Board of Supervisors Joint Meeting with the Economic Development Authority   10/19/2021

OK.

All right.

So I'm Don Long, and chair of the EDA, and I call the EDA meeting to order.

I will do that.

Let's see, Director Wray.

George Wray.

Director Munson.

Stewart.

Director McNaughton.

President in Troy, Virginia.

I'll go back.

Let's see, Director Wray, did he sign in?

Director Munson.

All right, and Supervisor McKeel.

And I think I did it twice.

I called him first.

I need to read the authority for the electronic meeting.

I thought Chair Galloway was going to read that.

All right.

All right.

Yep.

All right, good afternoon.

I call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for this Tuesday, October 19th, 2021 4 p.m.

joint meeting with the Economic Development Authority.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 28-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District,

Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, and who is also the board appointment to the EDA from the supervisors, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, and myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic 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, which comments from the public will be received.

With us today, we have Mr. Doug Walker, Deputy County Executive, the County Attorney, Mr. Greg Kamner,

Our Board Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgeson and our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris, also present for the meeting.

Other staff will introduce themselves at the appropriate time and as needed.

And that will move us to Mr. Malone.

Sure.

You can turn it over to me.

I just wanted to give a little quick update on what we're going to do today.

We're going to have a work session and we're going to go over

The economic development staff is going to review project enable and then we're going to have a discussion regarding the EDA control of land and the existing building reuse grant.

We're then going to have a closed session and after that we're going to have an action item on the performance agreement for project package.

So we do have some

issues where we need to be done with this meeting by 5.55.

So I would encourage everyone to be efficient in their comments as we go along so we can get all of these things done in that timeframe.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you Chair Long, Members of the Authority, Chair Galloway, Members of the Board, Doug Walker, Deputy County Executive, just a few additional acknowledgements.

One, that in Jeff Richardson's absence, I am wearing a tie today.

I did not want the biggest takeaway from this meeting to be that I was underdressed, so just want to make sure I put that out there.

Two, as was acknowledged by Chair Long, we do have a hard stop at 555 in order to accommodate a transition for the use of this Zoom account for the Planning Commission meeting.

Appreciate everybody's understanding of that limitation.

Three, Roger Johnson, who will be speaking today, does have a head cold and he does not have a singing voice and he's going to be speaking only.

But I just do not want you to be surprised.

I didn't want to have him to call himself out.

The last acknowledgement and really my introductory comments are that although these two bodies don't get together very often, we don't.

I think

even though not necessarily at the same time.

So this is a great opportunity I think to reflect on all of the work that both of these boards have done together and I want to mention the last three years the code names that have been that have been used for projects that have been approved Turtle, Daffodil, Macintosh, Proton, Patriot, Bronco, 49ers,

Those projects actually are Woolen Mills, Willow Tree, Potterscraft Cider, Afton Scientific, Barnes Lumber, Castle Hill Gaming, Albemarle Business Campus.

The estimated total private investment of those projects for the county exceed $136 million.

That translates into property and other tax revenue that helps support county services and programs.

The estimated annual direct economic impact or money flowing into the economy from those investments is more than $127 million, which translates into support for local businesses across many sub-sectors, including retail goods and hospitality services and other services.

And 592 estimated new jobs from those projects.

Other announced projects that have been the work of these two boards, both separately and together, the Habitat for Humanity Southwood Project and the Brookdale Project, both advancing the strategic initiatives around affordable housing.

Collaboration with SEVEC and their expansion of rural broadband in the county.

Rome Robotics, what was Project Knight Rider, which a relatively modest investment ultimately led to a $10 million additional private investment for this company to take its product further.

And then there are other active pending projects that we can't talk about by name, but we could talk about by code, Project Gadget, Project Poma, Project Baja, just illustrating that the work continues.

With that, I'll turn it over to Roger and JT to summarize where we've been, acknowledging that this is a point in time and that the work continues and very much appreciate all members being here today to join in this summary and the discussions that will follow.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Walker, Chairman Galloway, members of the board,

Don Long, Chair of the EDA, Directors on the EDA.

My name is Roger Johnson and I am the Economic Development Director for Albemarle County for those who are out in the audience.

Before we get started with this presentation, I'd just like to mention that we're not going to cover all the accomplishments that have been made in Project ENABLE.

That scorecard was included as attachment B in your handout.

If you have specific questions related to attachment B, we'll gladly entertain those.

What we do want to talk about is some of the more visible and salient points that have happened.

and tell you a little story about some of these as well.

Like the rest of the world, COVID threw us a curve ball, so part of our presentation really goes outside the scope of Project Enable.

It was during this time frame that Economic Development wrote a new strategic business plan, really to help businesses survive, which included LIF grants, rounds one and two, microloans to small businesses, agribusiness grants to help the agricultural area,

Safe Spaces and Places Grants, which extended the footprint for outdoor business transactions.

We held websites and webinars to educate small businesses on opportunities to apply for federal grants and or other opportunities for funding or other suggestions on their books and the like.

And then we also had a Buy Local campaign near the end of the year to help with marketing the goods and services of our local purveyors so that they could continue their business when they may not be able to afford to market themselves.

So none of that was really included in Project Enable, but it did encompass nearly a year's worth of work and we thought it was noteworthy to mention it.

So our first goal.

and Project Enable is to strengthen the existing business retention and expansion plan.

We call that the BRE.

We've got a few examples out here.

We call these out because we connect local businesses to state resources through our connections and allow our local businesses to grow.

It includes examples such as Greenberry's, Biomic,

who are both in the valet program.

For those who are listening and may not be familiar, the valet program is a state program that allows people to expand internationally.

While a lot of the folks that we work with are good business owners and very smart people, how to enter into the market in Australia or Europe is just not something that they

people intuitively know.

So we connect them to resources and businesses for distribution and excise taxes and the like.

