Economic Development Authority Meeting   11/17/2020

So I wanna call the meeting to order and I will go read the preamble and then we vote.

Is that the way it works?

Okay.

All right.

Notwithstanding any provision of the EDA bylaws to the contrary as permitted under Albemarle County continuity of government ordinance adopted on September 16th, 2020,

Chapter 1283 of the 2020 Acts of the General Assembly enacted into law on April 24, 2020, when the resolution of this body adopted on April 21, 2020.

We are holding this meeting by real time electronic means with no authority member physically present at a single central location.

All authority members are participating electronically.

This meeting is being held in accordance with Section 6 of the county's Continuity of Government Ordinance.

All authority members will identify themselves and state their general physical location by electronic means during the roll call which we will hold next.

The public has real-time audio-visual access to this meeting over Zoom and real-time audio access over telephone.

both as provided in the Lawfully Posted Meeting Notice.

The public is always invited to send questions, comments, and suggestions to the authority through the county's Economic Development Office at any time.

All right.

All right, so the roll call.

Mr. Ray?

I know he's here.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Shreve?

Let's see.

Okay.

Mr. McNaughton.

Present and Troy, Virginia.

All right, Mr.

Okay.

Great.

So next on the agenda is approval of the minutes.

So are there any comments on the minutes from the October 2020 meeting?

I thought the minutes looked good.

I thought they were certainly more detailed than the ones we've had in the past, and I thought captured the discussion.

So I don't know if anybody else has any other comments.

All right, the minutes are approved.

Financial Report since Mr., oh, there he is.

Okay.

No, I have it as long as I can reduce my screen and read it, what I have to say here.

And Don, is there a way that, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but is there a way that we can see the board members rather than the agenda?

Or is it a preference by the board to see the agenda?

I just find it hard to follow the meeting.

I think that's good.

We all have the agenda in the board packet, right?

And it's so much easier to follow what people are saying and who's here and if we can see each other rather than the screen.

Totally fine with me.

Well, I mean, if we have a presentation, that's why, but when we're talking about things that we have in our packet, you know what I'm saying?

Can I raise one other point of order in terms of Mr. Shreve?

Oh, yes, I'm sorry.

Thank you, sir.

That's general.

All right, so our

Financial report is as follows.

We have existing net revenues of 31,485 and 88 based on interest earnings and bond fees received thus far this year and miscellaneous expenses and professional services totaling 852.14.

The most recent expenditures of which were related to copy services

and other miscellaneous office expenses in the amount of 177.14.

Our cash and cash equivalents including pass-through monies ending 10-31-2020 is 687.764.28.

That includes of course the pass-through monies

totaling $535,000 for which we have obligations.

Anybody else have any questions or comments?

All right, Dave.

All right, so on to new business.

I'll be glad to do that.

So I'd like the EDA to welcome Courtney Cacachian.

She is the executive director of the Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

She comes to us by way of Bristol, Tennessee slash Virginia, where she worked there for quite some time.

Courtney has her master's degree in tourism administration from the George Washington University with a concentration in sustainable and destination management.

Several directors had expressed an interest to understand what is going on in the tourism world and in ways that the county may support that.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for including me.

And I have a presentation prepared.

But if you have any questions along the way, please don't hesitate to interrupt me.

As Roger said, I represent the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau and have been on a little bit over a year at this point.

A truly bizarre year, of course.

I wanted to share with you all a snapshot of where the tourism industry is nationwide at this moment in time.

Destination analysts come out with a report every Monday, so this is fresh data from just yesterday, showing that there are travel plans that are changing given the recent surges in coronavirus.

So just as of last week, there is a significant change in people's travel plans for the next little bit here, especially upcoming this winter.

You'll notice that this is for the entirety of COVID and the excitement to travel right now is on downhill.

Swoop at the moment, which is the left-hand side, not nearly as low as it was this past spring, but heading in that general direction.

However, openness to tribal inspiration, which is what we at the CACBB do, is dipping, but not nearly so significantly.

The way that I read this is that we can still talk about Charlottesville and Albemarle County being a destination because people are receptive to that message, but they're not willing to travel here right now.

This is travel during the pandemic, so people who have taken the opportunity to fly, take a road trip, and also this upcoming holiday season, the trends nationwide.

And since this was the EDA, I also pulled this chart in that people support local business.

I know Roger is going to speak a little bit about our Buy Local campaign that will be doing collaboratively in the coming weeks.

During the director's report, but this is just to signify that American travelers do support local businesses that have a positive societal impact and share that with potential visitors and residents alike.

The CACDB is the official local tourism office which makes us the most trusted source of tribal information during COVID.

We take this responsibility very seriously and make sure that we are welcoming people to be safe in our destination but continuing to welcome them here regardless and

information on what's going on in the hospitality industry here and with our local emergency ordinances.

If you visit our website, visit Charlottesville.org, at the very top you'll see our COVID alert and we update that information such as when the governor came out with the executive order on Friday, we updated that within the hour.

Just to give you a little bit of an idea of our industry's impact on Charlottesville and Albemarle,

These are the 2019 economic impact numbers that are collected by the state.

2019 will be the year to which we want to return.

And we had an increase in economic impact in the county of nearly 4% for tourism expenditures.

Hey, Courtney?

Yes.

Just wanted to point out that it was over $400 million in economic impact in our community.

Absolutely.

