Economic Development Authority Meeting   4/20/2021

Start the stuff we need to do to get going and hopefully Stephen and Dave will join because I think we have a quorum now, don't we?

How many do we need?

Four.

So there's four of us, so let's go ahead and get going here.

So we'll call the meeting to order.

J.T.

or Jennifer, can you put up our virtual thing I need to read?

Notwithstanding anything in the EDA bylaws to the contrary as permitted under Albemarle County's Continuity of Government Ordinance Chapter 1283 of the 2020 Acts of the General Assembly and 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, 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.

This meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to the county's website.

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 also invited to offer live comment during the meeting's public comment period.

Comments are limited to three minutes and must be germane to matters on today's agenda.

Director Shreve.

Mr.

All right, then we'll proceed and any matters from the public?

Nobody has signed up yet.

I'm going to give them two seconds if anybody wants to raise their hand, if they would like to speak in the matter from the public.

All right, then we'll move on to the approval of minutes.

All right, is there a second?

I second.

All right, second.

All in favor?

Aye.

I'm gonna take that as unanimous.

The financial report.

I see a name, but I don't see his picture and he's muted.

All right.

I couldn't, I couldn't find the, uh, the button on my phone.

Uh, but I think you can see and hear me now.

Yep.

Yep.

Okay, good.

Um, operating net revenues are unchanged from the last, uh, EDA meeting $31,391 and 10 cents.

Um,

We have a cash and cash equivalent balance of 719,476.12, which was, you know, when you add the net revenues to the beginning of fiscal year balance of 688,085.02, you'll come up with that 719 figure.

Great.

Thank you, Dave.

Any additional comments or questions for Dave?

All right.

Hearing none, we'll move on to new business.

I'll hand it.

The first item is a presentation by Steven Davis of the Community Investment Collaborative.

Because I represent the Community Investment Collaborative, I'm going to

Hues myself from this discussion.

And Jennifer is going to kick me out of the panel and put me into the office.

Thank you.

I enjoy being in control, dude.

Should I read this resolution?

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for the opportunity to present again.

It's been close to, I guess, a year and a half or so, or closer to two years, probably since I presented to you after the whirlwind that was 2020.

Jennifer, just to confirm, are you staring for me?

Please look like you are.

So you can go ahead and hit next slide.

I'm going to go through the first little bit quickly just as a refresher, a few new members I saw on the call.

But CIC, Community Investment Collaborative, is a micro enterprise development organization founded in 2011.

We have a mission of

helping to grow, help under-resourced entrepreneurs grow small businesses.

And we partnered with Albemarle County over the years, both in supporting the program for people participating, as well as in creating a microloan fund.

And so I'm looking forward to giving you an update on that today.

Let's go ahead, Jennifer, to the next one.

Just a quick refresher on our programs, built on four pillars, education or training, mentoring, financing, and networking.

Hit the next one, Jennifer.

We offer a 16 week entrepreneur workshop designed to do two things, help people determine if their business is viable and to learn the basics of running a small business.

Again, I should have said at the top of our target of under resourced entrepreneurs means that the target populations include businesses owned by people of color, women owned businesses, individuals who when they enter the program are low to moderate income, meaning they owe

earn their household earns under the area's median income and then folks who return to the community after serving time in prison.

And so those populations all experience additional barriers to being successful in business beyond the challenge of just running a successful business on your own.

So the workshop helps to kind of get folks kind of up to speed and builds that foundation and builds a strong network.

Next slide, Jennifer.

Mentoring, once they've been through the workshop, they're a part of our network and we help connect them to mentors and do business advising and counseling throughout the community.

The mentors might work with them one-on-one for three to six months after they requested it to help them achieve that next goal that they're seeking.

Next slide, Jennifer.

They offer microloans of up to $35,000.

So you can either qualify for a loan fund as a graduate of CIC or having a business that's been in business for six months.

I forgot to update this slide because these numbers are drastically old.

When I presented two years ago, we had a $255,000 loan fund.

And as of today, our loan fund is about one point one million.

And that's a product of the support from Albemarle County and some of the efforts that we did to respond to you, which I'll respond to in a second.

All of the updated numbers are in the request letter that's in your packet.

So that's financing.

Hit the next slide, Jennifer.

Lots of networking opportunities as well to help folks connect to each other, connect to existing business networks, promote their business, sell the UVA, sell the state of Virginia and so forth.

Next slide, Jennifer.

So types of microbusinesses we serve, you know, they're the mom and pops that are the lifeblood of, you know, all of our communities, you know, the food trucks, restaurants, food products, hair salons, service businesses, landscaping businesses, lots of different folks, and I've listed a few examples here.

Next slide, Jennifer.

Here are a few, but not all, of Albemarle microbusinesses that we've helped that have been through our program.

Beyond Fitness with Sabrina, the Charlottesville Ballet, Home Stadiums provides, if you're looking to outfit your man cave to look like the stadium, so you're actually in the stadium watching the football game or basketball game, they can help you do that.

Cakes by Rachel, if you're looking for a delicious wedding cake in Crozet, absolutely great small business there.

And a few more mentioned at the next one.

So last year, just one of the things that we partnered with Albemarle County on coming out of the, right at the beginning of the pandemic, we knew a lot of businesses were having to shut down and lock down due to restrictions.

They significantly challenged their cash flow.

You know, and there are some programs they were able to access help right away and some of them took longer and some they weren't able to.

And Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville and CIC partnered to create what was called the Business Recovery Fund.

and that fund was $200,000 from Albemarle County, $100,000 from City of Charlottesville and then we were able to leverage a private investment from a foundation of $300,000 for a $600,000 loan fund we did and in the end we did about 56 loans to about $10,000 each to businesses to provide basically emergency working capital in April and May of last year.

Here are a few of the Albemarle businesses.

There were 22 of them in the end.

But we had a moving company, a construction company, the Batesville market and so forth.

So a lot of great businesses that kind of were a part of that.

Next slide.

So, yeah, as I mentioned that.

What's new since the last time we talked to you?

In January 2020, we took over as host of the Central Virginia SBDC.

I believe Rebecca presented to you last month in talking about all the incredible services that SBDC's

and especially ours has to offer.

So we're the host institution and so they're employees of CIC and we looked at that partnership and bringing them under our roof as a way to extend our capabilities, have more of our clients grow.

They needed more advanced expertise and SBDC just has a wealth of that available.

So how can we make that seamless for the community so that entrepreneurs can come in, get what they need, whether that's CIC, SBDC, or wherever else we can connect them to, as well as kind of be more efficient in the long run by having it under one roof.

