Economic Development Authority Meeting   1/17/2023

Meeting supporter, we have a request for, I think we can vote on that first before we get going.

All right, so,

Call the roll.

Director Mulhall.

Aye.

Mr. Dean.

Aye.

Director Mulhall.

Here.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right.

Matters from the public?

Yeah, right here.

Anyone here seeking to be recognized?

You can see me.

If I could remind everybody to project up into the mic.

The election of officers didn't rearrange, but I'd like to just validate the direct audience.

I hear you just fine.

Yeah, I beg your pardon.

Is it medical or personal?

All right.

There we go.

All right.

So I make a motion that Director Lawless be allowed to attend virtually for business reasons.

All right.

Director Wray.

Aye.

Director Deakins.

Aye.

Director Mottola.

Aye.

OK. That's the public approval of the minutes from the last meeting for the term minutes.

Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes?

Second.

There we go.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Financial Report.

Do we have a new financial report this time or it's?

It's through 10-20 October, everyone by 20 through October.

Okay, you want to come back?

Let's come back.

So let's find out more and we will move into the annual meetings of officers, election officers,

All of the current members are willing to continue to serve in their capacity.

Nobody else has been to the chair about seeking to serve in any of the officer roles.

Sure.

The current officers.

He's the assistant secretary, but he's the treasurer or secretary.

Oh, secretary.

Okay.

All right.

Not hearing anyone seeking

that allow that those officers be reelected for a term of another year.

Why don't we, so I will, Chair, Mr. Ray will serve as Vice Chair, Mr. Shreve will serve as Secretary, and Mr. Johnson will serve as Assistant Secretary.

Yes, sir.

John DeRay, Director Green.

Aye.

Director Mottola.

Aye.

Director Lawless.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

So the new business.

So I think the scheduling, we're going to move item C, item

In front of all of you.

Thanks.

I will.

As you may recall, the governor recently came out with a note about the Virginia jobs investment plan and the award to a company called P.S.

Fertility.

He's going to take you through the process of who P.S.

Yes, thank you Mr.

Chair.

Just a quick introduction of what we've received from CEO Kevin Combs.

PS4T is an innovative life science company that has a novel diagnostic test for sperm and there'll be a leasing space at Albemarle

in that space of the self storage building that is fully vertical now and shipping out and even One Day in the World and they'll receive those tests back and perform analysis and share that with fertility clinics and we're very excited about their announcement from the governor

Over the next three years, they've committed to 31 collabs to build out that lab space.

The vote is the county has adopted a VJIP match policy and this company meets all the criteria to have a full match of the grant from the state.

So in addition to the $800 per job the state will be providing for each new job created, the county through the EDA, if their agreement is approved, will also match that grant.

And so that is the action that we're asking the ADA to consider today is that VJIT match agreement, which was included in your materials for the meeting today.

Thank you very much.

It's Kevin.

I'm on my cell.

I apologize.

I had to do some banking today and I just got it completed.

I was hoping to be at home.

OK, great.

So I just want to thank you and the Albemarle County EDA.

I know we met with with you folks a few times early on in the process and you've been very helpful.

The state's been very helpful.

Governor Youngkin has been very kind.

Just quickly, it's going to be a

a diagnostic testing company for male fertility.

There are two PhD doctors out of the University of Virginia that discovered some new fertility science around male sperm.

And there are two diagnostic type tests that the company will start with in our facility there on Fifth Street across from the county office building there.

and we're in the end cap of 3030 Vision Lane.

I think we have 4,000 square feet there, which will be predominantly CLIA labs based.

So this is relatively a big deal in a sense.

And I know the university and the county, I don't know how that works, that city, county, in terms of all that geography, but I know they have some exciting announcements coming soon, but I think this plays right into it as Governor Youngkin mentioned,

and I have another conversation with him on the 25th.

We're just, everyone's really excited.

I was really happy to be able to keep this company in our geographic county.

I lived here, I've raised my four children and we've attended county schools.

My daughter teaches in the county school.

So I just want to thank you all.

I'll answer any questions if it will help.

This can't change the semester, the scale at which you're investing.

So it was a little broken, but I'm going to repeat it and then tell me if I'm wrong.

How would these dollars from the state and the county help with expansion?

Again, my phone's a little broken.

I'm hoping you guys can hear me okay.

Basically, these grants are incredibly valuable because we are going to want to add lab personnel.

The University of Virginia is a very fertile ground for students coming out that would have the skill sets we need.

So this ability to have these matching grants gives us the ability as a company to be more competitive in keeping these folks here in Albemarle County in roles.

We're going to try to pay these folks at a higher price point than they would get in other markets and keep them here in Albemarle County.

Again, we do have our top candidate for our lab right now is an individual that lives in New Jersey at this point.

So she would be relocating with her family to Albemarle County.

And then we have three candidates that are at the University of Virginia right now that are more junior.

But they would, you know, in essence be leaving University of Virginia and then staying in the Albemarle County area.