This is a major part of our economy here and contributes in a number of different ways.

The elements about our destination that our visitors enjoy are very similar to the elements that our residents enjoy as well.

It's lodging.

I think primarily hotels.

I'm not sure they've gotten sophisticated enough for the short-term online rental at this point in time.

And then sales.

And the way that they track that is any person who comes from a zip code 50 miles away or more spends money in the destination.

Gotcha.

Courtney, does that also include an average spend when someone's here?

For example, if you stay overnight, you may use a family usually buys a meal, buys that kind of stuff.

This is more general.

The state does have a central Virginia profile of how long people stay here and how much money they typically spend.

We have an average night of about two nights in our destination.

Our goal to increase that length of stay because for every additional night you stay,

It generates a whole lot more visitor spending.

We aim for a visitor to spend two nights here at a minimum.

We don't want to be a pass-through destination.

We want to be a longer-term destination.

So we want people to come here intentionally and spend a significant amount of time here at least one full day.

Do you know how closely the

I would guess.

In 2018, all of the jurisdictions in Virginia had seen an increase in economic impact from tourism.

That wasn't the case in 2019.

I think the increase overall statewide was a little bit lower.

I'd have to go back to those numbers just to ensure that was the case.

But I can certainly track down that information and share it with Roger if he wanted to know that.

I'm sorry, I can't see you.

OK.

I apologize.

I'm making a note.

Anything else on this before I advance?

Employment numbers, obviously these are much lower given our current state of affairs, but just have an idea in the county, we had about 3,500 people employed in the tourism sector for 2019.

And then not only are we important to the local economy, we're important to our local governments as well.

We're one of the revenue generating, we're not exactly a department, we're a quasi-governmental organization, but the purpose of our organization is to generate lodging tax.

And so with the lodging tax,

The tourism industry being hit so much that will end up impacting our local jurisdictions and how much money they will be able to spend in subsequent years.

Just for you all to know, the CACBB operates on the lodging tax collection from two years in the past.

So we are living in a 2018 world with our current budget, but we'll have a slight decrease next year.

and then we'll have COVID hit us two years from now.

Our occupancy rates have been of course very unusual this year, but we just received October's today and we're really pleased to see that we've reached 70%.

That is 20 occupancy points higher than the state average for October.

Virginia Beach Hampton Roads area was keeping the state average

I was inflating it during the summer and as the season started to shift, we really were very pleased to see that we were able to get so many people visiting in October.

I was also really pleased to see, and I have the chart and a couple of slides from now, the COVID numbers didn't seem to reflect any

Negativity from tourists being here.

Courtney, question?

I know that I've read that hotels around the country are turning to sort of creative ways to increase their occupancy and revenue.

So things like people go for the day to get out of the house of work and some hotels are being quarantined or turning into quarantine spaces.

Wondering if you've got any sense for how much of that occupancy rate is

Thank you.

I didn't intend to bring that up and had forgotten.

We have one hotel that is housing homeless during this time and we also have hotels that aren't fully dedicated to housing UVA students but have

A substantial portion.

So yes, our occupancy rates are slightly inflated, especially from the UVA students.

And do you have any thoughts for what, I mean, these rates are phenomenal compared to national rates.

There are a lot of things that are happening simultaneously.

UVA's commitment to health and managing the crisis in coordination with the city and the county I think has helped.

We can market ourselves as a safe place to be and encourage people to visit with that in mind.

and have been doing so.

We're one of the few destination marketing organizations that hasn't had a budget cut during this time.

So we've been able to push.

We were a little more conservative with our marketing efforts in the summer because we didn't want to compete with the beach, but reserve that for the fall.

And so I think this is a lot of reflection of us

Sending out a message that consumers wanted to hear at the time that they were ready to travel for this fall.

I mean, we're definitely a fall and spring destination primarily and a lot of activities that lend themselves really well

to this unique period in time.

You can go out to a winery and space out.

They can go and have an outdoor recreation experience and be safe.

Yeah, this is spectacular.

And I just add that we did hear at one point, and Courtney can correct me if I'm wrong, from the vineyards that they were extremely busy.

Remember, they were just saying that they all through the summer and into the fall, and of course, our weather cooperated as well.

That makes a huge difference.

With the weather's cooperating, that really extends the season.

I'm hopeful that we have been able to extend it a little bit into November since we've had a couple of nice weekends in November.

And I won't know that until mid next month.

But yeah, our wineries have been busy throughout.

I think we're seeing a lot of day trips over the summer.

especially from Richmond in Northern Virginia and then that's extended a little bit further out as people have felt more comfortable staying in lodging properties.

That length of stay has been reflected here.

So the October results here seem to suggest based on the comments we just heard that vineyards and other

venues are doing a good job attracting people where they may.

This coincides with a UVA football season that really for all intents and purposes hasn't been able to accommodate fans other than I think a thousand.

So does this 70% capacity with that in mind suggest that

I think we've always been,

October is a perfect storm of having UVA football games, the Virginia Film Festival, and fall foliage happen simultaneously.

And so this year we were marketing to families who don't usually travel during this time because they likely can't afford our hotel rates.

We haven't gotten to rates, but they are still pretty significantly lagging, right?

So this isn't, that's not a full picture just to talk about occupancy.

When we had UVA football games and we have the Virginia Film Festival, those rates increase.