Additionally, there's Punch Out To Go, who is in a two year program for cloud computing that helps with e-commerce.

They are in the economic gardening program.

Gropen, also Economic Gardening Program.

You see Emerson on here.

We connected them through PVCC to create a workforce development pipeline.

We helped an agribusiness grow through a grant.

Skylar Greens, Doug mentioned Apton Scientific.

We helped them with Vija.

All of these activities resulted out of our BRE program.

We just wanted to highlight a few examples to illustrate that we believe the BRE program is functioning well and working.

Our second goal was to improve the business climate.

You'll see some examples of what we had zoning text amendments.

We had expedited review for Castle Hill Gaming.

We created a website that helps people start a business.

There's also a Bonimos, which I think, Bonimos, which you guys just attended a short while ago.

We had to overcome some business climate issues there to get them into our community.

Those are just a couple examples.

Our third goal is a long goal, and so my voice is cracking.

Good afternoon, directors of the EDA, members of the board.

My name is JT Newberry.

I'm going to walk us through goals three, four, and five.

Roger just mentioned goal three is particularly long, so it will be on the next two slides.

Just a couple of highlights we wanted to point out.

The pandemic certainly impacted our efforts on the Broadway Blueprint and community engagement, but we've remained connected to our infrastructure partners involved in that process, particularly ACSA and their capital planning.

They are included in their most recent capital plans is the update of a water main to serve the businesses along this corridor.

That will be a greater than $1 billion investment in the infrastructure to ensure that those businesses remain adequately served now and in the future.

In the lower right-hand corner of this slide is a picture of North Fork.

This was the groundbreaking of the Lewis and Clark Drive extension.

This is the main thoroughfare that goes through North Fork, a UVA Discovery Park.

This site is incredibly important to the county's inventory of commercial and industrial sites.

It's the county's only Tier 4 site, and so the foundation provided more than $6 million towards that infrastructure improvement.

Just last week, last Friday, we partnered with the foundation to submit a grant to take that Tier 4 site from Tier 4 to Tier 5 under the Virginia Business Ready Sites program.

So we're looking forward to hearing from the state how we scored in that process, but we're really excited about the things that are happening there.

Another highlight was Albemarle Business Campus.

This was a site that was slated for residential development.

It was going to be about 50 detached and unattached residences, but we worked with the developer to incorporate public elements into a greater than $40 million investment in that site to be a future home for business.

And then the last thing on this slide I want to mention is Kimberly Horn is going to be the consultant working with community development on the comp plan update.

A long desired piece of information for us is an inventory of our commercial and industrial properties.

And so, Kimberly Horn is going to provide that to us and it's going to be essential as we go forward towards working on this goal of improving readiness for business.

A couple other things we want to mention.

Doug mentioned this at the outset.

Our codified policies for VJIP, COF, and AFID grants through various departments at the state level have been really useful in communicating to the business community

the value of partnering with the county.

And so on the right-hand side of the slide, you can see the photographs from one of those announcements, an AFID grant for Potter's Craft Cider.

This goal talks about supporting our agribusinesses and Potter's Craft was able to use that grant to adaptively reuse a historic building and

their particular business has done quite well even during COVID because their outdoor space where customers can adequately space and still enjoy their product.

Couple other things to mention, Environmental Standards is the firm that we worked with at Barnes Lumber to do an evaluation and partial remediation of that site to facilitate the Barnes Lumber public-private partnership.

And then lastly, the DAC Committee has provided essential support for both our veterans and active military in our community.

Defense is a target industry and it contributes greater than $600 million to our local economy.

So we're really proud to have been a part of that effort.

In the interest of time, I won't spend a lot of time talking about Woolen Mills or Barnes-Lumber, which we've already mentioned several times.

Other than to say we're thrilled that the public elements at Woolen Mills are completed.

The bridge there pictured in the lower right-hand corner providing both pedestrian and bicycle facilities along the trail network there.

I do want to point out in the top left-hand corner, this is the future home of Castle Hill Gaming.

Much like Albemarle Business Campus, this was slated to be just an apartment building, but Stonefields located within an opportunity zone and we were able to connect this growing business with the developer there who was able to add a floor of non-residential giving more vertical mixed use

already mixed use development.

This is immediately adjacent to the Hyatt.

And I believe this construction, this picture here is as of last week.

So we're looking forward to that being completed and Castle Hill moving in shortly.

Goal five has been a lot of fun pursuing this goal.

This is our goal to get out into the community, to talk about Project Enable, and to get feedback on the strategies that we're pursuing.

So in the middle lower picture, you see Roger presenting at a community advisory committee.

We attend those meetings sometimes to talk about specific projects, sometimes just to be in a support role.

The county has a LinkedIn page, Economic Development has a LinkedIn page that's allowing us to reach a broader audience, particularly our local business community with resources.

The Buy Local campaign is a partnership with the city of Charlottesville.

It's been a wonderful opportunity to talk about the importance of our local business community and how buying local contributes to keeping our community unique and thriving.

And so

I think I'll take Bill 6.

Thank you, JT.

Bill 6, the project enable is to develop strategic partnerships with economic development institutions in our community.

A few examples, JT mentioned the Buy Local campaign, which is jointly supported by the county and the city of Charlottesville.

Project Rebound was formed with the Chamber of Commerce, UVA, the city, and the county for the purposes of restarting our economy.

In the top left-hand corner,

You'll see JT presenting to a group of startup businesses at the Community Investment Collaborative, which is also in partnership.

and supported by the city of Charlottesville.

We have also partnered with the city of Charlottesville for training opportunities such as the Go Cook program.

While this isn't necessarily the same type of strategies that we use to grow the economy, this actual program helps to marginalize community as we teach a specific skill and life skills to those who are somewhat marginalized to

provide them with a career pathway forward.

