Economic Development Authority Meeting   2/21/2023

Would you please move over here?

Aysha Williams.

One of you just minimized it fully, but still.

I can tell you Donna and I drove out to your park and it was very nice.

He pays him to be out there.

On Riah Road, but right in front of it, it's called the blank.

Right in front of it, we put a veteran's reward, which is really lovely.

And then it has a playground for children.

Well, there's Adirondack chairs and there's a fire pit.

Yeah.

A gas, a gas, natural gas, natural gas fire pit.

I don't know.

There's a statue up there.

Director McNaughton has conflict, so he's not here today.

and we'll just pick up with Dave when he gets here.

So I think we have a quorum and call the meeting to order.

Are there any matters from the public?

No, there aren't, sir.

All right, nobody's time to speak.

Then approval of the minutes, I think the one addition on the minutes is we probably need to list who the officers are.

I think it just says the slate is

Any other comments on the minutes?

All right, is there a motion to approve the minutes?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All right, the minutes are approved.

We'll pass over the financial report.

We haven't got, this is the same one we saw.

That's correct.

Yes.

Yes, sorry.

So we'll pass that over.

And then to new business staff report.

I'm sure we all remember in fall of 21 when Bonemos opened their facility over on Pantops and over the course of the last

Year and some change.

They have been making a tremendous amount of progress and I'm sure most of you have already received the invitation from Ed Rogers for their ribbon cutting grand opening event that will be held on March 2nd.

We'll make sure that if you haven't received it, we'll make sure that you do.

But they're very excited to have the governor visit and celebrate their grand opening with them at their Pantops location.

So we're very excited for them and very proud to see that their business is

is thriving and I look forward to that event.

And participated at the Chamber of Commerce, State of the Community.

Yeah, State of the Community and I thought he did a very nice job.

As did Mr. Johnson as well.

Don't call it Mr.

Speaking of the Che Guevara State of the Community event last Friday, like Don said, several of us were there and it was obviously my first time attending the event and hopefully they do something similar, but it's definitely not on that magnitude.

And my takeaway from it was it was just good to see local government, you know, county, city,

the university, the hospital, the public school systems, all in one room, even entrepreneurs just talking about, you know, the similarities that we all face that we may think, well, how would that business have a similar situation as, you know, the public school system and vice versa and some of the challenges and the opportunities, but ultimately all together collectively, it's, you know, the community, what is the community doing?

What do we need to do?

What can we do to evolve and grow and help each other working hand in hand?

So that was my big takeaway and we talked about it as a team and it was just good to see all that synergy and the energy in one room.

It's very positive.

Onto the next one, the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council, CBIC and Venture Central.

Some of you all may have seen this, the US Economic Development Administration awarded Venture Central with a $300,000 grant to engage participants interested in angel investing

Connecting local startups to funders outside the region and structuring a fund.

Venture Central wants to collaborate with other nonprofits in our area like CBIC in order to make this happen here in the community.

So what

Can I add to that?

Yes, sure.

So we're working through the process, Venture Central is the we I'm talking about, is working through the process of partnering with other existing organizations to help with the program management.

There will be events scheduled where, like Charlottesville Angel Network, we'd be invited to, or at least folks from that group will be invited to explain what

Angel Investment is and have an event to do that that will include creating a new network of people who come to those conversations would be one example of how we would want to increase the number of investors in our community.

There would also be other underrepresented groups who would be asked to participate in some events so they had an opportunity to connect with capital.

in a way that they would not.

And then the third would be establishing the viability of whether or not we can create a new local fund who focuses on helping those who are entrepreneurs that are underrepresented.

Wouldn't be exclusively for that, but a healthy portion of those funds will be earmarked for DEI initiatives.

Venture Central realized they couldn't do it alone, so they're reaching out to both CBIC and then there's some other existing nonprofits, Beacon, Minority Business Alliance, United Way, others who may or may not take part in that endeavor.

That sounds great.

Yes, sir.

I think the next one's made.

Yes.

I'm going to talk for a minute about what's known as a comprehensive economic development strategy.

It's commonly called a SIDS.

And ASANDS is a program that an economic development strategy program is created regionally and it involves multi jurisdictions who are

who are included.

Nonetheless, the groups that you see listed is our region, if you will, that'll be participating in this.