And so, you know,

The amount of money, revenue per available room that we're able to make per hotel room in October wasn't up to where we would normally see it be.

I'm trying to remember all of your question.

I'll just weigh in and mention this, Director Shreve.

Our team occasionally receives requests

from potential hoteliers and those who have purchased a flag to build here, and they've conducted a couple of feasibility studies.

Both of these were pre-COVID, but both of them said, yes, we believe there's enough demand for additional hotels in your market, you know, their location.

dependent somewhat.

And the weekends and the holidays are not the issue.

To get a hotel here, it has more to do with business stay.

In order for a hotel to be viable, you know, they also need a few folks staying here, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, if you will.

And so that has tempered the growth of the hotel industry in our community, having to do with proximity to a large employer, which would generate

Okay.

And what I'm getting at here is that the eternal question of whether new businesses coming in are going to cannibalize existing ones or whether there's pent up demand for the new businesses.

Thanks.

I think the other issue that we're gonna confront, and we talked about this at the airport as well is, what does the business travel look like coming down the road?

I don't think anybody has a sense of whether we're gonna be in a, how much are people gonna stay doing Zoom calls even when they can travel and how much are people just gonna be so happy to go somewhere that they're gonna just go and things will shift back closer to

to the way they used to be.

And I don't think anybody has a good idea of what what's going to happen.

Yeah, I mean, we've been lucky that we're a very leisure heavy destination typically.

And so that's reflected in our resiliency during this time.

But we've also been a very event focused destination.

And so as we shift away from that, that might help us with demand.

If we're not just welcoming people here for some offense, but having them understand all of the wealth of things to do year round.

I'm going to move on from this set of slides unless somebody wanted to spend some more time on average daily rate or revenue per available room.

But I'll just stop here for a second to say, you know, October is usually a peak, as you can see from

From this chart and this pattern is consistent throughout all three charts, but we are definitely anticipating a sharp decline in November and then this winter and even sharper one.

The county through the economic development grants for the CARES Act funding has been

Assisting during COVID to extend our shoulder season with our local businesses to provide tents and heaters and other things to make it a more comfortable experience for people to be outside for longer periods of time.

But the appetite as COVID increases in infections and then as the weather turns cold, we're likely to have a very significant dip, which

depending on how significant can result in hotel closures and almost definitely will result in restaurant closures for this winter.

Here's the map as promised from Charlottesville Tomorrow from their recent article just illustrating here that despite the

Our hotel's being relatively full in October.

We didn't see that surge of infections, which is a really positive sign.

I know we're all just holding breaths a little bit about how long we can maintain this.

Chair, if I could just be mindful that there has been some additional contextualization of this graphic.

And the health department will be presenting to the board of supervisors tomorrow afternoon for a normal update in advance of the board's consideration of its COVID ordinance.

But this graphic and the health department's take on it will be part of that discussion.

And it is good news.

I don't wanna suggest that it's not.

But it also does reflect a significant amount of testing.

When you look at positivity rate, you have to look at both sides of the equation.

So it is great news, but I wanted to add that additional context.

And if you want to listen in tomorrow afternoon to the board meeting, you can get the health department's further take on that.

So during this time, we have been marketing and if I'm running long, please just cut me off, Roger.

But we've been focused on marketing to our drive markets.

We have had a number of different efforts and really, as I think I've mentioned kind of throughout,

We've been focusing on family travel and a less expensive experience for the small to view our foliage and our outdoor recreation opportunities.

We also added a DARA implementation to our website.

And so we're able to track the total number of travelers and room nights and revenue for what our website is able to produce.

So this is good to see.

The booking window is very short right now.

The length of stay is also pretty tight.

And our average daily rate is well above the average for the destination, so we're attracting people who are willing to spend more money.

which may be slightly biased by the fact that UVA is likely buying down that average daily rate with the rooms that are reserved for the students.

We also have a robust public relations effort.

and continue to reach out to visitors.

On the 12th, we had an international media fam familiarization tour where we worked with our local partners remotely and were able to

Showcase, a number of different partners throughout the city and the county and let the media know what was new.

We took them to King Family Vineyard, we took them on horseback, we took them to the Looking Glass, a bunch of different spots throughout the city and the county, all virtually.

which is generating stories.

The travel media is hungry for new content and with the inability to travel, more of these virtual experiences are what we are looking forward to this winter so that we can keep that engagement going and let folks know what's happening here even if they're not able to travel here.

We'll also be launching our mobile visitor centers.

We'll have two of them.

We're hoping to have them out on

And then unveiling in December, we have a county schedule here that was passed by the CACBB board at the end of October that illustrates the different locations where we're going to be testing things out for the first probably about six months to make sure that that these places and this timing works really well for meeting visitors where they are in a safe way.

We made the decision to close our brick and mortar locations because we aren't able to serve visitors very well inside.

We are working through the procurement process.

So it's a little bit of an unknown.

And they are at the RAP vendor, but they just don't get up fit.

Okay.

If you can let me know, I can help you publicize to Scottsville.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

Honestly, with Mr. Wallace to make sure that we're getting in the right location.

And just the city schedule so that you all know that we are in both locations.

And we're leaving room in the schedule for special events as well, because sometimes visitors aren't on these locations all the time.

So we want to have a nice balance of being in a predictable spot, but also the flexibility to be able to be at a special event at the UVA football game or the film festival or any of those larger events.