I think the top lines of

From between 2019 and 2020, SBDC tripled its client service in that year and partly related to pandemic and helping folks during that, but also just that increased exposure and marketing that helped to bring more folks in.

Kind of the way we think about the, there are two programs that are branded separately under one roof.

And that has to be because of the way SBDCs are funded.

But the way one we're thinking about our program is SBDC serves the broader small business community.

CIC helps those who have faced additional barriers or historically been excluded and to kind of help them be successful.

So next one, I just mentioned a second ago, the Business Recovery Fund that we partnered with Albemarle County and Charlottesville last year, and kind of told you some about that.

We just chatted through last week that we're gonna do a round two, because we have about 150,000 funds available to help folks.

Unfortunately, last year when we did this, we said we need to help them get enough working capital get through the fall, and then hopefully folks can get back to normal.

And here we are this year,

having a little bit of the same conversation, but with a little bit more light at the end of that tunnel that they might be able to get back to that normalcy this summer and fall.

So we're looking forward to launching that program in May to do more loans there.

Next slide.

The other big partnership and big thing that we did last year, Albemarle County, I think as all of you are aware, provided business grants to area businesses impacted by the pandemic through the CARES Act funds.

We helped manage that fund and basically did all the financial review to certify the economic injury and manage the deployment of those funds and tracking and all of that thing for those

We used our loan portal that we had set up to kind of manage it all.

And so in addition to Albemarle County, we had partnered with 10 other municipalities and about six months made 800 grants to 800 grants over to close to 12 million dollars.

Over half of that was to Albemarle County businesses funded through Albemarle County and the CARES Act funds it received.

And the biggest news for this year, and I think I mentioned it when I spoke to you a couple years ago, in January we received our certification as a Community Development Finance Institution, or a CDFI, it's a US Department of Treasury certification.

It basically says you primarily serve under resourced markets.

In our case, low to moderate income and African American owned businesses as a specific certifications we have there, but also follow good lending practices and are eligible for receiving federal awards that could increase our loan fund.

And so that's big news for us.

A lot of great opportunities that are coming out of it pretty soon.

One grant that came from stimulus funds that will come in the coming months and then

We're applying for some competitive funds later in the year that should continue to grow our loan fund.

So our results, I showed you this chart two years ago and kind of providing an update here just on the core CIC programs.

This does include SBDC numbers and kind of who we've helped, employees, lending, and so forth.

As you can see, when I spoke in August of 2019,

We had done 600,000 loans and now it's 1.6 million in loans.

So we've had a big year with a lot of growth and so forth.

Our repayment rate continues to go up.

As we do more loans, we have not seen significantly new losses and so we're now under 1% in that loss rate as far as loans that have ultimately been discharged.

chart that kind of, you know, always liked the hockey stick chart, right?

So there's that.

Next slide.

Also, another thing I'd like to point it out, I haven't updated this since last time, but just as the business is reporting sales, you know, from a survey a year or so ago, and then I know one of the important things, even amongst arts CIC businesses that often tend to be the,

The local modern pops that sell primarily within the county in the region.

We still saw a significant, probably about 20% of the businesses report that they sold outside of our region.

So bringing in dollars to the region, which is an important part of economic development, I know.

Quick Stories, L&T Commercial Cleaning Services is one that we helped with the loan fund, including the Albemarle Loan Fund that was created pre-pandemic.

It's a commercial cleaning service.

In the pandemic, cleaning services were one of the businesses that grew significantly because the early guidance was, you know, extra cleaning was needed.

We've done

A couple of small loans and one bigger loan to them and they've grown I think by six or eight employees in the last year as they've taken on some significantly new contracts.

And so Chris Harris is the owner of it and he's both went through our workshop and he's benefited from the Albemarle Loan Fund.

Minerals and Mystics used to be Crystal Connection over in Albemarle Square.

Leah went through our program and was an employee and purchased the business so that it can continue because the owner was looking to move on and has invested some new resources in it and sustain for employees and as the business is growing again as a result of the loan.

Batesville Market, another business that has a long history, but the owner was looking to sell, and so this is Kristen Raberding, who was a volunteer before CIC, before she went through our program,

Long history in the grocery market, was looking to buy Batesville Market.

She actually bought Batesville Market kind of through her own arrangement.

But the Business Recovery Fund and in our workshop helped her kind of to sustain through last year.

And she also is increasingly incorporating other local products, including CIC,

entrepreneurs and their products into the store.

So she's just kind of very locally and community minded.

So what's next for us, we're going to leverage a CDFI certification to continue increasing our lending and financing opportunities in the region.

We want to integrate SPDC to make the experience more seamless for the community and kind of serving that dual purpose, as I referenced earlier.

So

So yeah, I'm here today.

I'd love to continue our partnership and grow your support.

In the last two times EDA has supported us, they have started the Albemarle Microloan Fund.

It was $15,000.

for the loan fund and then provided some operating dollars as well.

Because of the recovery fund and funds being repaid as well as other resources that are available at the moment, this year my request is for $25,000 in operating support

to help us kind of sustain a lot of this growth that we've just seen.

All of the loans that were made last year through the recovery fund were at one percent interest.

And so as opposed to our normal six to nine percent.

And so that means we had a few less, a little bit less revenue coming from all the new loans that were made.

And so we'd love to kind of fill some of that in as well as support Albemarle folks who are participating in our program.

and kind of just provide that base of support as we continue to grow our service to Albemarle County businesses.

So this is just a chart of support from other localities in the region and what they've done historically.

One more slide there.

So yeah, that's us.

The thing I didn't mention about our workshop, we pivoted to Zoom last year.

So the workshop has been happening even on Zoom.

So the class photos aren't quite as fun as they used to be, but I think the experience has still been strong and we're still seeing a lot of new businesses and existing businesses growing out of the program.

So that's my update.

Just one quick question.

That was great.

And I'm not as familiar with your program.

So when I presented to you two years ago, we were five and now we're 10.

And so we've grown, and that's partly the SBDC growth and partly CIC growth.

So we have a staff of 10, four,

Stephen, I have a comment and then a question.

If I heard you correctly, your default rate or whatever the measure you called it is under 1%.

And that's despite the fact that you're really serving customers that can't get loans through normal means because they don't qualify through banks or other institutions.

And yet your default rate is so low that it even exceeds probably those of the bank.

I'll answer the question.

The hesitation on it is we made a lot of loans in the last year, in the middle of the pandemic, and so while, as Roger knows, all those loans so far are performing.

There's probably eight or nine of them that we provided some flexibility to, and so I think

The first piece is the relationship.

Most of our borrowers have been graduates of our workshop.

Those who aren't are already in business six months, so we see some history and so forth with it.

So that relationship is the first point.

We work really hard at continuing to engage them and providing that additional support with it.