And I would look at SEDS as not only a strategy, it's also much like having a certain certification, if you will,

Whenever you submit for a federal grant at the economic development level, the first question they ask you is, is this consistent with your SEDS plan?

And we don't have one.

And so, you know, it's almost like a master's degree preferred, if you will.

without our master's degree, it's gonna be hard for us to actually get the job or in this case, get the grant.

So this is also checking a very important box that's gonna open up additional access to grants, large grants that we have a really hard time competing for today.

SANS is supposed to last about five years.

And in the case of what we're doing, it's not our local jurisdiction alone.

You go to the next slide, please.

We're also partnering with the Rappahannock

Rapidan region.

So our SEDS program is going to be both what you saw on the previous slide and then it's going to be Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange, Madison, and Rappahannock County as well.

So it's two different regions who are joining together to write one particular plan with a goal of allocating regional resources within the community.

It'll just be across many different areas.

So what's in, let's say, is they'll relook at targeted industries and maybe make some recommendations if we should expand our targeted industries or not.

You'll have a goal of improving quality of life, attracting investment with a focus on jobs and keeping talent in the community.

And obviously,

accessing, accenting the regional assets that are already here, such as UVA, it will be the recently announced Biotechnology Institute, those types of regional attributes that can help local attributes that can help the region.

So why am I sharing this with you?

Well,

I'm on the committee as I believe, I'm not sure if Director Lawless accepted, but I know he was invited to be on there as well.

And we'll be helping guide the conversation.

But you see the bottom part of this, there's going to be at some point, there's going to be surveys, interviews, focus groups, open house.

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

Here's sort of the timeline for that.

And what I really want to focus on is not the timeline, but from June through September.

You'll see that that's where the interviews focus, business surveys take place.

My request to you as directors is to be active in that and participating during that timeframe.

We're certainly gonna put your name on the list for surveys, make sure that you get invited to certain stakeholders, but this will be an important time where your voice could impact this regional plan and overall impact the economic vitality of Albemarle County.

They're facilitating the work and they're working directly with the TGA, BDC and Rappahannock.

They are known for working at the state and regional level.

The Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development had a strategic plan written some five or six years ago.

And it was written by Camone.

And in that report was a recommendation that certainly the core areas of our community, which is Albemarle County, UVA, and Charlottesville, part of the group, take part in some innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem growing.

And that's where the idea of venture, it actually was Venture Hub originally.

The Venture Hub name was already taken, so we became Venture Central.

and that's where that idea grew from.

So Camoin wrote the plan, it's called the, what's the name?

Something growth plan.

I can get a copy of that to you, but if you want to see it.

But the point being is that they know our community already, they've worked throughout the state.

We have part of a regional plan,

That was a question I asked of the committee and this is the best way I could describe it as a metaphor would be there may be small area plans inside of our comprehensive plan so the SEDS program may have components of our communities that may differ from some of the other more rural areas for example.

But I'm asking you to get actively engaged and help Albemarle County when the opportunity presents itself.

And that concludes our report, Mr.

Chair.

All right.

Any further questions?

All right.

So the next item on the new business is the Covenant School Bond Amendment.

And Lisa Williams from Wire Woods, I assume, is on that.

Frank Barry's here.

Lisa's not here.

Frank Barry's here, but Lisa Williams should be here.

She's the lead.

Hi, this is Lisa Williams.

We can.

Oh, perfect.

Perfect.

Apologies for being on my phone versus Zoom.

But thank you.

Thank you all for having us here today.

Before you, we have presented to you a resolution with respect to the Covenant School in 2013.

The Covenant School came to the authority for purposes of issuing a tax exempt bond, which has been outstanding since that time.

And that bond is currently held by Truist.

I think currently because obviously it predated the Truist name.

It was previously with Sundress.

and we are in the process of discussing with Truist the conversion of the interest rate methodology in the documents because as of June of this year LIBOR which is the index in which much of the industry has used for variable rate transactions

will no longer be reported.

And so as a result, all financial institutions have been sort of slowly going through their portfolios and amending existing documents to transition the interest rate index that will be utilized.

The industry standard that most are looking to move to is what's called SOFR.

And so in discussing this transition between Truist and the Covenant School, that's the agreement that they've come to.