Courtney, just more of a comment.

One, I wanted this team, you expressed an interest in what's going on in the tourism industry.

I wanted to, one, demonstrate we're in good hands.

We're very fortunate to have Courtney as part of our team and glad she's here.

Hope you were able to ascertain that through a presentation.

The other point I wanted to make was in the graph where she showed both room occupancy as well as the revenue per room.

There's a revpar analysis, which is a combination of the two that dictates how much revenue is actually being generated in our community.

It directly impacts the amount of taxes in our transit occupancy tax figure configuration.

which means in the year 2022, Courtney's budget will be negatively impacted by this pandemic.

There's a two-year lag in the time this, we pay the, we receive these occupancy tax in the time she gets them.

So while she's not here for a specific ask today, I ask that this EDA bear in mind come 2022, the CACDB may be in a much different place and we'll need to be ready to support to the extent that we can.

Any other questions for Courtney before she leaves?

All right.

Thanks, Courtney.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, everyone.

So the next agenda item is the

amendment to the bylaws.

So Mr. Shreve had raised this question before the last meeting.

And at the last meeting, we decided that we would

develop a proposed amendment to the bylaws.

I talked to Richie about it.

He then put together the proposed amendment that we have in front of us.

I'll sort of give my view about sort of what my goal was in how to approach this.

And then Richie, you can give any other thoughts that you've got about kind of

ideas in terms of framing it.

My idea was that we wanted to keep something and sort of start small.

And and then if we feel the need to expand it or to add more more involvement, we can.

But I felt like it would be hard if we sort of threw it open, wide open to lots of opportunities that it then becomes harder to sort of

sort of limit the, not limit the discussion, but to back off of it.

So I tried to go, this is similar to the policy that the airport authority uses, which I'm familiar with.

And I think, you know, we wanted to give a chance for people to speak up and talk about the items that are on the agenda.

So that was kind of the framework that I wanted to

to use to start out with.

And that was the guidance that I had given Richie in terms of what I wanted to see.

So I'll let him give his thoughts and then we can sort of give people a chance to talk about it.

So, Mr.

Chair, thank you.

In terms of crafting the resolution, we tried to take into account the comments that were made on October 20th

and also at a subsequent meeting that I had with Roger and with Don and others to just talk about how we would propose it.

And I want to emphasize this is a proposal.

It's not an edict or anything like that.

It kind of sets the table to allow this body to discuss where it wants to go with this amendment to the bylaws.

In terms of the structure, it's pretty straightforward.

We changed Article 6, which is the order of business.

We divided it from just essentially a simple menu to two sections.

In Section 1, we added public comment.

I know there was talk about whether it should be public comment or matters from the public.

I'm not sure it matters one way or the other, but however the board feels in terms of titling it, there's nothing set in stone that it has to be public comment.

The other thing we added, we thought as this board and this body was growing and maturing, that we should put financial report in there.

So we did slide that in there.

I don't think that would be controversial.

but it's something we thought was important going forward.

Second thing is section two.

We did add section two and it would be part of the bylaws and that governs how the public comment would be handled.

In terms of just kind of the breakdown, it limited public comment, that section to 15 minutes total.

Each speaker would have up to three minutes.

The topics that a speaker could address would be limited to the agenda items.

I know there's some language in there that talks about germane or materially related to matters subject of the authorities meeting agenda.

I did speak with Andy Herrick and he did suggest a slight change in that striking subject of and just putting on the authorities meeting agenda.

So that's a small matter that we can work out in terms of wordsmithing.

The other thing is that similar to the Board of Supervisors, I don't know how the airport authority works, but it would not be a dialogue between the directors and the speaker.

It would just be an opportunity for the speaker to present his or her position.

And then when the time was up, the time was up and we'd move on to the next speaker and so forth.

and then of course, as Don indicated, it added flexibility so that if there was some interest in having the speaker go longer or the public comment to go on longer, the chair would have the discretion to allow that.

Final thing in terms of the resolution, we are asking that if the board adopts an amendment for public comment,

and I think staff is recommending that.

That you also readopt the bylaws.

So we make the amendment and then readopt the bylaws as a whole.

That's kind of just more for record keeping.

It's easier to refer to bylaws when we have a full set that's been adopted as opposed to trying to piecemeal amendments that that occur over the years.

So, how does this policy compare to the Board of Supervisors public comment policy?

Obviously, the board has public hearings, which we don't have, but in terms of the public comment, is this similar?

Just in my experience in observing the Board of Supervisors, what I don't see that they have is a limit to the length.

There is a three-minute limit to each speaker, but it doesn't limit the number of speakers or the length.

And there might be circumstances where they do do that, but generally speaking, they don't have a limit.

And so at the beginning of the meeting, citizens or interested parties will come in and make their comments.

and it goes on until there's no one else to speak.

I will say that there is a difference because you all have a very prescribed meeting time.

We have a much

This is more what I have done or we do at some of the other committees or authorities that I've been involved in such as the jail board where we have an hour and a half meeting, we have to get our work done,

And we limit the amount of time that the speakers have.

I think it's, to be honest with you, I do see your all's meetings is a little different than the Board of Supervisors, just saying.

I think it's wonderful you're opening up to public comment, but

You all often have, I would assume, other places to go, other meetings to attend, things you need to do.

I agree.

I just think in structure, it's very similar.