And in the bottom right hand corner, you'll see the original founders of Venture Central, which includes UVA, Chris Angle from the city, and of course the county where you'll hear more about that.

But Venture Central has now been lost and is currently searching for its first executive director.

So our strategic partnerships continue and are being productive as we speak.

Goal 7, we didn't have a lot of strategies and objectives for goal 7.

At that particular time, there was no

Director of the CACVB.

However, we knew that we wanted to support tourism as part of our economy.

What you see in front of you are a couple of examples of that.

There is a new marketing program called Historic Vines, New Roots.

Why this is important is it is a switch somewhat from leading with history to invite visitors here and moving to more of the wine experience as being the lead.

And then while visitors are here, they can enjoy the

and the

folks from the CACVB can get out into the community where people are actually at and talk to them about other opportunities to enjoy the county and of course spend money and leave it here behind.

There's also an initiative to make this a place for all people and where they would like to, all people would like to visit.

So we have a digital footprint and program called Black Seval or Discover Black Seval.

All this is in concert with the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

as well as participates with the city and we're hoping to build that tourism sector.

And then in the bottom right hand corner we had hoped to play a video for you that kind of illustrates the coordination between the city and the county but because of problems with technology we decided not to show that today but we'll certainly send you an email link to that if you want to view it at a later time.

So with that being said those are our seven goals

and

and the bottom right-hand corner.

It's a co-construct announcement and the middle bottom you'll see it's a will-a-tree announcement.

He also came in for Castle Hill Gaming in the top middle and most recently he participated in the announcement of bottom-most going into the State Farm Building.

So we feel very proud of the accomplishments of Project Enable.

Thank you, Roger.

So the way we're going to proceed is we'll go through the, I'll ask for comments from each of the EDA members and then Chair Galloway will ask for comments from the members of the Board of Supervisors.

Okay.

No, I do not.

All right.

Ms.

Immelt?

I just want to say the event with the governor last week was fantastic.

You guys really pulled that together.

And the only comment I'd like to make is I've been encouraged, but I'd like to see more opportunity for public comment at our EDA meetings.

And I noticed that we do not have one on this agenda.

So I just think

Just so you know, there was apparently a technical issue we had with the public comment on this meeting, which was the reason we're not having it today.

Nothing in particular, but thanks for pointing that out, Don, because I too would like to see us encourage more public comment.

And I did have one brief question.

My understanding is Kimley Horn is a consultant on comp plan update.

Thanks, Director Sree.

No, it will include other elements.

They're examining the residential pipeline and other aspects of the comp plan update.

Thanks.

All right.

Yes.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

We'll go through our speaking order for comments or questions.

Mr. Galloway, Mr. Walker, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Newberry, wow, that's all I can say.

47 million in investment, 127 million in return, 542 new jobs, 600 million that the defense industry contributes.

I mean, that's really showing getting the job done.

Really appreciate what you've done.

And I was really pleased to see the vertical mix use in Stonefield.

I've long believed that you have to have both jobs and residents co-located

or very closely located in order to have a vibrant community.

And so that was a great ad there.

Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Newberry, and thank you very much, Mr. Johnson.

That was a great presentation.

I learned a lot.

And just to piggyback on what Supervisor Price said, including the 592 estimated jobs, that is fantastic.

I'm so proud of everything the EDA is doing and so proud of all of its members, because I know how hard you all work.

So in the interest of time, I'm good with everything.

And thank you very much for the presentation.

It's great to see the progress.

I would like to ask, as for a latter date from the county,

the different consultants that are contributing to the comp plan and what portions they're dealing with and again for another time.

Yes, thank you.

Great presentation.

I am just really impressed and supportive and appreciative of the work that the economic development team is doing for our community because, let's face it, you guys are helping us bring in income and revenues that help us support education and infrastructure and all of the other things that we feel like we need to do and not having to rely on just increases in property.

So thank you.

I will ask one quick question because I know and I need to stop because I know we're short on time.

I think I heard that Kimberly Horn is proceeding with the inventory that I have mentioned several times.

They need to get completed.

We started it and then we had a hard stop.

Is that correct, JT?

Yes, they are working on it as we speak.

I reached out for an update with the project lead, and I have not heard back today, but they are actively working on this part.

Excellent, because we really need to get that completed.

Thank you very much.

It is such a pleasure to listen to what has happened since 2008 because in 2008 the rule was that UVA was going to take care of all of our economic development and we didn't need to bother.

And so I am just so impressed with the quality of the work that's been done and the quality of the people we have brought

to our area or kept in our area.

The building inventory was underway in 2010, so I cannot, if that, I hope they're building upon the work that was done before, which was considerable, but I guess there were gaps that didn't get done, so I cannot wait for that to be done.

I love George's picture of the War Memorial in his background.

I think that's a beautiful thing.

We also need to keep our eyes on Rivanna Station and how the county can help

both CDD staff as well as economic development staff and the board to help them prosper, expand, and do what they need to do to stay.

And my question for some future time, excuse me, is how are we embedding our work on climate change into the work of Project Enable?

You know, Roger, I just want to commend you and your team.

brought you on board four years ago.

We got Project Enable in place.

We got JT running.

We got Jennifer.

We got Ashley.

I mean, this is a growing team and the work is all attributed to the guy, the fine work you guys do day in and day out to make the economic development activity happen in Albemarle County.

I was able to say that in front of some folks this past Thursday.

I mean every word of it and know that we're going to continue to achieve what we're shooting for because of the quality of team that we have.

I want to thank Roger Johnson for serving his master's ceremonies for the dedication of our Veterans Memorial and to the four

Members of the Board of Supervisors that were able to attend and Mr. Gallaway for his comments.

Which is awesome.

We're all thrilled to be there.

Thank you, George.

Thank you, Chairman.