And then the third piece is that we go out of our way to be flexible as long as they're communicating with us.

So we have had two loans that were up to six months behind two months ago, and we were about ready to

have our illustrious attorney who's watching from afar at the moment send them a letter.

And then we kind of after our final follow up heard back from one of them and they kind of reestablished that payment.

And so and then and we restructured a little bit, giving them flexibility, allowing them to make smaller payments for periods of time as long as they're communicating.

So I think that that flexibility and those relationships make a big difference.

My board has said pretty consistently, you know, if we're always at 1%, we want to keep providing more opportunity.

You know, like the goal for our program is to provide loans where others have trouble getting them.

And so let's take a little bit more risk.

The hard part is to do that intelligently, right?

Because we want the funds to be repaid ultimately, but we would be comfortable with three or 5% or, you know, in certain circumstances for certain types of loans, bigger losses.

We've just been fortunate to this point of not having them.

And then the big caveat is we made a million dollars in loans since the pandemic started, basically.

So yeah, one of our target populations is folks who have returned to the community after serving time.

We don't ask the question when they enter our program because they get asked that question every other point of employment but we learn and we have folks who send us letters, we get one or two letters a year from someone who's in jail or in prison who's getting out because they've heard about us through the outreach we've done and then we have partnerships with

the local parole group and others that kind of help.

And so our estimate as of about a year ago was about 10 to 12% of our clients have served time at some point in their life.

Most of them are not very recent because if they just got out in the last few months, they're probably really not ready to start a business.

They need to stabilize themselves more.

And then, but

I don't want to take the time right now but as the chair of the regional jail I would love to just connect with you about that offline.

Happy to.

Great conversation for us to have.

I know where to find you.

So I guess embedded in your presentation was a request for an additional $25,000 from the Economic Development Authority.

Yeah, and I believe that letter was in everyone's packet.

Resolution to provide a grant to the Community Investment Collaborative to support Albemarle County micro businesses.

Whereas the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia, the authority has supported the Community Investment Collaborative, the CIC, in its mission to educate under-resourced entrepreneurs and to provide microloans to support such entrepreneurs' business growth and development.

And whereas the authority finds the CIC's mission and operations advanced and promote economic development in Albemarle County,

and the surrounding localities and finds it in the best interest of the county for the CIC to continue its mission.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia hereby grants from FY 2021 budget $25,000 to support the community investment collaborative operations in support of Albemarle County micro businesses.

And we have

Stuart, you're muted.

Sorry.

I'll second the motion.

Yes, sir.

Director Ray?

Yes.

And Director McNaughton?

Yes.

Thank you all so much.

I appreciate you all's support.

Thanks.

Great program.

All right.

Next, we have a presentation from Kristin Nardi, the executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

Yes.

Well, first of all, I'm pleased to introduce to you Kristine Nardi, the executive director.

I've had the pleasure of serving on another board with Kristine when she was the chair of the

Chamber of Commerce.

I've learned that Christine and I can talk about anything regardless of what the topics may be.

She is not only a good person, she's an interesting person, very successful in all that she does.

She helps hundreds and hundreds of nonprofits in our organization.

I don't want to steal her thunder.

Suffice it to say, I'm pleased to introduce Christine and let her tell you a little bit more about the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

Thank you, Roger, and hello, everyone.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

I want to say how excited I am to follow my friend and colleague, Steven Davis, who, in addition to having CIC be a member of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence since they started, we also have a co-founder in common.

So it's fortuitous that you brought both of us here today.

And I thank you for this opportunity to, one, share with you information about the nonprofit sector.

And then, of course, I'd be happy to engage in a dialogue or answer any questions for you.

I wanted to start.

Nope, sorry.

OK. Can everyone hear me OK?

Anybody, if you can't?

Great.

So I wanted to start today by just really kind of highlighting one key aspect of the conversation, and that is there are a lot of different terms that we use for organizations that are businesses that also offer social impact to the community.

I'm gonna focus today and use the term social impact businesses.

You may have heard 501c3 organizations, which is your sort of IRS tax status,

You likely have used the term nonprofit, which really is defining the sector and this particular industry by what they are not.

And so I thought I'd present and frame this presentation in the context of talking about social impact businesses, the social impact sector.

And so before I dive into that,

though I'd love to highlight for you some information about the Center for Nonprofit Excellence and just say if you think of a social impact business that's important to you and CIC would be one great example, you most certainly think about businesses that help our broader citizenry thrive and they strengthen our education systems, they help store our environment, they enrich us with arts and culture, and they take care of our health.

and really what social impact businesses are, are a reflection of what we value in our community and they look different community by community, the sector looks different community by community.

But bring it, given what they do bring to the community, the purpose of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence is really to say, given their importance, isn't it important that they have the resources and the tools

and the information they need to do their best, most impactful work.

So CNE or the Center for Nonprofit Excellence was created 15 years ago to solve a problem.

And the problem was lack of access to business support services really tailored to meet the needs of social impact businesses.

Just a little bit more about CNE.

Currently, we are based in Charlottesville and our members are predominantly from Charlottesville, Albemarle and the surrounding counties.

but we do have member organizations all across the Commonwealth and you can see in the map that we also have relationships with funding partners in three other parts of the state and so we do business in Charlottesville, Albemarle but also more broadly across the state.

I like to say that we're a member-driven community resource in the sense that any social impact business can come and receive services from us and if you choose to be a member of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence,

you are able to access those services to the degree that we charge at a discounted rate.

And you're able to get preference for some of the services that we don't charge for.

We keep our membership fees really very low.

So they are not a bar to access because we are, as I said, a member driven community resource.

So think of us as a library and having some similar elements to a library.

So let me talk a little bit about

The framework for social impact businesses.

They're a type of business, as I think you all know, and really a key contributor to healthy, equitable economic development.

The difference, if you think about social impact businesses, they essentially have a double bottom line.

They're required to make profit, like any business is, in order to sustain its operations.

but they also are required to achieve a community benefit so they're essentially owned by the community and so what that means is they're an economic engine in their own right but they also having a healthy robust social impact sector really creates conditions ripe for economic development which I know is kind of a clear focus of the EDA.

The social impact sector really ensures that

There are specific investments that come into the local economy.

I've identified intellectual capital, for example, in terms of leadership, certainly tourist dollars.

Many of us know of the arts and culture, social impact businesses that bring tourists into our community.

And then also new funds, for example, through state federal grants that come into the community in order to accomplish important goals that

are supportive of economic development, for example, affordable housing, workforce development, and food security.

And so when you think about social impact businesses, the interesting thing about our region is that we have those social impact businesses that focus locally and regionally, but we also have social impact businesses that are based here, but have a national, and even in some cases, international footprint.

