year.

And if we're able to

provide a place for competitive jobs here, we have an opportunity to capture that talent.

And so our strategic plan and project enable and our comp plan both guide how we will grow and the project being considered today aligns very well across several key areas of those plans.

So Albemarle County is the right local government partner as a triple AAA bond rating, our history of supporting Rivanna Station and its mission, and our investments in workforce.

Thank you, JT.

A couple of slides to talk about the vision, or at least the first phase, of what this might look like.

As we developed and scoped Project Falcons, we focused on two areas.

The envisioned expansion of Rivanna Station, that art of the possibility that we looked at, which is expected to be developed over approximately 100 acres, and then the full 462-acre site for which the county will now have control over, and we're calling that or referring to this project as Rivanna Station Futures.

the future of Rivanna Station in our community.

In our partnership development work around Rivanna Station futures to date, we developed a vision for what our future looks like in Albemarle.

And again, this vision was developed based on the work through the state and through our partners at the state and prior work with Rivanna Station.

The Intelligence Community Innovation Acceleration Campus, or ICAC, must have an acronym.

We're referring to it as the ICAC.

It's a place to accelerate innovation in the intelligence community

through partnerships today for tomorrow's challenges.

The ICAC is an accelerator where the intelligence community, private sector, and academic partners will co-create solutions for tomorrow's big challenges and engage in powerful exchanges of knowledge, analytics, and research capacity.

I think I heard click one more time.

Thank you, Emily, from the side.

This is a 3D video that was created.

We'd like to show what the ICAC could look like at full build-out.

This animation is of the 2017 plan.

The vantage point began from north to south perspective, traveling along what would be the borders road extension.

It will rotate back to show portions of the existing Rivanna station at the end.

This animation helps understand further how this is a great project for our nation's security and will help to further improve the quality of life here in Albemarle County.

Again, this is trying to put in video what the concepts are that we're working on today.

Thanks Trevor, that's a really powerful visual.

We conducted a third party independent economic analysis of what you just saw on the screen and we found that approximately the 600,000 square feet of space would result in 873 career ladder jobs with a median income of

It would generate approximately a million dollars in local tax revenue and about two million dollars in tax revenue each year for the state.

We believe this estimate is conservative and that there are opportunities to increase this impact within other areas of the project that could provide compatible adjacent sites for other development that would add to these figures.

and I'm not done yet.

The economic impact itself is exciting.

Our work is far from done though.

In order to bring this project to fruition, we're going to need partners.

And so it bears repeating that the proposed action today is to accept assignment of the contract to purchase 462 acres for $58 million.

but to develop the site to its full potential, we'll need to be partnering with folks at the state level to bring this site to a higher level of readiness.

So not only do we need the land to be acquired, but we need to ensure the appropriate zoning is in place, due diligence and environmental analysis have been completed, and necessary infrastructure is in place.

And so the graphic above, whoops,

The graphic on the screen attempts to show one way that these different roles for our partners might work.

And so the words on the right-hand side of the screen show several different streams of work that can happen in parallel over the next several years.

Site control, what we're talking about today, is the critical path forward as that first step.

With that heavily underway now, we can meaningfully engage our partners about how we can work together to create the necessary funding to achieve this vision.

And so we see ourselves working with state and federal partners

to fund infrastructure and site work, and that will support the further investment from federal, academic, and private partners on the site development, actually going vertical on the site to bring this vision to reality.

So we've already been working to lay the groundwork for these partnerships over the past several years.

Staff's met with the Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs.

We've met with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

We'll continue to work with those partners and others in the Commonwealth and at the federal level.

Thank you JT and members of the board as we close and this is a little repetitive but really want to lay the vision out.

We wanted to focus once again on the vision of the ICAC, the Intelligence Community Innovation Acceleration Campus.

We believe this will serve as an anchor to the Rivanna Station's future project.