We want to talk about a couple of things with both the Board and the EDA together.

As you know, Project ENABLE happened three or four years ago.

You've seen the recent accomplishments.

Included in that were four codified policies, the AFID grant match, the VJIP grant match, the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund grant match, and then the ENABLE grant, which allows us to do

tax increment financing to help projects happen that wouldn't happen but for county participation.

And now moving forward we'd like to discuss a couple other economic development strategies and tools and get your feedback and see if we can move forward with some additional tools in our toolbox.

Those two tools that we'd like to talk about specifically today include the Economic Development Authority controlling land and then JT is going to take us through the potential of creating an existing building reuse grant.

So I believe, JT, next slide, please.

As I mentioned, we're seeking concurrence for these strategies.

It is important that we talk about the operational definition of site control.

So if you'd go to the next slide, please.

In this particular discussion, we're talking about the exercise of dominion of purchase, sale, long-term lease, or receipt of deed or conveyance of land.

or the option to purchase the property where the option is not revocable by the seller.

So when we talk about site control here in this particular situation, it's important that we have a baseline understanding of what we mean about this particular subject.

And then next slide, please.

One of the reasons we think it's important for the Economic Development Authority to control land is they have special powers that the Board of Supervisors does not.

I'm not going to read these to you.

They're self-explanatory, but they provide an opportunity for business to happen faster.

I'd like to spend just a minute giving you a few examples of how other communities have used land control to accomplish the strategic vision of their boards.

I want to say

that some of the examples we are talking about here would not be suitable for our particular community.

What I am providing are just illustrative examples of how other communities use them.

It's understood that we have our own customized strategy for economic development.

So some of these examples just would not be applicable to our county.

Nonetheless, counties have used them in different ways.

On the top left, you'll see that Amherst created a business park

that business park was called Zane Sneed and it's pictured in the center of the particular slide.

You'll notice that they have three companies now in Zane Sneed and they have additional acreage for future expansion.

So they built an industrial park using economic development authority awning the land.

On the right hand side, you'll see that Chesterfield Board of Supervisors approved a plan to spend $27.7 million

on the Poe White Parkway extension.

It allocated $24 million of that to the Chesterfield Economic Development Authority, who later, shortly thereafter, spent half of that money, $13 million or so, on 2,057 acres in western Chesterfield track.

They've turned that over to a developer.

The property is known as Upper Magnolia.

Green was zoned in 1991 for residential uses, but because there's so much residential growth in the area, they would like for this to become more of retail, office space, and commercial investment with high paying jobs.

So the Economic Development Authority took control of this land to make sure its future was consistent with this comprehensive planning.

in the top left-hand corner.

This is a long story, but I think it's applicable to share this with you.

In 1942, in Vent Hill, the U.S.

Army established a Vent Hill farm station.

And in 1973, that base shifted to research and development.

In 1993, there was base realignment and closure where this particular facility was closed.

So in 1998, the Vent Hill Economic Development Authority was formed to

and they took ownership of this particular property in 1999.

It was renovated, army based for mixed use purposes and in 2014,

The remainder of that property was purchased by Vent Hill Village LLC and they're setting out to create a vision that was created for Vent Hill and itself.

So in that particular scenario they took what would have been an albatross around the community's neck and turned it into something that would be more fitting for its community.

In the middle,

you'll see an example of how the Chesterfield EDA acquired 353 acres in March it simultaneously sold the bulk of that land to another buyer in a quick turnaround sale so they sold 307 of the 353 acres for 18.1 million and when that happened

The buyer was Peanut LLC, which intends to develop the land for commercial use, also consistent with their comprehensive planning.

And in the top right hand corner, I thought it would be interesting to show a local example, Greene County purchased the land on Route 29 in front of Lowe's and Walmart shopping center in Rutgersville.

The intent for that property was an expanded visitor center and future projects.

And the reason I give you that example is because EDA ownership of land doesn't come without some consternation by the community.

Many people have

strong feelings about public properties and that ranges from easements to parkland to different uses that they would like to see.

So even though we're suggesting that the EDA consider land ownership, we want to be transparent in our comments and say that it's not always exciting times and it does come with some degree of consternation.

So for the discussion that we'd like to hear your thoughts, we'd like to set some baseline assumptions so that we don't have to talk about those as a group.

We would like you to assume that any land ownership would involve both the board and the EDA when it was being considered, that we're only talking about land within the development areas.

We're solely discussing commercial industrial uses today, that anything that EDA

is to do with land would be consistent with the existing comp plan and project enable.

And we would certainly bring back some best practices for financial and risk management.

Thank you, Roger.

So we'll go through the members of the EDA.

My only comment is this.

As many of you know, I was director of economic development for the city of Charlottesville for 17, 18 years.

And we had great success with forming public-private partnerships on city-owned property.

And the number of projects that we were able to accomplish is as long as you're armed.

We were able to take vacant non-productive land and put it on the tax rolls.

and offer developable land to the business community.

And I'm very proud of the amount of work we were able to get done that way.

Thank you, Mr. Ray.

I think it's an excellent tool to have at our disposal.

I wouldn't want to have it be our primary business, so to speak, but I think it's an excellent actionable item to be able to move forward on with specific things that could be impactful.

And in the county, when you have land that is promising, but it's been laying fallow for an extended period of time, I'd love for us to be able to have a conversation and take the lead on it.

I would just answer that this is simply one tool in the toolbox in my opinion.

For sure.

Imhoff?

I'm supportive and I think again it's just one tool, but would also give us an opportunity maybe to talk sometimes as well about

the benefits like some of the green infrastructure and connectivity that we could also maybe enforce or encourage if we have more control over the property.

Mr. Shree?

I think there's significant promise in this area.

I'm glad we're exploring it.

And while

In general, this is probably premature to suggest priorities.