So some people are surprised to think about

a social impact business on the large size, for example, as CFA Institute or the University of Virginia or Monticello, for example, or the Nature Conservancy.

And those are social impact businesses that are based in Charlottesville and employ people in Charlottesville and expend money in the local economy, but they're also

really focus nationally and internationally and have the opportunity to bring resources to bear to this region as a result of that positioning.

So what we're really seeing across the U.S. as a result of COVID is of course economic and social turbulence due to COVID and due to the racial awakening that's happening across our country.

Everyone is reviewing their priorities and considering how best to

boost economic growth, how best to ensure community resiliency and how best to grow businesses to return to and perhaps even improve from a state pre-COVID.

And so what we see in this community is a lot of resilience with because I think part and parcel because we have a strong social impact sector, a strong social impact sector

often reflects that you have high net worth individuals who are engaged in philanthropy to sustain the sector, that there is a community that has tourist draws and social impact businesses certainly contribute to that and often university towns.

And so just to start, what I would say is that social impact sector really is a key partner and a key factor in overall economic prosperity

both because their business is contributing to the economy and also because they really are a key factor in attracting new businesses and resources to the region and I will talk more about that as we go.

But first I wanted to kind of highlight for you some statistics around the social impact sector and social impact businesses in our region and I will just stop and say that what I'm going to present to you is a combination of local data that we've drawn from our membership at CNE

as well as national data based in 2018 statistics having to do with social impact businesses and in some cases statewide data.

It's interesting that the data on social impact businesses isn't as readily collected as it is on the data on for-profit businesses and the data, you don't necessarily have it

as comprehensively at the community level as you do at the state and the national level.

So hence, you'll see data being presented in those different contexts.

So first, just highlight that, again, in this region, we're really harboring and cultivating an extra deep and rich social impact sector.

I think it's something that we can really be proud of.

We're fortunate as a

a college town to have a really rich web of social impact businesses that help to knit our communities together.

And if you're looking here, you may see that we have kind of a high per capita number of nonprofits in the region.

But if you compare the Charlottesville, Albemarle region to some like size regions that have similar characteristics, for example, college towns, Boulder and Burlington, Vermont, and the counties around it,

What you'll see is the number of social impact businesses really consistent with what you see in other communities.

The other thing I'll say about the data is that social impact businesses, when reporting to the IRS, sometimes, although not all the time, churches that are engaged in social impact activity may file with the IRS, and so you get church-related activities in the data for social impact businesses.

So I wanted to be sure to highlight that.

So if you talk about the kind of key focus areas for social impact businesses, this really represents cumulative data from all of C&E membership.

And it's kind of a point in time example of the ways in which our social impact businesses are engaged in the local economy and engaged in improving and strengthening the quality of life across

the region which as we'll get to shortly is really critical to attracting and recruiting new businesses as well as attracting and recruiting a talent pool to stay and invest in this community and in this region.

So you can see that the social impact sector really reflects what we as citizens believe are critical to healthy and just and equitable communities and

and cuts a wide swath across our region.

And then let me just highlight from a size perspective, a key point that I want to make here is that social impact businesses are largely small and medium sized businesses.

And you can actually see, again, the point in time data from C&E membership, as well as the data nationally in terms of how the size of the businesses break down.

and by and large, the largest percentage is businesses that have operating budgets of $500,000 or less.

So social impact businesses are really small and medium sized businesses.

I wanna focus now on social impact businesses as being direct economic engines for our community.

And when I say that, what I mean is that if you combine all of the social impact businesses together,

They reflect one of our largest employers in the region.

And so we're able to slice and dice the data that comes out of Johns Hopkins that's drawn from IRS data to show that approximately 13% of total employment in Charlottesville Albemarle is represented by social impact businesses.

And nationally, if you look at the social impact sector, they're the third largest sector nationwide behind only manufacturing and professional and technical services.

And then again, if you drop down to the Charlottesville Albemarle region, they account for almost 20% of wages paid in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

And so really they're an economic engine in their own right, and like small and medium sized businesses that have the for-profit designation,

They are spending money in the local economy.

So this is a Virginia statistic that nonprofits or social impact businesses in Virginia spend over 33 billion a year supporting local and state economies, of course, consuming goods and services that create more jobs.

And then the last point that I wanted to highlight is, first, remember, we talked about social impact businesses being a reflection of

What are community deems valuable and important in terms of quality of life?

Talked about social impact businesses being economic engines in their own right.

And now I want to return back to this question of if you think prior to 2020 and the pandemic, research was already becoming very clear that quality of life is key factor in location choices for industries, whether they're startups, whether they're expansions, whether they're relocations with growth potential.

and these are industries that are of course bringing new money into the regional economy, but the question is why?

And what we knew before the pandemic was that more and more businesses are recognizing how important it is to their brand and to the strength and sustainability of their businesses to be in partnership with a vibrant community.

And so they can stand out from their competition by engaging in corporate social responsibility.

and so doing well by doing good, for example, is the shorthand of that.

But secondarily, the idea that social impact businesses can create an environment or an ecosystem around the for-profit sector that allows it to attract talent because talent more and more is demanding social responsibility from companies.

And so if you have it, if you have a strong social impact sector, it really is demonstrating itself as a differentiator

as a community of choice for many target industries.

And who, again, is in the quality of life business?

It's social impact businesses.

And so don't believe me about this.

I was able to look at the UVA's website on economic development, and this is a quote that I pulled from it earlier today, really talking about the change or the evolution in thinking about economic development

and the importance of focusing, as you can see, supporting companies in seeking a skilled in education and sticky talent pool.

And really what's important is having a distinct sense of place that attracts and retains workers.

And the way that you get that distinct sense of place, one of the key ways that you get that is by having a strong social impact sector.

And just lastly, a couple pieces of data

that we've pulled from various recent research.

Today, 30% of workers are millennials, baby boomers, of course, reaching and exceeding retirement age.

And by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be comprised largely of millennials.

And to recruit, retain, and satisfy workers of the future, data shows that you really need to be committed to boosting the quality of life in your region.

and to being in a region where quality of life is visible, purposeful, and kind of a community engaged activity, including economic development and social impact businesses are your key partners for that.

32% of employees would leave their job if their companies weren't charitable.

And these are statistics coming from Forbes magazine.

So really, if you think about it from a different angle,

In 2020, Albemarle County did a survey that was pretty demographically diverse, asking about what the priority concerns were of residents of Albemarle County.

And there were a variety of different kind of infrastructure issues that were raised.

But the two that popped out were affordable housing and more walking and biking trails.