We see the ICAC as an opportunity

to leverage our community's entrepreneurial ecosystem, our defense sector assets, and our proximity to Washington, D.C.

At a minimum, site control by the county will prevent encroachment on Rivanna Station by incompatible uses or adjacencies or worse, bad actors.

Site control is a substantial investment in the vision for Rivanna Station future, a campus where private sector academic partners co-create solutions to tomorrow's big challenges.

And the next slide for the board is if the board is willing to consider accepting assignment of a contract for the purchase of 462 acres of land at a price of $58 million.

The work of the staff, if the board approves this, the work of the staff over the next several months will be to conduct formal due diligence prior to the closing.

and immediately be working on the partnerships that JT just mentioned.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I'm thrilled to move

that the board adopt the proposed resolution to authorize the acquisition of real property and related assets, approving the county's acquisition of 462 acres of property located in the Rivanna Magisterial District at a purchase price of $58 million.

All right.

We have a motion by Supervisor Mallek, a second by Supervisor McKeel.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right, thank you.

And Board, I do need to announce that Supervisor Galloway will need to depart for an Executive Committee meeting of the Regional Housing Partnership.

Thank you, Board.

This feels like it should be the ending, if you can bear with us.

Thank you, board.

Thank you for this motion and this meaningful action.

Really, two more slides and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Richardson.

But this is just a slide before we close to thank the significant work that staff have put in

on

you know the current team and there will be you know as we move forward many more that are added to this list I'd like to give just a verbal shout out to Secretary Crenshaw's office and his consultants that helped really solidify the vision of this work and we've been working in close partnership and we'll be continuing to do that as we

as we move from today.

I also would like to note our brokers that have been supporting this work since 2020, Eddie Kaye and Andrew Benite.

And then finally, I thank you to the board for your leadership, for your vision, for your guidance, and for your patience to get us to this point today.

I'm humbly grateful for your work.

Thank you.

Next steps.

Quickly recessing to room 241 for a media briefing.

We have on the board schedule already in June 7th a discussion of our financing and due diligence work with our CFO and our director of FES to talk about what's happening now and over the next 90 plus days.

we have on the June 21 schedule a public hearing and then the closing will be determined based on you know the work that we present in June but also our due diligence work and we'll be keeping the board appraised of that as we proceed and then finally I have on my schedule already partner engagement that will be happening starting on Friday and so we will be

This is a great moment in time, but there's a lot of work ahead of us to turn this vision into fruition and we're all excited to do that.

And so, with that, I will turn back to Mr. Richardson and the brand, Rivanna Station Futures.

So, Chair Price, I'm going to turn it back over to you in just a second and let you recess.

and let you take this board over to 241.

But before I do that, I want to ask you a question.

Do any of you know by chance where you were on October the 17th, 2017?

It feels almost like a rhetorical question, but it's not.

This board was in 241, room 241, and more specifically, Ms.

McKeel and Ms.

Mallek, they were in 241 and they

hosted a meeting with the Economic Development Authority on that day.

Also invited was our planning commission, the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

You were in 241 on October the 17th of 2017 because you were seeking a joint endorsement of the Economic Development Strategic Plan mission and guiding principles.

I pulled those minutes and Chair Price, I'd like to share with you.

Chair McKeel started the meeting by stating that this is an exciting time for economic development in Albemarle County, commenting that the board had recently endorsed the county's first ever economic development strategic plan.

Ms.

McKeel emphasized that to continue the forward progress, they need a strong and cohesive county team.

They need help from the business community.

They need a positive and cohesive narrative that reflects forward-looking energy and direction.

Ms.

McKeel noted that the meeting that day represented an opportunity for them, Albemarle County, to turn the page, continue the education process, find areas of agreement, and set the stage for their economic development team, embracing a shared understanding of high-level direction on economic development.

She reported that the chairs of each body had agreed on the outcome from that meeting to continue preparation for implementing site readiness strategies of the Economic Development Strategic Plan.

secure a more in-depth understanding of site selection and the site readiness process as seen by prospective businesses.