I do think that as we look into it that it's wise to prioritize commercial industrial use as we appear ready to do, or at least limited to that at first.

And I think we should also consider something like prioritizing

its use in whatever form for existing businesses and helping them.

We notice significant problems in two ways with existing businesses where this will come into play or could come into play.

One is having access to affordable commercial real estate and secondly helping preserve the businesses in that regard

but also helping them to expand where their existing footprint or existing real estate is incapable of supporting such expansion.

I would suggest prioritizing those things before we go into what might be the third

Thank you.

Yeah, I think this looks like a great idea.

We are down in Scottsville.

We are exploring all sorts of different options of what to do with our factory.

with the old Hy-Sun factory down here.

Part of it's looking residential, part of it's looking at an open space, part of it is looking at doing something with that building.

So having a tool like this for the county, I think could be really helpful in some circumstances.

Thank you.

I guess what I would add to it is I think one of the things that that potentially would the EDA would benefit from this would be an additional income stream to the EDA.

As, as we've gone along and we've had all of these various projects that we've been funding so much of that funding is is had to come from the county.

appropriating it, providing it to the EDA to turn around and support these businesses.

And if there's more money, if there's income potentially there for the county, for the EDA, then that's more money that's available that can be reinvested without having to come out of the county's general fund.

So I think there's some real benefits there.

And I do think that it allows us to target the land so that we're doing things with

in line with the county's goals for how they want things developed in accordance with the comprehensive plan and project enable.

If we rely on developers to come in and do that, we may not always get what we want in those particular locations.

So I think it's a really good tool that potentially allows the EDA to use some of its financial

ability in terms of loans to also make it attractive to get the sort of development that we want to get.

So I think it's got us headed in the right direction along with the things that we're going to talk about next.

So I appreciate that Roger and the staff coming up with this issue for us to talk about.

So that's all the EDA members.

Chair Galloway, we'll hand it over to you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Chair Gallaway.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

And in the interests of brevity, I will simply echo what Mr. Long just stated.

He succinctly covered all of the things that I see as the advantage, which allows the county to target better with some control over land rather than having to wait for someone else to do it.

Yes, thank you very much.

And I just had a question for either Mr. Long or actually probably Mr. Johnson or Mr. Newberry.

The first one says both BOS, EDA involved in any future land consideration.

And then at the bottom, what are your thoughts on the EDA controlling land?

Would you explain to me the difference between being involved, is that involved but with no

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for that question, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

We have not really fully defined, involved.

I think we wanted to make sure that

that the Board of Supervisors was aware that although the EDA would control the land, all these discussions would take place with the board at the table, most likely in closed session so that the board would have influence on the future of that.

And any future use of the land and what it may be used for would certainly include the board's involvement.

As far as the structure itself, we can structure this

any way that the board so desires if it wants to have some say so over it, we could certainly come back with the guidelines that meet those expectations.

Well, I'm supportive of this as a general policy and even beyond.

I am supportive of this.

So thank you very much, Mr. Johnson.

Thank you.

So I really appreciate you starting off with the assumptions.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley asked exactly what I was going to ask.

So I won't say that again.

I won't ask it again.

However, I would want what the BOS involvement would be to be very clear.

And as far as I'm concerned, I believe it should be substantial.

I think that that's in the best interest in the long term.

because we don't know who's going to be on boards and commissions and authorities in the future and things are difficult to change once they get going.

I also like the idea because I think we could potentially get some green infrastructure on 29 North which I would love to see.

I think it would really spur

Development, if we had some green spaces.

And I also very much appreciate the, I think it was Mr. Shreve that mentioned the existing businesses and the concentration on keeping our small businesses and allowing them to grow.

I think that needs to be a big part of this.

And I'll stop there.

Yes, thank you.

In general, I am very supportive of this and appreciate you all bringing it forward to us.

It's a great opportunity for our boards to partner together to do some great things for the county.

I have a quick question and I don't know whether it's for Roger or JT, but I know we're short on time, but can one of you all give us a quick hypothetical situation about owning land, how that might play out

in Albemarle County as opposed to one of the other.

Yes, ma'am.

I'll be glad to answer that question.

Thank you, Supervisor McKeel, for actually asking that.

some examples and these are just hypothetical as you mentioned the county already owns a substantial amount of land we could evaluate the existing properties owned by the county the Board of Supervisors could then convey that land over to the EDA the EDA then could dispose of that land under the direction of the Board of Supervisors whether that be

Aesthetically pleasing infrastructure at an entrance corridor.

Or it could be turning it into commercial industrial purposes in the Rio 29 area, achieving small area plans.

Or it could be just like Director Shreve mentioned, that we take that land and prioritize it for an existing business expansion.

Great, thank you very much and I am supportive of this.

Can I comment on that if I could, Mr. Chair?

Yes.

The board may recall the work that Stantec did in looking at some of the opportunities for courts and general government.

And in that, there was some general conversation around the value of public-private partnerships.

And it was acknowledged that, absent the control of property, it made it much more difficult to affect the public-private partnership.

And so it adds to the ability to kind of move quickly

and to leverage what you own in ways that you want in order to accomplish your goals without having to rely on private sector ownership of property.

And I think that in my previous experience, Ken can significantly contribute to the extent then that you are able to then compete with other sites and other jurisdictions if you, through the control of property, can offer

And I'll just add something from my own personal experience.

You can also lease the land so that ultimately it remains in the control of the county.

At the end of the day, you're not giving it up forever, but you're allowing it to go to a long-term lease potentially for somebody to do the kind of development you want, but then it would come back to the county at the end of the day, which, depending on the circumstances, may be a preferable outcome.

All right, very good.

Thank you.

I do appreciate this concept very much, especially with the guardrail, excuse me, the guardrails which were already stated.

I think that helps us to avoid

any kind of briar patches along the way.