And these, just by way of example for Albemarle County alone, are issues where social impact businesses play a key role in ensuring that.

So

This, as you can see, is a crystal ball.

As we emerge from the pandemic and from social justice unrest and economic displacement, we're all really sensitive to the necessity of having healthy, diverse communities as a foundational element to encouraging businesses to start here, to come here, and also to grow and stay here.

and traditional economic development markers like electricity and rail, of course, continue to be important.

But as a remote workforce frees the need to be local and competitiveness is even more about people looking at quality of life factors, both ethical, moral decisions about where they want to be and where they want to live and where their businesses should be headquartered.

So the question that I pose to you all for food for thought is, what's the future of decision making around employers and workers and about where they want to be and why they want to be there?

And an educated guess on my part would be that it's really deeply informed by the quality of the community.

And that's what CNE and social impact businesses are really all about.

So

I close by just tying it up and saying again that the social impact businesses not only are their own economic driver, they also help keep dollars in the community.

And because they are in the quality of life business, they help bring and anchor new wealth and a talent pool into the region.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thanks, Christine.

I appreciate that.

Christine, I love this presentation.

Thank you so much.

I'm hoping we could get a copy of it.

Oh, good.

Because I'd love to dig into those numbers a little more.

And of course, you're singing for my sheet of music as a nonprofit employee.

I must confess, and you all know this, but I feel very strongly that people sometimes underestimate

The power of the nonprofit community as a business community and as an important investment.

Can you tell us a little bit about C&E itself?

Sure.

We have nine full time staff and we provide a lot of services through our full time staff, but we also have a considerable number of partners both paid

paid partner consultants who have expertise in nonprofit business, as well as volunteer nonprofit experts and people who want to invest in the broad nonprofit community who come to support us with trainings.

We provide consulting.

We provide short-term mentoring and coaching.

And we also look more broadly at issues that are related to and impact the nonprofit sector.

and work hard to educate the community about what social impact businesses need, why they're important and how to continue to invest in them efficiently and effectively.

So we do the education pieces, but we also bring a collective voice together to advocate for issues that are important to the nonprofit sector.

So, for example, Stephen talked about the steep increase in the number of loans that they were able to give out through COVID.

Our focus through COVID was helping nonprofits in the community understand what federal stimulus dollars were available to the nonprofit community and to social impact businesses and how to access those dollars so that they could continue to stain their business operations and not have to lay off, go dark and close their businesses through the pandemic.

So that's just an example of the range of things that we work on with a small but mighty staff based in Charlottesville, but operating in different parts of the state.

Thank you, that's great.

Other questions?

I have, Christina, I have one or two.

What do you think the biggest

barrier that you're seeing social impact businesses dealing with now.

And then I guess the sort of follow up question would be, what are the kinds of things that we can do to support the social impact businesses from a broader sense in the community?

And one example of the kinds of things I'm thinking about is the,

Office of Economic Development did a survey and found that local small businesses, one of their biggest needs was website help, which was sort of a surprising result.

Thanks for those questions.

So I will also share with you

We do a non-profit needs survey annually and so we just released the results of the most recent non-profit needs survey where we had close to 250 social impact businesses, 50% in the Charlottesville Outlaw Range and 50% outside who participated.

So I'm glad to share that with you to kind of give you a more nuanced answer to what non-profit leaders, whether board or staff, are expressing as they're

their key challenges, their key areas where they have need and where they need additional capacity building support or business support in order to meet that need.

And what we found is not a surprise, but certainly what social impact businesses were talking about is the turbulence of the last year in terms of

of their businesses and needing to adapt and pivot to new business realities no different than the for-profit sector.

The challenge with the social impact sector is that oftentimes the investors in the business are different than the clients who the business is serving.

And so there can sometimes be a disconnect between when the investment arrives and when the need exists.

And that's a real kind of core challenge to the social impact business.

Of course, it's sort of counter cyclical when there's an economic crisis and a community nationwide international crisis.

In many cases, the need or the demand for social impact businesses spikes.

And in certain cases, because of the economic situation, the financial support crashes.

And so we're fortunate that there were funds coming out of the federal stimulus relief

and of course funds coming through state and local governments.

And really want to thank Roger and Albemarle County for allocating some of those early stimulus relief funds to social impact businesses as well as for-profit businesses.

But you asked the question, Dawn, of what is it that social impact businesses need to survive and thrive?

And my answer to you would be that

What they need is the ability, of course, to be able to continue to get stimulus relief where it's available to kind of smooth out the ups and downs of the business.

But what they also need is the knowledge, the resources, and to build their staff to be able to engage strategically and think beyond next week.

and that's been really challenging particularly for those social impact businesses that are providing frontline services because the need has been so great.

And so from our perspective, what we heard in the Nonprofit Needs Survey was we need to invest in adapting our strategy.

We need to center an equitable and inclusive approach to our work.

We need to learn more about how to do that

and we need the kind of external support services to do that because we're in business to provide this particular need to the community and the business support needs around that aren't necessarily all available in our toolkit at the time that we need them.

So strategy, how to grow new sources of earned revenue as well as donated income,

and how to center equity in their work in order to increase their impact and be more available to our citizens who are most in need.

Those are the things that we heard from the survey.

On the positive front, and I want to tout this, is one of the myths about social impact businesses is that they're all run by people who are very charitable in nature, but not particularly business savvy.

And of course, we all have different levels of business acumen.

But the results of this survey showed us that the predominant number of participants in the survey had, even through the pandemic, at least three to six months of operating reserves.

And that's a marker for us of a healthy, sustainable business.

And so that may change given the experience of the pandemic in terms of how much operating reserve social impact businesses feel that they need to have to manage the

the ups and downs potentially of future crises, but that news has been shared and social impact businesses are following it in terms of how their boards and their leadership are making sure that they have operating reserves so they can manage crises like this in the future.

Yeah, no, that was great.

So is that survey available on your website?

I'll send it to Jennifer.

We should have it available on our website, but I don't have the link in front of me.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, Christine, this is David.

I've participated in those surveys.

As you know, I'm directing a regional nonprofit.

And in anticipation of today's meeting, I did a quick back of the envelope calculation of my nonprofit and the amount of funds we received from outside the area.

And it was 59%, a little more significant than I thought it might be.

Dave, let me just get a clarification from you.

Even broader than that.

So it includes something like a Veterans Administration grant that we received from the federal government.

It includes donations from people who live in Washington, D.C. or Raleigh, North Carolina.

It includes grant funds from community foundations that are not in the Charlottesville area, et cetera.

So it's pretty it's pretty broad.

And I'm guessing we may be a little unusual in that regard.

Yes.