Now, and the one thing I didn't see and what can be helpful if you're trying to fit more people into your limited amount of time is to give the chair the ability to go from three minutes to two minutes.

That way you can allow for a couple of more speakers.

That was going to be one of my suggestions.

So Dave, I'll let you go first since you were the one who

Thanks.

Yeah, I like the way you have structured it, and I don't really see any difficulty managing it the way it's been presented.

One of the things we might do habitually, and this would fall to you, Don, first as the chair, but then also to anyone who might succeed you, it might be helpful

at the beginning of this public comment period to note the discretion that you have as chair to bend the rules a little bit, to extend the time or to, if we decide to change and make a two minute optional period, or even just leave that to your discretion, that we make that clear.

And I think that would signal to the public that we're not trying to bottle them up in any

Any other comments?

No, I'm good.

I think I'm all in favor of encouraging public comment, but also being able to manage it at the same time.

So I'm going to offer a suggestion that we amended to along the lines of what

Diantha suggested which is that in addition to the chair being given the ability to lengthen the time period that if there are more speakers then could be accommodated in the 15 minute period to reduce the time periods to two minutes if necessary.

And perhaps include language, brief language to the effect that in the interest of accommodating all speakers, comma, and then put that in there.

That's a good point.

So, Richard, do you think we can vote on this at this meeting or would you prefer to redraft and vote on it at the next meeting?

I think that I don't think the changes are so complicated that I think we can do it right now.

I'll just kind of read off language that I have and let's see.

So the first change I would suggest is just a clarification in section two where it says subject of just to change that to on the authorities meeting agenda.

That's the first one.

Second, it would say, let's say if the number of speakers, and I might need some help with this, if the number of speakers will exceed the 15 minutes

Yeah, you don't even really need the first clause, I think.

Just say, in the interest of accommodating all speakers, comma, the chair has the discretion to adjust the

Okay.

In the interest of accommodating all speakers, the chair may, the chair may limit each speakers.

Short and sweet to two minutes.

Okay.

All right, there's a second.

Is there any further discussion?

Okay.

I don't think so.

We can do a voice vote.

All right.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

All right.

And I just want a point of clarification that includes the re-adoption of the bylaws as we just amended them now.

Okay.

Can you pull up the agenda, Jennifer?

I don't have controller, is it J.T.

Hey, Roger, you're sitting up straighter now and your head's off the screen.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, well, let me first introduce to you, Lee Catlin.

Jennifer, if you can invite Lee into the phone, please.

Lee, as you may know, used to be the deputy, excuse me, the assistant county manager.

She retired.

We brought her out of retirement to help us with a couple of projects.

One of those projects is the Broadway Blueprint on Willow Tree.

And as many of you may be aware, this particular project is to take advantage of the unique character and location of 46 acres of industrial space that are adjacent to one another.

It is located proximate to Willow Tree.

We recognize with Willow Tree's introduction into that community, the landscape for that area will forever change.

We have a planning exercise to get out in front of that change.

and hopefully influence it in a positive way that helps build the community and the economic development efforts all in a location that minimizes impact.

All right.

Thank you, Roger.

Hello, everybody.

It's nice to see familiar faces after a long time of not seeing you all.

As Roger mentioned, the Broadway Blueprint economic revitalization study was part of the Woolen Mills incentive package.

recognizing the potential that that area had, particularly with the investment both public and private that was going to be going into it.

So just quick recap to bring everybody up to speed and get us all on the same page.

You may remember that we started with the project last fall.

We began with meetings with property owners, tenants,

The neighborhood, we did a lot of research into existing conditions and planned development to get a sense of what the opportunities really could be in that corridor.

And where that ended up was a report that came to the Board of Supervisors, an interim report in September.

And the board accepted the report and endorsed three focus areas for the work.

Economic Vitality, Placemaking, and Connectivity.

And that report was also shared with you all, the EDA at that point in time, and the Planning Commission for feedback and input.

So once the report was accepted and we got direction from the board, we then spent the next several months meeting with staff from the city.

of Charlottesville because they are so much of a partner in that particular area of the county, as well as going back to the public and back to property owners.

The goal then was really to develop specific strategies for each of the three focus areas that we mentioned to you.

So we were going full guns on that and then March happened, March 2020.

And that effort was really put on hold because there were a lot of other urgencies that came up for county government.

The economic situation was so uncertain at that point in time.

So the idea was that we would just pause on that and let some other things try to come to some sort of clarity and stability.

So several months ago, even though we don't have complete clarity or stability, we really felt like it was time to revisit this planning process for several reasons, mainly because

Activity is happening in the Woolen Mills area.

It may not have been at the same level or the same pace that we had originally anticipated, but Willow Tree has moved people in, the wool factory and salvage brewing is up and going.

There are other people along the corridor that are making business decisions right now for their futures.

So we felt like we did not want to lose the opportunity to get ahead of

what we could possibly shape for that corridor.

So what we decided might be the best way to go about this was to take the work that we had already done and to look at it again through the lens of what's really doable and possible given where we are now, given constraints on county resources, given constraints on county staff,

given economic conditions that exist in the corridor, what really could we focus on that's doable, actionable, achievable, and could be positive for the corridor?

A big part of what we want to do as part of that work is to get back in touch in a very focused way with our key stakeholders in that area to make sure we understand not only what we think we're seeing, but we have very direct

information about what those folks are doing, what they're planning, what's actually happening on the ground there.