On that day, they used a model with the help of private sector to walk through a case study of what successful economic development looked like.

They got joint endorsement of the Board of Supervisors economic development strategic plan mission and governing principles on that day.

Since that time, the county has enjoyed measured economic development success over the past five years.

No less than six visits from our sitting governor to announce key economic development wins and to celebrate continued economic growth in our community suggests that we have good partnerships with both the state, the private sector,

and our economic development team.

Let me suggest respectfully, board, that today's announcement represents the county's economic development work and our opportunity to turn another page in this community.

What you didn't talk about in 2017 that we've talked about recently is the need to have durable partners.

Rivanna Station Futures suggest that the Department of Defense, our military community, the fine folks that are out at Rivanna Station, NINJIC, that they are indeed durable partners.

So this is a wonderful day.

And board, I really appreciate

The board's focus, consistency, predictability on our mission, our strategic plan, Project Enable, because over the last six years, that's what has allowed us to be where we are today.

Now I will call a brief recess and board we will reconvene in room 241 in two minutes.

Thank you, Ms.

Before turning directly to what we did today, there are two supervisors in particular that I want to give a shout out to.

One is Supervisor McKeel, as Mr. Richardson mentioned in his remarks as we're closing in the Lane Auditorium because she was really the driving force behind getting this board and the county to have an economic development office.

So, Supervisor McKeel, we wouldn't be here without you.

and second is Supervisor Mallek because she is the first supervisor who recognized the risk that Rivanna Station faced without the land around it being protected.

So Supervisor Mallek if it wasn't for you we wouldn't be here.

Mr. Richardson in 2017 Supervisor Andrews and I were not in 241 because we weren't on the board and I was trying to think where was I on that day in 2017.

In 1817, the Commonwealth of Virginia purchased 200 acres of land in Albemarle County for $40,000 to establish the University of Virginia.

Over its lifetime, the University of Virginia has been a global leader in education, research and development, and thought leadership.

Closer to home, UVA is the largest employer in our community, providing thousands of jobs for residents and hosting community events, art programs, and athletic events year round, all of which contribute to our overall quality of life.

Today, on behalf of the Board of Supervisors and county staff and our community, I am exceedingly proud to announce another investment in land in Albemarle County.

and one over which the county will have far greater control and for which the county will receive exceptional economic benefit.

Upon completion of a due diligence study and analysis and upon final approval, Albemarle County will assume an agreement to purchase approximately 462 acres in the Rivanna Magisterial District for about $58 million.

The vision for this purchase is to solidify the long-term vibrancy of Rivanna Station in Albemarle County.

Through the establishment of an Intelligence Community Innovation Acceleration Campus, or I-C-I-A-C pronounced ICAC.

This campus will be a place for public sector organizations, private sector businesses, and academic institutions to work together to co-create solutions to the biggest challenges facing our nation and the world in biotechnology and disease, in aerospace, in cybersecurity and AI, in energy and other sectors.

This campus is anchored by Rivanna Station and its core mission and accelerated by this community's homegrown entrepreneurial ecosystem and business community.

Each of these are generational investments in our community's vibrancy.

There are many reasons why this investment is the right one.

The intelligence industry is growing nationally as it is on the front lines of identifying and developing solutions to the greatest challenges facing our nation and our world.

And I would add, as a retired Navy captain whose legal practice has been focused in national security, this is something I've been dealing with

for about 45 years.

And so for Albemarle County to take a lead nationally here is a real testament to both what we can accomplish and how we can protect our nation.

The defense sector currently generates $1.2 billion in our community annually, making it the second largest industry in Albemarle County.

Rivanna Station Futures allows Albemarle County to remain an attractive and protected home to Rivanna Station, which is the anchor for this industry sector and provides opportunities for private industry, government, and academic partners to participate in shaping the future vibrancy of the sector.