So these these funds will actually help us pay at a higher price point.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I mean, I'm still here.

It's just very broken.

Certain times the speech is a little broken.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Thanks, Kevin.

OK.

Thank you all.

Appreciate your consideration.

Next on the, so we'll jump to the staff.

Mr. President, I will move approval of the grant match agreement.

Revenues or other revenues that you generate in it from them.

It is the supervisor's funds back in 2018.

The funding carried some of that over in the following years.

County received ARPA funding about two years ago.

It was a new funds for paying police overtime and other overtime.

And that allowed to offset other costs in our year-end savings.

And so the year-end savings to put a replenished economic opportunity fund.

So in some of it's a combination of both local revenues

or Fabio and most recently ARPA funds that were replenished and used from the federal.

And it's categorized as pass-through financial assistance.

So there's a, you've got an appropriation now, but once you spend the current appropriation, we would, we're gonna replenish those funds in the future.

Yeah.

You know, there may be people watching.

I move that the EEA adopt the resolution of the proposed agreement with P.S.

Fertility, Inc. and authorize the chair and the secretary of strategy for the agreement on behalf of the EEA once it has been approved as content and form by the county attorney and executed by P.S.

Alright, any further questions or discussion?

Alright.

We can do that.

DeRay?

Aye.

Teane?

Aye.

Director Mottola?

Aye.

Director Long?

Aye.

Director Malloy.

All right.

Thanks, everyone.

I want to add that as a former OBGYN nurse, I've been following this very closely in the paper and find this exciting one.

Just a comment.

I don't represent Kevin, but I have seen many of the Charlottesville Angel Network meetings, and this is his area.

He knows what he's doing.

He knows what he's talking about.

So I think it's great that he's involved.

I just had to add that.

Back to the agenda now.

I wanted to discuss with the board and I'll take the first one.

You may be aware that the state formed a committee to celebrate the semi-quincentennial

on the birthday of the United States, 250 years of existing.

They authorized local areas or communities to have their own subcommittees, and they're called the Virginia 250 subcommittee.

Our community, through the Board of Supervisors and the City Council of Charlottesville, anointed

We need a C.B.B.

to be the governing entity represented to represent our community and the Council have already approved this by way.

What this does is establish a community.

that can receive funding from the state in order to help certain places for our community and or expenses associated with planning events.

In fact, there are some grants to be announced that this committee can

It also serves as the convening body for everything.

The first thing is about Virginia's semi-autisticity.

I don't know why they don't want to use that instead of 250.

So it's the independence rather than the Constitution.

All right.

Item

We're making some minor adjustments to the item on the AFID application of EDA earlier or late last year and

This past 30 days between the last meeting was the time of governor's announcement.

So this was another governor's announcement of awarding $24,000 turkeys.

EDA is matching that and total investment for this

will actually be a little bit more than $48,000, will probably be around $55,000 between the time of the application grant and the actual purchase order by the company.

Inflation continued to

And so this grant, as a reminder, will allow kelkies to sell ground turkey throughout other regions of the state instead of just birds at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And so that was part of a new AFID infrastructure grant.

You've had many other companies in the community reach out for the next round, and so there will likely be a competitive process that will come back to the EEA and share either some of the activists in our community that are interested in the next round, and we'll need your help figuring out what the most eligible and best project to deliver is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know for sure.

My expectation is that the process began with a site visit, Megan Gray and I visited the site.

It's called Judd Culver,

That was in August or September, and the grant timeline, the applications opened October 1st and closed November 15th, and then we heard in early January

Once the agreement is executed, a tranche of the agreement will be provided to him.

And then once certain milestones are met and documentation is provided, the last 25 percent will be issued to him.

From the application, what percentage of the

Yeah, the grant, the total grant is $4,000.

All the equipment will be somewhere around $55,000, $60,000.

Yes.

And we don't put it, this is the first correct.

That's correct.

The reason I'm coming out of Massachusetts for many years, and you go apply for a performing grant or something, $5,000, $10,000, and you have to submit a quarter inch paper, and it's like, and you have certificates and

Thank you.

I'm glad you said that, Director Morrill, because the Small Business Development Center, which is right across here, they came along to the site visit with us and were instrumental in helping the business owner complete the paperwork.

This particular action was probably three or four pages, eight or ten questions.

As the competition increases, it can be harder and harder to get these grants.

But for this round, it happened to be November 15th and, you know, things about a week later.

So, I mean, he was just as slammed as he could possibly be.

It was the worst time.

I want to introduce this because I know J.T.

is a very humble person and he's not going to take it for the work that happened.

But much like we explained, Director Morrill, it was almost two years ago that we started this PPRSP grant application for the University of Pennsylvania nation in North Fork.

Number one, the county was told we would not be eligible for a grant.