But as far as the process question, what I was guessing or understanding from that first bullet was that BOS would be consulted and give approval about going forward.

And then the EDA would manage its operation and deliberation.

So each people, each group working to their strengths.

But I look forward to learning more about it.

I'm very supportive of this and I may have missed something so somebody can correct me I don't need to draw out the conversation at this point but I mean we have the guiding policy for using this tool that's project enable so everything we do economic development wise is being driven by those

by that policy, that plan.

So while I'm sure there are things, just the procedural things that we have to figure out to put this tool into use or to execute this goal, I don't feel like we have to come up with a new overarching policy that drives it, but we have that.

So, you know, this is, I presume since this is coming forward in this way that this is a big obstacle or one that our team is saying we need to be more effective and I'm certainly all in support of that.

Thank you.

Mr. Long, am I coming back to you?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to move us to the existing building reuse grant.

This is a proposal that the Economic Development Authority has already seen and provided some great comments on.

There's a lot of words on the screen here, and before touching on any of it, I think it would be helpful if I just took a minute to talk about

some of the specific experiences the Economic Development Office has had.

And it has started with our business retention and expansion program as we've started to engage our local companies.

They've taken advantage of great opportunities to expand and the most consistent roadblock that we've seen has been with space and land and the finding a place that is both

hospitable to their business needs and then also the price.

And what often happens is the company is working with a broker and they're finding that there's very limited supply within the county and that there are other opportunities and outlying areas that are more affordable.

And while the companies desperately want to stay in Albemarle,

or they could even be expanding out of the city and they'd like to remain close to their original, their origins in the city and just come out into the county, that they have to delay or reduce that expansion or they have to leave the region entirely.

We could talk through some specific examples of that, but this is a tool that Roger had success with in North Carolina and to give you just a 30-second summary of it,

This would be a grant, a rebate of up to 50% of the capital cost of an expanding business that's in one of our target industries that's looking to move into space that's been vacant or unoccupied for the last six months.

And so when we talk about capital costs, we're talking about things that can't get up and leave and walk out the door but capital investment into the building that they would be occupying.

before we look at a specific example, I just want to mention there's a growing amount of policy support for a tool like this, the comprehensive plan, Project Enable certainly, but the climate action plan, and even in talking to the building official, at the general assembly level, there's a lot of movement to figure out how can we make sure the building code is not an impediment to

businesses that are able to reuse existing space.

So this would be a grant that would be administered with existing economic development budget resources and administered by our staff.

But I think it would be helpful to talk through one example, and so we're calling this project example.

This is a real case that our office has been working through, a primary business that's looking for 10,000 square feet.

The space that would work for the company in the county is $17 a square foot but would need $100,000 of investment.

In an outlying area, they found suitable space that would be $9 a square foot.

And then even a little bit further, they found space that would be $4 a square foot.

And so the companies often understand that staying in Albemarle, because of all of the great things that it has to offer, that there would be a premium to be here.

But this grant would help reduce the magnitude of that premium and make it palatable for them to stay here.

So in this example, a $100,000 investment to the space, for example, improving a loading dock so that they can accept deliveries, and then the improvements needed for their equipment to the HVAC system and the electrical system, those would be eligible.

If there was a $100,000 capital investment, they'd be eligible for a $50,000 reimbursement.

So that's just kind of just to tell the story a little bit of how we encountered these issues and why we think this tool would be so valuable.

Just like with the EDA control of land, we've listed some assumptions here to help guide the discussion.

We'd obviously be limited by our existing budget resources.

We still don't have a dedicated

We rely on positive year-end variants and other opportunities.

Likewise, this would be a BOS award-informed grant and then administered by the EDA.

This would be within the development areas for commercial industrial development.

consistent with the comp plan and project enable and utilizing best practices for financial oversight management.

Thank you, JT.

I think everything has been very well expressed

Thank you.

I second Mr. Ray's comments.

I fully support this.

Okay.

Ms.

Zimhoff?

I am wildly enthusiastic about this.

I think this is exactly what we need to do to use existing buildings and we might need to come back someday and get some more budget resources if this goes well.

Mr. Street.

Yes, I think there's a lot we can do here.

I did ask previously about how we might potentially use this for an additional kind of leverage that JT didn't mention here.

And I did hear back on some level about this query, and that is that I was

Curious about, you know, one of the dilemmas here, and that is if you only endeavor to make a lease premium more palatable, then you might actually encourage the increase in that very premium over time.

And I think we might be serving our community well if we look into ways we can

use potential leverage, after all we're talking about valuable capital enhancements and subsidizing those, using that kind of leverage to soften at least premia in the area, to keep them from rising so quickly so that our differential is not so large and that we're always, you know, kind of fighting this battle and pushing a really

One thing, may I add something?

Sure.

OK.

Mr. Munson?

I think this is a great idea.

I mean, we've in Scottsville, we've got a lot of historic buildings and that's one of the things that gives us our character and anything we can do to save those buildings, we always try to do.

And I think it's in the county's best interest to try and save some of these old buildings.

Thank you.

I agree entirely we're all familiar with property in the development area that is being underutilized and I think anything we can do to help encourage that development of already developed areas is a great idea.

Supervisor Price, you are up first.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

As with the others who've commented, I fully agree and support this.

As Mr. Ray most recently indicated, these are capital improvements, they're fixtures, they go with the land.

So it's not something that would be removed and ultimately that increases the property value.

And I'm sure that the economic development authority would ensure that there is a reasonable payback period.

from the company to make the counties getting our return on our investment.

So we support this.

Thank you.

I'm totally in favor of reusing our existing buildings and I think this is a great idea.

Totally supportive.

I'm generally supportive.

I'm

I can't imagine that the scale of this would ever get to the point where we would actually affect the rental, the square foot rental prices in the area.