Rivanna Station Futures aligns with our Economic Development Strategic Plan Project ENABLE by strengthening business retention to help existing businesses be successful here in Albemarle County, and specifically the defense sector, which is a target industry in that plan.

Rivanna Station Futures supports and is supported by our entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The intelligence community partners with the private sector for research and development and commercialization of solutions.

This is a prime location for this type of activity, fronting Route 29 adjacent to Rivanna Station in close proximity to both the airport and North Fork Discovery Park.

The current projections of the build-out of the ICAC will generate 873 new jobs at a median income of $81,000 per year, with further opportunities for compatible commercial neighbors on other land within the project scope.

These are equality, career ladder jobs for our community.

Rivanna Station is the only military complex in the Commonwealth that is not currently land bound by adjacent development.

By Albemarle County acquiring this property, we protect the security integrity of the station while simultaneously expanding its capacity for both remaining in Virginia and meeting the growing demand for its national defense work.

I am in deep appreciation of county staff

all of my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors for the thousands of hours of effort in bringing this opportunity to fruition.

And as I close, I will turn things back over to Emily Kilroy to moderate our media questions and answers.

Thank you Chair Price and congratulations to the whole board on your leadership today.

Good afternoon, I am Emily Kilroy and we'll be doing a media briefing where media can ask questions about all the information that we've just shared today.

This has been, if you've been sort of following along in the background, this has been called Project Falcons and today we've transitioned to Rivanna Station Futures.

We use code names when we're working on economic development projects in order to help keep ourselves straight as we juggle lots of different confidential items all at the same time.

We've just heard a statement from the board chair and we'll move to a Q&A that will be driven by you.

We'll ask one question at a time.

If you have a follow-up question, we'll take that and then we'll go to the next person.

and we'll stay as long as we need to to get through questions.

In addition to the Board of Supervisors we have available today to answer questions, County Executive Jeff Richardson, Deputy County Executive Trevor Henry, County Attorney Steve Rosenberg, who can speak to the agreement terms, Interim Economic Development Director JT Newberry, making sure I'm pointing in the right spot, who can talk about the opportunity as well as some of the work ahead on due diligence and partnerships.

and then Jacob Sumner, our interim chief financial officer who can speak to the financial aspects of the purchase.

Any questions on logistics before we get started?

Great, okay.

Then we've got Sean and Dory.

Well, so we'll take the first question first and then we'll take that second.

Thank you.

I spent 25 years on active duty and in the last nearly 20 years now have worked with the defense industry largely related to security clearance work and things like that.

The biggest challenges our military installations face today is enough room for growth.

and enough land around it to protect it from security threats.

Rivanna Station was initially 75 acres and it has been at great risk of being moved through something comparable to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, if you remember from a number of years ago, because it doesn't have enough room and there was a risk of development taking place in the adjacent and bordering properties that would threaten its security structure.

By acquiring this land, it gives us the best opportunity to keep Rivanna Station here, but not only to keep it here, to see it grow.

And to see it grow both directly through DOD institutions, but also through partner institutions, defense contracting, if you will, biotech, intelligence, AI, all of the associated industries that are related to national defense.

This literally is our only way to protect this industry and our community.

And while Rivanna Station today may be half of the $1.2 billion of economic impact, it will grow.

But if we were to lose it because we could not protect the land, it would be more than just the loss of that half of the defense industry because other things would likely move as well.

Thank you.

I'm sorry?

Well it is very significant.

I mean it truly is significant.

Right now there are three major intelligence related activities that are there.

I can envision that with this land and the opportunity for expansion that we could see more, but it would be a little bit of an overstatement to describe it as a mini Pentagon because the Pentagon is so much broader than what we would be able to provide here at least for the foreseeable future.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'll try to answer the second part of that question, which was how soon until construction would we have?

There's a bit of time before we get to construction.