You know, actually, the results of this survey didn't talk about funds beyond government relief, but I think 87 percent of those surveyed, which would be radically different from the norm, received some level of government relief through the pandemic.

And there's certainly hope and a lot of discussion at the national level

that the pandemic will change the way that funders and governments do business with nonprofits so that there can be longer term sort of multi-year support as well as sort of easing some of the ways that the requirements that funders put into play in order to access funds because of the time and the capacity it takes

for those individuals to actually apply for the funds.

And one of the good things coming out of the pandemic is a real shifting in thinking about the social impact sector as partners, as opposed to as sort of funders that are managers and social impact businesses that are their employees.

And there's a deep hope that that pivot and change will

will continue because it's been very necessary for the response to the pandemic.

Don, I have just a general comment.

If I may, I don't know if I'm supposed to be part of this discussion or not, but I'll jump right in anyway.

First, Christine, thank you for talking about the critical services that nonprofits or social impact businesses provide for economic stability and sharing some of the ways that these nonprofits or social impact businesses serve the community in abundance of ways.

One of the things that you didn't take credit for that I think maybe you could,

is I have recognized that frequently nonprofits are the voice of the people they serve.

And I think that is an important part of, or an important role you all play in our community.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I appreciate that, Roger, in terms of, you know, one of the things that I did say is that the social impact sector sort of

reflect what we value as a community.

But to your point, I think it goes both ways that the social impact sector really engages with a community in ways that I think are valuable for local government and could actually be considered to be something that would be invested in over the long term in order to continue to have that connectivity and understanding about the needs of the local

Community in a very targeted as opposed to a broad infrastructure way.

Great.

Anybody else?

All right.

Thank you, Christine.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks.

Great, thank you.

All right, so the next item on the agenda is the comprehensive plan update.

So this came up at our last meeting, the fact that the county was going through the comprehensive plan and there were, and then after the meeting, it was shared with me that there are different parts

that impact economic development.

So I had suggested that we get a copy of the COP plan provided to the EDA members and that we ought to offer some input into that plan as to how that should happen or what the right way to do it or how that fits in with how the county is handling this process.

I don't know.

I don't know if Roger has gotten any more information.

We do have

senior county leadership at the meeting who might be able to shed some light on kind of what the timing of the right way for us to weigh in and offer our suggestions.

So I'll sort of hand it over to Roger to see if he's got anything.

I'll just say that between the last meeting and this meeting, I was able to connect with folks in the community development department to include Charles Rapp

to get a better understanding of where we are in the process.

And today the board has not clearly defined the scope and schedule.

So it was hard for him to make any sort of commitment, if you will.

Nonetheless, he wanted me to assure this group that the EDA will be part of the engagement process and your feedback will be incorporated into the comprehensive plan as it moves forward.

And I see Mr. Richardson's on here.

Roger, thank you.

I know Mr. Walker is with this board and with Roger on a little bit more regular basis than I am.

Sure, thanks.

That's fairly characterized.

I think the development of the scope is ongoing in conjunction with staff and the board.

There's been some interest expressed in trying to maximize the

the time available and the staff's capacity in order to both move forward with comp plan and zoning work simultaneously.

Staff has been working very hard to reflect the interest of the board and they'll get another, the board will get another peek at that in the early part of May.

For sure, though, economic development is an understood aspect of the update to the comprehensive plan.

And so, however, and whenever it kind of fits into the overall work program, it is a topic that is going to get its good attention.

And we just don't think we can do that without the involvement of the EDA that's so actively involved.

There'll be others, obviously, we'll reach out to.

So I'll leave it at that.

I'm glad to answer any questions.

Okay, great.

I mean, I think the answer is we'll know and as the process comes along and the timing for us to weigh in, Jennifer had

has offered to get hard copies for those of you who want hard copies as opposed to electronic versions.

And I would suggest that maybe people just start, board members start taking a look just so they have an idea of what's out there and then we'll be ready to go at whatever point that what's the process is nailed down.

Yeah, I do.

I've already reviewed the documents pretty extensively and it strikes me that

We might want to consider instead of just convening at some point and having a discussion, which I think would be useful, but maybe a little too limited in range because this is a written document.

Perhaps we should consider if we're so inclined to prepare some written commentary.

Dave, of course, I'm a planner, so I think that's a great idea.

I'd love to see the EDA be proactive and maybe not just look at the economic development sector, but I think there's a lot of sectors that actually all hold together.

All right, well, I think once we sort of get a better handle on what the process is in terms of the county's time and we can figure out what the right way for us to weigh in.

I think that's a good suggestion.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before we get started with Jennifer explaining what the agribusiness recovery grant is, I just wanted to put a larger span on what's happening in economic development from a broader stance.

Particularly for the past, I don't know, year or so, our team has pivoted and moved away a little bit from Project Enable.

We continue to do some of that work, but we started moving to a business continuity strategy in order to help our existing businesses survive.

More recently, we've been engaged in what I would say is reconstitution efforts to make sure that these businesses recover in greater detail.

And now, present day, our team in the past couple of weeks have started navigating back to doing work that's outlined in Project Enable.

So we just wanted to share a general update on where we are, the types of work that we're doing,

and kind of show that we're in the evolution process here.

We're kind of moving back to where we started some 15 months ago.

So with that being said, we're going to talk a little bit about business continuity, talk about some practical things that are impacting our office and then the work that we've been doing related to Project Enable.

We'll first do that by allowing me to introduce Jennifer, who will talk to you a little bit about the Agribusiness Recovery Grants.

Yes, so the business recovery grants, if you think back to that survey that we showed you about two months ago, besides the website jumpstart program that came out of that, another thing that we identified was the agribusiness community.

So we did a deeper dive, did a little bit more research, and we created the Agribusiness Resiliency Grant.

You may have seen some information go out about it.

This program was specifically created to target our direct market agribusinesses.

Those are ones that sell to restaurants, caterers, local stores, orchards, wineries, cideries, and farmer's markets.

The application period is April 5th through the 21st.

Let me back up for just a second and say that we did partner with CIC again to administer this program for us.

There is $200,000 available for our agribusinesses.

They are eligible to apply for up to $10,000.

for eligible expenses occurred between March 12th, 2020 and June 30th of 2021.

The expenses can range from revenue loss to loan payments for capital expenditure, such as machinery and tools and business equipment.

They are also eligible to apply for assistance for expenses related to operating safely.

That would include your PPE.

temporary outdoor expansions and some technology.

They are also able to request funds for advertising and marketing up to 20% of that grant.

So currently we have 21 inquiries and four completed applications.

The deadline is Friday.

Thank you, Jennifer.

I wanted to speak to you about a couple of other ongoing business support activities that we're engaged in.