It wasn't a distance scale that we had to get into.

and we had a debriefing to determine how we could be competitive and that process spread us working directly with the foundation and UVA, getting them to change the stance on lease only options to locate in the

The biggest factor that we wanted to hear was the site selection consultant said, you're eliminating about half your potential clients by eliminating them to lease or buy property on themselves and saying the same thing if a developer live off the property too.

So we're going to need the foundation to move off.

We won't sell land in the park idea.

and then so in order to make that happen, that was not J.T.

I think the headline is the state awarded a $3 million grant to the foundation.

to benefit the Foundation 31 acres within the North Fork Discovery Park.

And so Roger and I have responded to innumerable businesses that

are interested in locating there and the uncertainty with the timeline of development and other regulatory hurdles has always been

eliminated that site from contention and so we're really excited that we could partner with the state to leverage investment that the foundation had made into the park to pull down these state funds and increase the readiness of the site probably by 12 to 18 months.

So we're excited to take all the next steps to make it happen.

This $3 million will cover pre-development work as well as clearing and grading.

So as those RFIs, as those companies interest in this area, and we go and we do a site visit with them, they'll be able to visualize what their new home could look like.

This is something that many businesses in our community deal with, a lack of ready sites.

And so this is just one, but this is an important step forward.

And I was looking at the folks that received grants last year versus this year, half of the recipients

significant grants this year and so the total you may recall the total ask that we were originally looking for two years ago was in the six to seven and a half million dollar range this three million dollars is nothing to sneeze at but there's still more needed for us to complete everything that we want to do so I'm hopeful that

the continued investment by the state and the awards that they're continuing to make to projects as they continue through that tier process will continue here as well.

The only other thing I think that's important to say about the VBRSP program is legislative priorities of the Board of Supervisors was to reduce the minimum number of acres needed to qualify for that program.

Senator Deeds has submitted that into the General Assembly.

It's in committee right now.

That would open up the door for some additional opportunities in our county.

Again, it's not going to solve all of our issues by any stretch, but it's this is an important step forward and we're excited to work with the foundation.

J.T., could you speak to two things?

One, what was the governor's appropriation in his budget as it relates to approximately how much more money was he recommending going to the VBRSP?

And then secondly, will the EDA be involved?

It's tough to say, I don't, was it 250 million he wanted to put?

350 million he wanted to put into the VBRSP program going forward.

That number can be, to interpret, 150 million into this program.

Only 90 was distributed this round.

So, Governor Yelkin's made a strong commitment, but we won't know until next year what, how much money's available.

and the EDA will be a part of, we expect the EDA will have a role in implementing this initial three million as it goes forward.

I think having

A site ready piece of land takes an incredible amount of time off the approval process.

Having developed this area for quite a while, people want what they want, they want it now.

Yeah, this is the economic development portion of North Fork.

This is 256 acres.

that's been characterized as tier four, but it's industrially zoned.

So it's planned development industrial park is the specific industrial zoning.

There's a rezoning under review for the entire park that would update and modernize some of the titles and things of uses within the park.

So now they could go straight to site plan process?

Yes.

That takes a year and a half.

That's awesome.

But thank you for sharing that.

Congratulations to the staff.

This award announcement from the governors was also interesting to me for how the sites were spread around the state.

And I think it's worth kudos all through the region.

The way I tally these up with Albemarle, Stanton, Waynesboro, and Louisa, more or less as neighbors on a segment of 64, that region earned more of this funding than any other part of the state.

More than Richmond, more than Southside, more than Hampton Roads, or Northern Virginia.

and that's not usually how these award categories break down.

So the next item on the agenda is the Lewis and Clark exploratory center update.

I have been meeting with folks from the Lewis and Clark center.

I think we're getting close to getting the note and the loan resolved, but we aren't quite there yet.

I hope we will be able to vote on it today, but we're not quite there yet.

We've got a little more work to do, but they've been very cooperative.

They have made a $5,000 payment.

on the loan, which I think shows that they're serious about getting this done.

So that's all I've got on that.

Is there any unfinished business?

There isn't anything on the agenda.

Other matters?

Would you like the financial report?

I even circled it to say we were going back to it.

We should take about new leadership here and pay attention to the agenda.

And we do.

We have some money.

So that's that's the key here.

This is through at ten thirty one twenty two.

And essentially what we're looking at for the fiscal fiscal year up to that point, expenditures of nine hundred and fifty five thousand ninety two dollars and twenty five cents, much smaller revenue total of sixteen thousand eighty three twenty six

Beginning cash was $976,369.

So with a net cash change of negative $40,605.99 after considering pass-through activity, our ending cash and cash equivalent balance is $872,868.05.

It's been a few weeks since I've been out there.

I heard recently today that it's really changed a lot just since November.

So I need to make out different my walls on it.

That's right.

I'm exaggerating only slightly.

I can't believe it's like a whack-a-mole thing.

They're building, I've never seen houses go so fast.

That's why I can't get a carpenter over.

Okay, anything else?

All right, if there's nothing else, then we'll be adjourned until February 21st.