At this juncture our budget certainly wouldn't support anything.

I'm fine with this.

OK.

All right.

Yes, I'm very supportive of this.

I have to have one quick question, though.

I noticed that you were saying that the property had to be empty or abandoned, not used for six months.

Just curious, what's the magic about six months?

I understand you have to prove that it's really... I'm sorry, I'm going to stop because I'm coughing.

Mr. Newberry, if I may, I can probably address that better.

Supervisor McKeel in North Carolina, they had a 90-day window on the building reuse grant.

And the general idea is the state did not want to subsidize any building that could be already adaptively reused without this additional capital investment.

Actually, that makes perfect sense.

I understand.

Thank you.

I am supportive of it as well, especially since there are multiple

1950s to the 1960s manufacturing plants either through or about to be through with their remediation in the White Hall district who might be able to benefit from this.

And one thought I believe, one of them is in the rural area, but very close to industrial sites now.

It may be used as a storage place or something, but certainly it's not its highest and best use.

So I don't know if there's any flexibility one could put in now and then for something such as this where it still will require a million dollars in upgrade for some uses, but, um, it's not empty.

And I, not to be left out, agree with the others and I'm supportive of this as well.

Um, and it looks like at this point in time, uh, am I turning to Doug?

My, for a listening check is what I have here.

I'll be on mute.

Thank you.

So there were three sections that we talked through.

I just kind of made some notes, and I'll just kind of generally characterize some of what I heard.

And we can obviously, with this group, add to that if and as needed.

In the opening session, just an acknowledgment of the interest to have public comment at EDA meetings.

There was an explanation for why this meeting didn't accommodate that, but I still captured it.

There was an acknowledgement of the value of vertical mixed use at the Stonefield project.

Ms.

Palmer asked for a list of the different consultants being used for the comp plan.

And there was a question about the Kimley-Horn proceeding with the inventory.

And you may need some follow up on that one, Supervisor McKeel.

There was an alert to keep an eye out on the Rivanna Station property, making sure that we help them prosper.

And there was a general question about making sure that we are looking where we can embed the work of climate change into the work of the economic development function.

That's what I captured from the opening session.

Are there any thoughts on that?

Comments, questions, additions?

All right.

It sounded good to me.

OK.

If not, then on the second issue of controlling land, again, I broke this out by the EDA comments and the board comments in sequence.

It was generally supportive.

Actually, both groups were generally supportive.

There was comments about prioritizing commercial industrial and prioritizing for existing businesses.

There was a thought that this is one tool, but not necessarily a primary tool.

There was an acknowledgement that this could add income stream to the EDA and reduce reliance on the general fund.

This is acknowledgement that it could allow for targeting land to be used best to meet the county's goals.

Overall, it's generally supportive.

On the BOS side,

There was some comments around looking for clarity around what's meant by the involvement of the BOS and a desire for the Board of Supervisors to be involved and that that involvement be substantial.

There was acknowledgment this could be a way to increase green infrastructure and a support of the focus on existing businesses.

There was a comment about appreciating the guardrails that were identified in the relationship between the board and the EDA in this regard.

and then there was a comment about the project enable actually serving as a primary guiding document and not necessarily see as a lot of policy work to be done as long as our guidance documents are well understood.

Any comments or questions about those notes?

I think you got it.

OK.

If not, the third section was the easiest.

There was generally supportive to wildly enthusiastic.

And I did acknowledge the concern that the grants with capital improvements could exacerbate the challenges that we currently face with affordability if it's not managed well.

That's what I captured.

I'd like to really second Supervisor Mallek's interest in finding out how climate change works into this project.

And I also want to add that

The EDA also mentioned green infrastructure as that this could be a tool.

The purchase of land could be a tool for green infrastructure implementation.

Very good.

Any other comments here?

All right, Doug, I think we're good.

All right, then I think we need to move into the closed session, so I'll go first here.

I move that the Albemarle County Economic Development Authority go into a closed meeting as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act Section 2.2-3711A

of the Code of Virginia under subsections five and six to discuss and consider the expansion of three existing Albemarle County businesses, products Poma, Cardinal, and Gadget where no previous announcement has been made of their interest in expanding their facilities in Albemarle County and where the investment of public funds to support such expansion involves bargaining and if made public initially would adversely affect the financial interests of the EDA and Albemarle County.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Mr. Ray.

Director Long.

Aye.

Director Ray.

Aye.

Director Sreen.

Aye.

Director Munson.

Aye.

Director Imhoff.

Aye.

And Director McNaughton.

Aye.

Yes I do Chair Galloway.

I move that the board go into a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-311A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 5 to discuss and consider the expansion of three existing Albemarle County businesses identified as projects, Poma, Cardinal, and Gadget, where no previous announcements have been made

of their interest in expanding their facilities at new locations in the county and, under subsection 6, to discuss and consider the investment of public funds to support the expansion of the three businesses referenced above, which involves bargaining and, if made public initially, would adversely affect the financial interests of the county.

Second.

Alright, please call the vote.

It needs to say 3711A, just to make sure we're absolutely correct on the code.

I said 3711A.

You said 311, so I just wanted to make sure we're absolutely literal.

That's fine, thank you.

Oh, okay.

All right, 3711A, we got it.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Aye Ms.

I think a quick motion to leave closed session is appropriate by each body.

Okay, we're live.

Okay, thank you.

I'm going to make the motion that I move that the EDA certified by recorded vote that to the best of each director's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed or considered in the closed meeting.

Is there a second?

Second by Mr. Ray.

Director Ray?

Aye.

Director Shreve?

Aye.

Director Munson?

Aye.

Director Emhoff?

Aye.

And Director McNaughton?

Aye.

I do.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Good.

So next on the agenda is project

Packet.

JT, do you want to?

We've got it up.