We may not be actively doing these ourselves, but we're partnering with some other folks to make this happen.

And one of those is the Restaurant Recovery Fund.

I believe we have a slide to talk about this.

You may be aware that the American

The ARP plan, the most recent COVID plan, provided funding for both restaurant recovery as well as shuttered venues.

But one of the things that's not commonly known is who's eligible for these federal grants.

It's being administered through the Economic Development Party at the federal level, but they defined a restaurant as a food stand, food truck, a food cart,

a caterer, saloon, inn, tavern, bar, lounge, brew pub, tasting room, taproom, licensed facility or premise of a beverage, alcohol producer, where the public may taste, sample, or purchase products or other similar places of business in which the public or patrons assemble for the primary purpose of being served food or drink.

We thought it was important to inform this particular authority of who was eligible

As you may know, folks who qualify for this may not realize that and or you may go out and amplify this message.

So this is really just for informational purposes only.

The window for applying is open now.

The PPP loan, which happened some year or so ago, when it first opened, only about 25% of the folks who applied actually received a PPP.

reimbursement or funding.

And that's important.

We want to make sure our community gets in the front of the line before these funds are all dispersed.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about the restaurant recovery fund.

Sounds good.

All right.

The other is the shuttered venues fund.

Wanted to make you aware that any venue that shuts, if you think about maybe amphitheaters or

Paramount Theater, you could maybe even movie theaters excite any place that has a venue, they will also be eligible for EDA funding.

That funding is not yet open, but it will continue to amplify the message to make sure our communities has the first opportunity and crack at those particular funds.

That's what we're doing as it relates to business continuity activity right now.

You know, we also know we're still in the web creation

We're also continuing to do some of the microloans that you saw earlier, but most of what we're doing is moving from continuity to reconstitution.

Congruent with that, we are relocating our office from 110 Preston back into the county office building.

We expect to do that by June the 30th.

We didn't want one of you to show up our doorstep looking for us and not be able to find us.

We hope to start moving as of May the 15th.

So if you come knocking at our door and can't find us on Preston, it's because we're in the process of relocating to the county office building.

So that's the type of business continuity work that we've been working on.

And now we have found capacity to return to our project and able work to include business retention activities.

So we have resumed business retention expansion visits.

Most of our visits are still virtual, but we've done some site visits.

This month, we have been able to partner with BDP, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, on four of those meetings.

And of those meetings resulted in two international trade referrals, one economic gardening and one workforce development referral.

So we're starting to make progress back in that area.

In addition to that, I'd like to say that the agribusiness grant, we are also having many BRE visits with them.

So we do talk to everybody that applies for the agribusiness grant.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Yeah, can everyone hear me?

Okay, great.

To talk just very briefly about site readiness, it seems as though our office is very similar to many other people around the world.

Prior to the pandemic, we were getting monthly requests for information about available sites in our area.

And when the pandemic hit, that slowed to a trickle.

There were many months where we had no inquiries about sites available in our county or maybe we got one.

Since the EDA last met, we have received seven inquiries for available sites.

We've responded to four of those.

We've had sites that would make sense for four.

We've heard back from one of those four to say that we were eliminated, but we're still waiting to hear about the other three and I think we're optimistic about those other three.

Those came to us through the region.

which receives them from the state.

And so the other thing we've been doing with respect to site readiness is working more closely with both regional data and statewide data to examine what are the types of properties that would

that exist in our locality that would be most eligible for those types of projects.

And so doing a deeper dive into the data over the past couple of years, what we found is that we're most likely going to be successful in our flight readiness goals with properties that are at least 20 acres and that would permit

at least 50,000 square feet of light industrial or commercial space.

There's a slight preference for existing buildings, which plays well into a lot of our comp plan goals of adaptively reusing buildings.

The sort of general thrust behind that is that existing buildings are a little bit easier to to get going.

And the other nugget that we got from the state and regional level was that not only do businesses, are they interested in that size and scope of property, but they also want to be able to expand.

So if 50,000 square feet

If the EDA in the future was to engage in some purchasing of a property or development of a property, it would be important to not only have that minimum amount of square footage available, but also room to expand.

I'll move from there to jump into public-private partnerships.

Really quickly, you all may have seen that Albemarle Business Campus is getting started, so their permits for earthwork have been approved and they've got construction entrances on both the non-residential side, which

has our public-private partnership performance agreement as well as the residential side.

So they're pursuing final site plan approval for the first building there, and we're working to support that project.

I'll move on from there quickly to talk about Barnes Lumber and say that VDOT has approved the 60% road plans for that project, and we're working hard to get the full road plans

Approved.

And our partner, Frank Soner, the developer there, has engaged the landscape architect to work on the design of the plaza.

And so we'll be working hand in hand to complete the design with the help of the community.

I think so, J.T., thank you for asking.

You know, when we signed the public-private partnership with Barnes-Lombre in particular, it was some two and a half, three years ago when we went through this process, and included in there were some estimates for the cost of construction.

And you may be aware that the cost of construction is coming in significantly higher than

originally projected two and a half, three years ago.

So it's resulted in some complications in some of our existing contracts and performance agreements.

I just wanted you to be aware that we're working directly with the developer to figure out avenues to deal with those maybe potential cost overruns for be it roads or infrastructure or

public plazas and the developer sees this as a true partnership and is amenable to working with us on handling those cost overruns.

I just share that information with you because it may result in us coming back to the EDA to talk further about

Performance agreements and any changes that we may need to make.

There's no action for you.

I'm not sure there ever will be any action.

I just wanted to make you aware of this particular scenario before we went too far down the path.

And the third thing I'll mention is Will and Mills is another example of a public-private partnership.

Since we last spoke, the bridge and the other public elements have gone through the extensive process of evaluation and engineering approvals and building inspection approvals.

and all those things have now been given a certificate of occupancy.

For all intents and purposes, that project is complete.

I think there's some administrative we're working through with the legal system to get all the easements and plats and so forth needed, but that's well on its way and we expect to have that project closed out in full very soon.

If you don't mind, J.T., do you have anything else related to P3s before I move on?

Sort of an update on strategic partnerships.

We have quite a few going on.

I think we've spoken to you about Venture Central on numerous occasions.

I'll make you aware that the board has now began its formation for Venture Central.

As a reminder, this is a strategic partnership between the University of Virginia

The city, the county, and the Chamber of Commerce, where we're gonna have a place for startups to begin their organization.

We're gonna have programming in place to help them grow.

We'll have accelerator programs to turn them in from proof of concept companies into real companies that can coexist in our community and grow into providing career ladder jobs.

We're very excited about the pipeline and what we have here.