So we have started with, we reconvened with city staff in September and had a good conversation with them about what they see on their plate, what they see in the future as opportunities and constraints in that area.

We then have had conversations with our key investment partners in the area.

We've had

In the last several weeks, we've had a meeting with Willow Tree senior managers and also with the Willen Mills redevelopment folks, Brian Roy, so that we could check back in and just reaffirm where they're going, what their planning is.

And what we're hearing from them is obviously some challenges, obviously an economic environment that is not what they envisioned, but still a very full commitment to that area.

Willowtree sees that as their corporate campus of the future.

They are constrained right now by the governor's orders and public health realities on how quickly they can get there.

But they have every intention of that place being the flagship campus that we always had envisioned that it would be.

Brian Roy, the developer there, has every vision of that being the vibrant center that we once thought, you know, that we have always expected that it would be.

The timeline just may be a little bit different.

So bottom line is we heard from our key investment partners that they are still focused on the vision that they brought to us early on in the project.

Our next step is to kind of expand the circle of the people that we talk to, to get back in touch.

And we've got in the process now of scheduling conversations with other people along the corridor.

who we think can give us a good sense of where they see their business going, what they think is possible and doable in that action kind of oriented way that I mentioned earlier.

And then once we have those conversations, we will be coming back to the board in hopefully in January or February.

Timeframes a little dependent on when we can get all these conversations conducted.

As you know, that's challenging in these times.

and bring back a more pared-down, streamlined set of recommendations for getting some proactive study work done for Broadway Blueprint.

I will give you a little bit of a teaser of a thing that really seems to come to the top of the recommended strategies right now, and that is the formation of some sort of a group of folks in that corridor

who will work with us in a partnership kind of way to liaison with us.

We don't know exactly what that looks like yet, but both the willow tree folks and the woolen mill folks are interested in taking a leadership role to make sure that we have a viable group of folks who've got direction, action, energy in working with us as a partner.

Yeah, I'll say two things.

One, I think I called it a plan, and our boss is continuously reminded us this is a study.

It may be a plan at a later time, so I'll change that to study.

And some of the other homework that we did as a group that Lee did mention is we actually took some road trips.

and went around and looked at how other local communities and cities have improved their specific areas such as these to find some best practices and sort of incorporated those into some of the recommendations.

I did want to add just for example, one of the things that really rises to the top, we knew this would are the recreational opportunities that are there.

We have aligned this effort with the Rivanna River corridor planning study because there's some real natural synergy between these two efforts.

If you look at the progress that's being made on the pedestrian bridge that VDOT's talking about from Pantops to this area, the whole idea of that connectivity is a really positive opportunity here.

So we're really looking at what's already

Thanks, Lee.

No, sir.

Thank you, Lee.

Thank you.

I guess we'll continue with the director's report.

J.T., if you can pull up the slides, I believe.

Yeah, can everybody see the slides and can hear me fine?

Yep.

Okay, great.

Well, before we get to the closed session, we wanted to give an update on the grants that we've been running with the CARES funding.

Let's see if I can advance the slides here.

For Safe Spaces and Places, we are getting close to being able to publish the final list of all the grantees, but we'll have about 40 grants.

They were in the amount of up to $35,000.

We will spend a little over $700,000.

And I can tell you that a lot of these grantees are very appreciative of this funding.

About 60 to 70% are restaurants and are wineries, cideries, breweries, and tourism destinations.

We do have a mix of other types of establishments.

retail, some country stores.

Awesome, that's great feedback.

Thank you.

So if you remember round one, we targeted the tourism hospitality industry, as well as women, minority and veteran owned businesses.

In round two, we opened it up to all businesses and accepted applications October 2nd through the 19th.

We are awarding 58 grants this time.

up to $50,000 each based upon their economic injury that was calculated by the Community Investment Collaborative.

So we are going to be rolling out $2.3 million and the notifications are ongoing right now.

So very, very excited to report that we've got quite a few more businesses on that list in addition to J.T.

Thanks, Jennifer.

So, Roger, maybe you can, or whoever the appropriate person is, give us an update on sort of where we are.

You know, do we have funds?

Do we anticipate another round before the end of the year?

It is.

And I will say the answer is we do not have more funds currently in the economic development Cares Relief Fund pool.

Just by way of context, the county received about $19 million in funding.

Some of that we reimbursed ourselves for our own expenses.

I think it left about $10 million or so left over.

I feel like the board was prescient enough to understand that our businesses were going to be severely impacted by this COVID and allocated $5 million to that.

Those CARES funds dollars to support businesses.

and the three programs that we've outlined here.

LIFT grant round one, Safe Spaces, LIFT grant round two.

And you may recall, we also did a community LIFT grant where we helped some nonprofit organizations.

All of those total a little over $5.2 million in expenditure.

So we had to go back to the CARES fund management team and ask for additional fund just to carry out the programs that we have done.

Well, that's great.

I mean, everybody needs to be commended for their efforts in making that happen.

I mean, it sounds easy to give away a lot of money, but to do it in a thoughtful and effective way, and to evaluate everything,

You know, make sure that we're complying with all the regulations is a challenge.

And I think you guys need to be commended.

you know, for your efforts at doing that.

And I think it really has helped.

I hope it's helped enough.