I just wanted to make sure the community was aware of what you all were considering today.

As a reminder, Bonamose is moving into the state farm building to adaptively reuse some of that space for its headquarters demonstration plan and R&D lab.

They have a three-year plan for a little over $27 million capital investment, creating 64 jobs with an average salary of just over $76,000.

and utilizing 36,000 square feet of that particular location.

There's also a little room for growth up to 50,000 with a special use permit.

Bonyamosis expects additional long-term growth there for both their headquarters and their enzyme production.

Okay, so the performance agreement was included in the package.

So we'll go and see if any of the EDA directors have any questions.

Mr. Ray?

No, sir.

Mr. McGaw?

No.

Ms.

Imhoff?

No, thanks.

Mr. Shreve?

No questions.

Mr. Munson?

None at this time.

I don't have any questions other than to say that I was very disappointed that I could not be there when we had the, that we had already made travel plans and were unable to be there.

I'm glad it was a success, but I'm sorry I wasn't there.

Alright, any questions here?

Supervisor Price?

No questions, thank you.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

No questions, thank you.

I don't have any questions here.

And let's see, we need to take a couple of votes here.

I think you're supposed to go first.

I'll make the motion, Ned.

This is Diantha.

I move that the board adopts this resolution approving the attached economic opportunity fund performance agreement between the EDA, Albemarle County, and Bondimos, Inc.,

and authorizes the county executive to execute the agreement on the board's behalf once the agreement has been approved as to form and substance by the county attorney.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Bea LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Mr. Long.

Alright, is there a motion, is there going to be a motion or resolution related to the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund Agreement?

So moved.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye Mr. Galloway Mr. Galloway Mr. Kurtley Aye Ms.

Chair Galloway just sent a note that his feed has frozen, so he may have to come back.

Mr. Camper, would it be OK if we passed on to the EDA and then came back to Chair Galloway when he's able to join us?

He just came back on.

And then he disappeared.

Are you calling by me, Supervisor Price?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, Mr. Galloway, back to you to turn over to the EDA.

Mr. Long.

All right, so I will

I will make this motion.

I move that, and I'm going to edit it to add the other agreements.

I think I need to correct the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund as well as the other one.

That's correct.

OK.

I move the EDA adopt this resolution approving the attached

All right.

The second was by Mr. Ray.

Any further discussion?

Director Ray?

Aye.

Director Shrieves?

Aye.

Director Munson?

Aye.

Director Imhoff?

Aye.

And Director McNaughton?

Aye.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Chair Long, Chair Galloway.

I really appreciate the active participation on the part of all members of both boards and being able to work through

The summary of the success and progress made in implementing Project Enable, as well as the consideration of the additional tools to go in the economic development toolbox.

Obviously, there's more to do here, and those two issues will be coming back for further consideration.

I really appreciate that.

I know that we are at a little bit short on time.

I do want to take just 30 seconds to that time, though, to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Jennifer Schmack.

Jennifer served as a project manager for us for about three years.

At the time that Jennifer joined, the reconstituted economic development effort was still very, very new.

JT was first and then Roger came in and then Jennifer was hired and just didn't want to miss an opportunity to acknowledge her many, many contributions.

As a small team, everybody does a lot.

of different things in order to make it all work.

When you look at how successful the EDA, the board, and the EDO, the office has been, Jennifer deserves a lot of credit for that.

I think she's probably best known for her relations out in the economic community in the county through the BRE program, but she meant a lot more than that.

So sad for us, good for her.

She's been hired as a director of economic development for Flovanna County.

So we're very proud of her progress and her moving in her profession to take on a larger leadership role.

So now we'll be competing against her, I guess, for projects, but that's just the way it goes.

And I want to thank everybody.

I think we got a lot of good guidance.

I appreciate it.

I think it's well worth our time to try to have these meetings together because I think, one, it increases our efficiency being able to hear about things together and act on things together.

So I'm glad we were able to do it, and I hope we can continue to do these.

Thank you both.

A quick comment.

Congratulations to Jennifer.

Although it was just a week or so ago that Supervisor McKeel and I did a little public forum and we talked about how well our economic director gets along well with the City of Charlottesville's economic director.

And while it's obvious that there's some competition involved here, I think it's also incredibly valuable to our region that the economic development directors all have a strong relationship with one another.

of how to make sure our region is successfully moving forward.

And I fully suspect, Jennifer, that you and Roger will maintain a very positive working relationship moving forward.

So congrats on that.

Thank you to Chair Long and to the Economic Development Board, the authority, for hosting us today.

It's always a pleasure to get together with you folks.

Ned, can I just point out, because you addressed it, that we have, for the public, that we have a memorandum of understanding around economic development with the city.

That was established a few years ago, and if anyone's interested, they can pull it up or ask us for it and we can share a copy with them, but it's online.

No, very good.

Very good point to make.

Thank you.

It is really important that we have a friend in other counties.

So I think it's Jennifer being in Flavana will be a help to us because one county cannot do it all by themselves, especially with Go Virginia.

We have to have partnerships with all of our surrounding neighbors in order to fight off these groups from other places to get the grants that we need.

So I know she'll do well.

And we know where you live is basically the idea.

So I'm really glad.

Very good.

Any further comments?

All right.

Are we adjourning in order?

Are we going to the EDA for adjournment first?

I will adjourn us first.

So the Board of Supervisors will adjourn to October 20th, 2021, 1 p.m.

That will be an electronic meeting pursuant, held pursuant to ordinance number 20-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Information on how to participate in the meeting will be posted on the Albemarle County website Board of Supervisors homepage.

Thank you.

And the EDA will adjourn to November 16, 2021 at 4 p.m.

and that also will be an electronic fee.

Thanks everybody.

Take care y'all.

Stay healthy.

See ya.

Have a nice Halloween.