In the coming month or two, we'll have

Executive Director job description out and you'll hear more about that in the media as it becomes more than just behind the scenes activity.

It'll be things that this probably this EDA will be involved with, particularly in the mentoring and participating in some way, shape or form.

Project Rebound is a partnership we engage with with

Again, the University of Virginia in the city and the chamber for the purpose of helping us reconstitute and recover from COVID.

We've done many things as a result of that partnership.

Probably the most visible is the partnership we had over the holidays with the Buy Local campaign that you may have heard about or seen.

And as you know, we're going to plan to expand that program.

And Jennifer and a person named Jason Ness from the

City have been working to create a cohesive and strategic plan and that'll be rolling out soon as well.

Another aspect of our project, ENABLE, is promoting and supporting the tourism industry.

Many of you may be aware I chair the CACVB and as you know, Courtney gave an update on what's happening there.

If you have any questions about that, I'll be glad to answer.

any of those.

Mostly we just want to make sure that you are aware, hey, our work's starting to evolve from business continuity and reconstitution to now back to the core work we established some three years ago for Project Enable.

Mr. Ray has his hand up.

I don't know if it's a legacy raise.

Thank you.

Roger, you were talking a minute ago about the increased cost of construction.

Yes, sir.

With a little bit of luck, I'm on the brink of starting a new three and a half story office building out at Oakley on West Riah.

So I've been tuned in to some of the construction costs.

And I ran across a number that I thought was incredible.

And that is that in the last 12 calendar months,

The cost for the lumber package for an average 1,400 square foot house has risen $40,000.

That's just for the lumber in one calendar year.

And concrete is right behind that.

Yeah, it's rising at levels no one could have fully contemplated, I don't believe, a couple of years ago, George, particularly giving all that's going on in the world of the pandemic.

Anything else?

Other questions?

I have a question.

Okay.

I'm sorry I had to jump in, though.

I should have used the raised hand, I guess.

But anyway, this is Diantha.

Roger, can you just help update me on when we're talking about site readiness and helping businesses expand, can you just update me a little bit on where we are with

mapping available properties in the county.

Be happy, too, Supervisor McKeel.

First, let me say we started a process a couple of years ago, and there was a gentleman who was absolutely fantastic with technology.

His name was Andrew Newball.

He was the person spearheading that.

Andrew took a job in Texas and moved on.

I believe he's in Austin, Texas now.

And so that work sort of left was sort of left behind.

Since that time, we had the pandemic and freezing of 17 or 18 positions, as you're aware.

As a result of that, our team has been partnering with the community development department to see what it would cost to have a contractor pick up that particular project and move forward with it.

J.T., you may be able to speak to this better than me.

We provided the scope of work that we believe would be necessary to answer the question you're asking Supervisor McKeel.

And we submitted that to CDD to include in their bidding of work for some of the land use activities that they're going to be doing with the update of the comprehensive plan.

No, that's absolutely correct.

And Supervisor McKeel, if your question is in reference to the inventory, everything Roger said is absolutely right.

We're soliciting community development and soliciting consultant bids right now for that work.

And we've included a scope of work for that economic development focus.

In real time, currently though, we're constantly meeting with property owners to get their properties listed on the state's website to inform all the searches that happen at the state, regional, and local level.

There are a lot of private sector tools, LoopNet, Codestar, other commercial real estate websites.

So I don't know how many brokers are actively using the state's inventory, but it's a good way to catalog the existing sites that are available now.

I'll just really quickly add, you know, Jennifer and I will

Go out into the community and try to get a sense of what the existing inventory is.

There's been a lot of changes in the available space for businesses because we get phone calls on an ongoing basis of where can I expand for those businesses that are expanding or where could I find a different place that would better match my customers as my business has continued to evolve.

We're trying to keep an eye on that both in the long-range sense that Roger's speaking to and in the short-term sense.

Yeah, in reaching out to the state, we learned that Virginia, the Commonwealth as a whole, was missing out on a lot of major investment opportunities because of the lack of

capacity in the infrastructure.

So you've heard us talk about tier three sites, tier four sites, and trouble ready tier five sites.

Companies were making major investments only to find out that some of those tier four or tier five sites didn't quite have, these are massive numbers of two million gallons of water a day.

or 85 megawatts of three-phase electricity.

So the University of Virginia being the region's only Tier 4 site is doing extra work

extra analysis to provide more detailed information about their water, sewer, electricity, gas, so that the state can more accurately market their sites.

They're also moving even further from that tier four original classification to

create three PAD-ready sites within that tier four area.

So they're even escalating it beyond where they had originally.

We're working with them as much as we can to make that information available on the timeline the state needs it.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

I just am interested really in the inventory that we have and I appreciate the state piece and all, but you know,

but those numbers were kind of scary, right?

It's fine.

I knew we were trying to get an inventory established and recognizing that inventory has changed constantly.

I understand that, but it's really good to hear that we're trying to get back to that work.

And I think that's what I heard and you're working through community development.

So that's all good.

Thank you very much.

And as always, J.T., I encourage you to keep Scottsville in mind.

Thank you for the reminder.

Okay, great.

All right.

So on to the closed session.

All right, so I'll do this.

I move that the Albemarle County Economic Development Authority go into 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 and the expansion of existing business where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses or interest in locating or expanding their facilities in the community to with the location and development of Project Leopard in Albemarle County.

Subsection six to discuss and consider the investment of public funds where bargaining and negotiation is involved and where if made public initially the financial interest of the authority in the county would be adversely affected to with

a performance agreement related to Project Leopard in Albemarle County.

Is there a second?

I second.

All right, any discussion?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

The link is in the chat.

Yeah, the link is in the chat.

Okay.

Mr. Shreve, do you need the link to the close?

My comment on this is I think you obviously

All right.

So let's see.

One, two, three, four.

All right.

I didn't know if you needed me to this vote.

Thanks, guys.

So 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?

I second.

All right.

I will.

Let's see, Director Ray.

Director Munson.

He left.

Yeah.

All right, thank you everybody.

So, any other unfinished business, other matters?

One question I had, I don't know if we still got the county staff, if Doug or Jeff are still on, I don't know if there have been any discussions about, our next meeting is in May, have there been any discussions about whether we're going to continue in virtual meetings or how long that might go?

I can speak to that.

Certainly you should expect to have to be continuing in virtual space in May.

Our IMT will be making a recommendation about changing building posture to the county executive here soon heading into the summer.

We had already indicated that we're going to keep our current posture till May the 17th.

OK.

Anything else anybody else has?

All right.

Well, with nothing else, we'll be adjourned.

Thanks to everybody.

And we'll see everybody on May 18th.

Thank you, Scott.

Thanks.

Bye.

Take care.