What was critical or what is critical about today is being able to obtain site control.

The work that we'll do immediately,

We have staff already engaged to do our analysis and due diligence of the site to make sure that it is buildable to the level that we think it needs to be in order to afford the vision that we have proposed and have reviewed today.

I would anticipate

multiple lanes of work with our partners at the state and federal level and with the intelligence community to affirm the vision and the work that they did in 2017 and then we transition that into the reality.

But that will take us time.

The modeling that we have on the financial side gives us the ability to have those partnership relationships developed.

We are planning to draw down funding both by the state and the federal level to help us with the site readiness portion of this and then eventually to go vertical.

And so we have a lot of work to do, but being able to have site control was a critical path to the rest of the work that's in front of us.

So I can't give you a date on construction, but this is a long game project.

The word JT used was generational, I think.

This is generational for the county of Albemarle.

If you were in the auditorium for the presentation, I brought up a model that was out in St.

Louis, which is a campus facility that has brought together academic partners with the city of St.

Louis, with the state, with NGA, along with academic partners.

And it's creating both secure and unsecured space to allow that work to proceed.

That's a similar vision that we have with Albemarle County is we're envisioning an expansion of the secured side of Rivanna Station to allow partnership, lab space, co-creation with academic partners that we will bring to the table and then some unclass

Unclassified space that would allow other work to occur in support of the mission, but also be complementary to the mission.

OK.

And then, Dori, to your next question, the action by the board today is to acquire an assignment of a purchase agreement.

So the county has not yet purchased, but we're sort of headed towards closing at a future point for 462 acres of land.

The seller is Next Generation LLC, which is tickling Mr. Tubbs.

Any other questions?

That is a great question, Mr. Tubbs.

The work today secures us in our ability to have open conversations with the Department of Defense, along with the state and at the federal level.

This work, though, is based on the work that was done collaboratively through the Secretary's Office and Rivanna Station personnel back in 2017.

They referred to it as the art of the possibility of what an expansion would look like outside of the fence line.

And so the work today is in line with that.

I will say the Secretary's Office has been a tremendous partner in this work.

within their function, they have consultants that are as connected into the intelligence community as you could have at DC.

And we feel strongly that this vision is one that will be well received.

There's work to do, no doubt.

And the very first thing that we're gonna do is that road show and meet with our federal senators.

We expect it will be at some point.

in front of the governor's office after we worked through the secretary.

So the easy answer is it's not a done deal, but we have strong confidence, this vision.

We also believe that this property is valuable and we have uses within the world of technology in this region that would be viable beyond just the ICAC.

and even if we implement phase one, we have over 100 acres, we believe, that will allow for further complementary development.

The key here, and really what Chair Price hit on, is there's concerns around

encroachment with our military bases.

And in fact, the DOD is doing an assessment of all facilities to better understand who the neighboring partners are, who owns those properties.

And if there's any bad actors, is the word that is often referred to.

And I think just to sort of put a point on that, you know, the value of de-risking the property surrounding Rivanna Station when you think about how the defense sector is the second largest sector in our local economy, that alone is a really great win for Albemarle County and a great investment in the vibrancy of that existing installation and then again this opportunity, this art of the possibility for future

Adjacencies that are sort of a win-win for everyone is sort of the next big benefit of taking this step today.

So site control was definitely our number one priority and it puts us in a better position to do the partnership development work ahead.

Mr. Tubbs, you have a good memory to think back to that time.

Again, Mr. Henry talked about the art of the possibility in 2017.

and that's a key piece of property at a key intersection out there and we felt like after some due diligence that it set us up well to be able to practice that land purchase muscle of being able to do site control on a very small but poignant piece of property and so we were able to work with the board

through the appropriate mechanisms to get that done.

We were pleased that we were able to get that done.