You know, we're obviously a lot of restaurants and places like that are gonna have a real struggle, but hopefully we've done as much as we can to at least give them some help as we try to deal with this winter.

Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot.

There's a whole team of folks behind the scenes that involve, you know, across departmental organizations from communications and community development.

I.T., Courtney Cacachino, who was on here earlier, has been very helpful as well as the Chamber and some other folks.

So it's been a big team effort.

I second the commendation and you probably know, Roger, that the the national trend is is very much unlike this, where unfortunately, a lot of states and localities have left these funds unspent currently.

There are some pretty stringent requirements on what the funds can be used for, and it's difficult to be able to match the funds up to those who are in need and endured the economic harm and get the exact dollar figure correct.

So CIC, the Community Investment Collaborative, who you all supported outside of this program, was also an important partner helping us do that.

They had some technology called LenderFit that allowed us to calculate those funds and make sure that we could prove those that were giving funds to actually endured economic harm.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

You saw me unmute and uncloak.

I appreciate that.

I just wanted to kind of double down on the appreciation for the work of the EDO team.

You've seen them work in a lot of different contexts, but they've not experienced anything like this.

And obviously, you could say that about a lot of different of our representatives.

They have effectively suspended their work on Project ENABLE, which they've been tasked to advance, and have put all their energy, all their energy, plus some, into trying to get these programs using the CARES CRF money kind of out the door, and just acknowledging that it is hard to spend a lot of money in a short period of time and meet all of the compliance requirements, which are significant, and we're not going to leave money on the table, and it's in large part because of the good work

that they've done.

So I just wanted to just to amplify the EPA's appreciation for that.

I know at some point we're all anxious for them to get back to doing the project enable work.

But again, we can say that about a lot of the things that we're that we otherwise are involved in.

Jeff, did you have something you wanted to add?

OK, thanks.

All right.

The last thing I just want to make you aware of is, you know, we pivoted our

programs, and as Doug mentioned, focused primarily on Cares Relief funding for the past six months or so.

I will let you know that we are working in collaboration with the City of Charlottesville Economic Development, the CACDB and the Chamber.

And in the coming weeks, you're going to hear more about a Buy Local campaign.

Our goal here is to help represent the needs of those businesses that are very vulnerable at this time.

They don't have additional marketing dollars.

They don't have abilities to get the word out about their basic needs.

So we're going to launch a Buy Local campaign.

We don't expect this will be using our CARES funding.

I believe the city is going to be using part of theirs.

But at this juncture, that will come out of the economic development budget.

But you'll see commercials, you'll see social media, you'll see messaging come out between now and the end of the year.

So we now have a closed session.

I'm not sure who's going to read the closed session.

I'll let someone else do it since I may have to disqualify myself from some of the matters under discussion.

I'm happy to make the motion.

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 subsection 5 to discuss and consider prospective businesses or industries in the expansion of an existing business where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses or industries interest in locating or expanding their facilities in the community.

To wit, one, the location and development of project capitals in Albemarle County and its request for a letter of support from the authority, and two, the expansion of Project Proton in Albemarle County and its growing workforce.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Yes, so I just put in the chat a link to the closed session.

You can click on that link.

It's going to ask you to leave the meeting, and you'll report over to the closed session.

Afterwards, we will come back.

I'll give you another link to come back to this meeting.

I'm apparently not doing something right either.

Or I haven't gotten it from the other.

Yes, yeah.

Okay, I just got it.

Did you get an email message?

Look in your chat.

Oh, chat, okay.

I was looking at you.

I'm launching it right now.

There we go.

All right.

OK.

So I'll just go ahead and move this motion.

I move that the EDA certified by recorded vote 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.

Go ahead.

Mr. Ray.

George.

I think he froze.

Mr. McNaughton.

Aye.

Mr. Ray, did he unfreeze?

Okay.

All right.

Those four votes, I think we're okay.

Yes, sir.

We can get Mr. Ray's vote when he reappears.

So unfinished business, I think the unfinished business might be Stuart's question from the very start of the meeting about the authority of the EDA to buy land.

I mean, I can speak a little bit, I think as a

This EDA has the authority in the sense that we could, should we choose to do so, we've got the authority where we could buy land.

We're limited by what our rules are by our agreement with the Board of Supervisors in terms of what we can and can't do.

So I think that's really and certainly one of the things that we've talked about over the years is whether we would be interested in actually buying property to get it in a position where

Somebody could come in and kind of get it through the process and would be available for development.

I think there's some other options where I think other EDAs have bought property and then leased it for those purposes.

I mean, I think there are some limits on what we can and can't do.

So I'll let Roger, Richard or Jim, add their thoughts to what we can and can't do.

Yeah, I muted myself.

Yes, I agree with what your comments were, Don.

My understanding is we could purchase land if the Board of Supervisors changed the MOU to allow this particular authority to do so.

Jennifer comes from a community which they did a couple of things Don just mentioned about

I'm sure she'd be happy to share a report on that.

It might be, I think, and maybe somebody can speak to where we are on our one outstanding member.

Diantha, do you know if,

If we've got anybody coming up to be appointed, I think we're still, are we still short somebody or?

I think I can speak to that.

The supervisor has canvassing the group now and she had asked that we share some general information about the EDA.

I'd like to also add that if some of you may recall in the past, I suggested that

One option in this regard might be to work again with CIC and look at commercial real estate opportunities and our ownership as a kind of a yardstick factor or approach in the market.

Since Jennifer's on the phone, I think she might add here her experience.

I just wanted to note that EDAs can do a lot more things.

They're much more flexible under state law with respect to land than just buying and selling.

They can buy and sell land above or below market price.

They can receive land as gifts.

They can do things that legislative bodies like the Board of Supervisors aren't permitted to do.

I mean, or two examples, I guess, for what the city did, both the amphitheater project is actually a project is a lease between the city economic development authority and

and the Korn Capjaws entity that owns that.

And then similar with the old Ninjic building, that's a similar structure where the federal government actually donated that property and the City Economic Development Authority was involved in the leasing of that project.

Yeah, I can bring you 16 years of what we did.

And I was getting Mr. Ray back online, by the way, when I was on the phone.

So we have done several projects, and a couple of the most exciting ones is the EDA was transferred to land by the city of Suffolk.

And they worked with a

public-private partnership to create a hotel and conference center.

So they lease the hotel and conference center land, constructed obviously, back to the hotel firm.

And they also get a public facilities tax rebate on the taxes that they get from the state.

So with that, it generates, depending on the year,

It'll generate about $45,000 a year, give or take.

In addition to that, another exciting project, the old fairgrounds, which was rundown part of town, they created a health department, a health and human services building.

So they needed a new social services and they needed a new health department.

The health department was on Main Street, downtown Main Street,

dilapidated building from the 50s, Center Block Walls.

So they actually did a land swap.

And so they actually built a Health and Human Services building.

They leased it back to the social services and the state health departments.

And that's a 30-year lease, I believe.

who generates revenue.

There's also one more project I can tell you about that is it's 55 acres that any former community college, Tidewater Community College used to be housed in the city of Suffolk.

It was vacated and they created a new one in Portsmouth.

And when they vacated it,

Part of it stayed under the Community College Real Estate Foundation, but then a portion of it was gifted to the EDA and the city by the governor, governor's office.

And so that's 55 acres that they were creating on the part of right outside the Midtown, not the Midtown, the Monitor Marymount Kettle, right off of

664.

So it's a very prime location and it was actually pitched to Amazon for HQ2.

So that's a 55 acre site that they're also cutting up with some mixed use development retail.

And, you know, so they also did a former

So Sentara bought out the hospital right on Main Street, right down the street from the health department and the city purchased it for four million dollars I believe and the city gifted it to the EDA and the EDA cut it up and did a RFP to the

local developers and they all came in and pitched their ideas and ultimately the site is being, it has two parcels already constructed.

The back half near the river is apartments because they found that the only viable way to do the deal for that was to have a residential component to offset the retail shops.

The front half also was built out to include

mixed you some banking opportunities and potentially the first movie theater in downtown Suffolk.

So downtown Suffolk is on the edge of Hampton Roads and everything around it has to come into town 45 minutes to an hour to go to a movie theater.

So really exciting that they were able to create a tourism zone to do some offsetting of the ticket prizes

for that location.

Again, this is pre-COVID and this was two years ago.

They were working, finishing up that project before I left.

Nice.

All right.

I will, and this is obviously your decision, but I will remind you that our community survey indicated that our citizens, Roger, I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but you might want to go back and look at that again because they really considered it an important, I don't know that the word was prior, I'm struggling here to remember how exactly it was worded, but

Economic development was recognized by our community in the service being important.

And that's actually why I chose those particular projects to share with you because they were public need and public private partnerships.

All right, any other unfinished business?

Hearing none, it looks like in other matters, we have a training that we need to undertake.

It's the conflicts of interest training that is required of EDA members and so you do go online and then you kind of register with your email so I'd suggest using your Albemarle email address.

and then when you complete the program, you will get a certificate.

I believe, because I did the program, I did it and I registered and I hope I don't get in trouble because I'm not an EDA member.

But I think when you complete the program, you might have to answer a question or two and then the certificate gets sent to the clerk of the board of supervisors.

That's my understanding.

But if you do complete the program, I would ask if you please confirm that with Jennifer by email would be fine.

But I think you get, I'm not going to say it's a certificate that's suitable for framing.

It does.

And it's pretty user friendly.

So I was going to say it's not bad.

And I don't remember, Rich, that it took a terribly long time, like some of them.

I've had some at the university that went on forever.

My recollection, it was pretty accurate of being about 40 to 45 minutes.

And I think

Yeah.

So I would ask that Jennifer maybe be in contact with the clerk and prod the EDA members to make sure they have completed their training periodically.

I will endeavor to put it on my calendar when this meeting is over, but

Yeah.

That would be helpful.

And I assumed you all were talking about the general training that we're requiring everybody to take.

No, I think it's, Diantha, you're correct.

No, the general assembly elevated the EDA directors to board a supervisor level for conflict reasons.

And I guess sort of speaking of training and other things, we might want to put on the January agenda

Maybe another discussion about the Albemarle email addresses and various technology related matters since we have a number of new members.

So maybe we can add that.

Yes.

So remind me again, maybe Diantha knows the district currently not served by an ADA member is which one?

Well, it's served by one Whitehall member, just not an appointed one by Ann, since I live in the Whitehall district.

That's true.

So if there's nothing further,

We will adjourn until December 15th unless we need to call an earlier meeting.

All right.

Thanks for the invitation, y'all.

Take care.