At that point in time, I had absolutely no idea that we would be here today talking about what we are in the process of doing, but we knew at that point in time through the leadership of our board that we had to pay close attention to what was going on with that piece of property and outside the boundary and pay close attention to how the county

could play a significant role moving forward with our partners at Rivanna Station to be able to help them with expansion.

So that was the first, it was a very small step, but I think it was a very meaningful step forward at that point in time.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

You can go all day.

So looking at the properties, and you did touch on this a little bit.

So it looks like some of that land is not in the development area.

Obviously, you mentioned materials that would be some prep work in the near future.

Mr. Tubbs, you are correct.

Of the 462 acres, approximately 232 of it are in the development area.

So if you were looking at the 30,000-foot view over that property, the property that is towards Route 29 north, it kind of wraps around that way, is the development area on the eastern side and then goes kind of towards the bottom.

We referred to it affectionately as the banjo.

that is all the rural area and so our focus is around the development area with the ICAC again being that first step approximately 100 acres.

We have heard from the military as recently as January from Fort Belvoir about some urgency around connecting Boulders Road to have a more resilient

installation have dual access as part of their security.

And so that is our focus, but we will also be assessing the remaining development area as far as how that could be planned out to again support the mission and the adjacencies.

and also be a return on our investment.

On the rural side, you know, we will be looking at that but using that more as a continued as a what I would call a passive use to provide the buffer that the installation or the station was seeking.

So it will prevent any future encroachment and then there's some potentials.

We have Mr. Krichenberger in the audience and he may be hearing this for the first time but maybe we want to do some trails and other services to help

improve the quality of life for those that are that are at Rivanna Station now and it will be in that you know that expanded area.

Did I answer your question?

One thing I would add to that is through the negotiation process, the county was very focused on obtaining as much land as possible with an affordability cap.

And as we were sort of working through the negotiation process, looking at which land to acquire, there's some access concerns as well as some drainage issues.

And so there was a conversation back and forth about

as a whole package, what makes the most sense from the seller's perspective and then also from the county's perspective.

And that was part of the negotiation that led to the final 462.

Thank you for the question.

We've started negotiating with the property owners.

I could find the specific date for you at a later time, but it's been over the course of at least the past six to eight months.

So the revenue generation was not the primary goal of the acquisition.

There's a couple of leases on the current holdings that the county, through those lease terms at least, would plan to continue those.

Part of the due diligence work ahead is to get sort of a full analysis of what that looks like in the long and medium term.

The parking for

Rivanna Station, there's a big surface lot sort of across Boulder's Road.

That's actually through a lease arrangement with the Army Corps of Engineers and the current property owner.

The partnership development work ahead will really inform a lot sort of what the long-term strategy there is, but revenue generation is not part of the short-term strategy.

If you guys don't have any more questions, I think I'm going to ask Mr. Sumner to come up.

But I'll use that as an opportunity to ask if you have any final questions.

Thank you Emily, appreciate that.

We will be back on June 7th to provide a little more detail on the financing structure for this property.

But in the short term or the little bit of a nutshell of what we're looking at is we're looking at issuing a debt to fund this project similar to a capital project where we finance the purchase price over a long period of time.

That's what we're looking at for this as well.

We are looking at some interesting financing structures as we're looking for the opportunity to engage with our partners on this property.

We're looking for some time.

By doing that, to get to that point, we're going to be issuing what looks like or is called

Bond Anticipation Notes or BANs.

And those are really short-term notes, short-term debt, that is anticipation of a more longer-term structure.

The structure for those BANs looks to be about five years.

Within those five years, that would give us that opportunity and that time to engage with our community partners as we continue to develop those relationships and to begin on this plan.

Within the current budget and the current five-year CIP plan, we do have a capital project called

economic development funding for public-private partnerships, or P3s.

There is $14.4 million in that five-year time span that would be set aside to help pay for the debt service on that short-term ban.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Kilroy.

So we will adjourn until June 7, 2023 at 1 o'clock p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.