The 2013 bond,

as a conduit bond.

So we had to go through the authority in order for the covenant school to access the tax exempt market.

So as the issuer of the bond, your participation is needed to amend and restate the bond that this new NDAC can be recognized and that for tax purposes,

This does not create an event of taxability for the school under this bond.

The bond remains a limited liability.

It's not a liability of the authority or the locality for which Albemarle County.

It is solely the responsibility of the covenant school.

The only amendment that's occurring in the documents is this change of the index

and making sure that the interest rate provisions sync up to what the industry is doing.

And part of that is also amending what happens if So far goes away, because nobody ever thought in 2013 that LIBOR was ever going to go away.

But that's now not true.

So the bond documents will also recognize what happened if super works go away.

And so every financial institution, Truist, Wells Fargo, B of A, all of them, are setting forth in their respective documents much more thorough provisions on what happens if the index goes away.

Now, the 2013 deal does have

some of these provisions in there.

But it's one, not what the parties really ever intended this to ever be utilized because it's not the rate that is commensurate with what the parties want the rate on this bond to be.

So that's why we're here today.

We're asking the authority to

Agree that the provisions of the interest rate in the bond document be amended.

So we've got a resolution which approved the amendment to the bond purchase and loan agreement to which the authority of the party, the bond will be amended and restated for which is the instrument of the authority.

And then the covenant school is going to amend its promissory note, which is what

obligates the Covenant School to pay back the authority in order to pay back the bond.

That will be amended and the authority is also a party to that.

So that's a summary of what we're here for and the resolution before you.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Lisa.

Are there any questions?

Ward.

Maybe just a quick comment.

We have some revolving debt in our companies that we've had to do this.

It's the most perfunctory.

There's nothing here.

It's amazing to me that I understand why we need to run the process through official channels and everything.

But it's like we just handled it with the quickest signature because we didn't have any responsibility for these stations.

So I don't see anything funky at all about this.

It's all very, the replacement language is all fairly standard across all the banks.

All right, well, not hearing any more questions.

Is there a motion on the resolution?

All right, should we do a roll call?

Director Mottola, Director Lawless, and Director Moll.

Thank you.

Appreciate you joining us.

Alright, so

That is all of the new business.

In the unfinished business category, we have the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center.

So we have in the packet that was distributed, we have a resolution and a copy of the amended and restated promissory note.

that Lewis and Clark Center has agreed to.

This note extends the term of the loan out for four years.

It has a payment schedule.

It provides for some forgiveness of the loan if the loan is paid early.

And it includes some other provisions.

I met with, I worked with Phyllida Dictal, the chair of Lewis and Clark Forward.

Freeman, I sat in and made myself available for a meeting so the board could ask questions.

So they are committed to doing this.

They have made, as I mentioned the last meeting, they've made a payment of $5,000 already this year.

They are hoping to make another payment, similar amounts this spring.

So I've said we will work with them to help them, if we can, to cooperate and make this work.

All right, is there a motion on the resolution?

I think the motion's on the screen, authorizing the chair and treasurer to endorse necessary documents.

I move to adopt the resolution as presented.

Okay, is there a second?

I'll second.

All right, thanks.

All right, all in favor, I guess you want to do, let's do a roll call vote on it.

Director Ray.

Aye.

Dr. Mottola?

Aye.

Dr. Lawless?

Yes.

Dr. Malone?

All right.

This has been really sticky.

All right.

Next on the agenda is Kelly's curtains.

J.T.

Yes, so last October, the EPA authorized us to apply for the matching grant to the Department of Agriculture for Kelly's turkeys.

And then in early January, we were notified of the award.

And then just over a week ago, we received the agreement template from the state.

And so the action before the EDA today is to authorize us to provide the money to Kelly Turkeys to purchase the equipment and begin producing brown turkey.

And so this is just sort of the next step.

It's an impressive project and good to see it come forward.

I can't make one more.

Can I make one clarification?

There were some back and forth between me and Chen Perkins at VDACs, and so we had to make some revisions to the draft agreement.

There was one oversight on my part on page 305.

There's mention of verification of targets, and that's verifying the expenditure of $52,250.

All right, is there a motion regarding this?

Yes, I move to consider the amendment as in the resolution as amended.

OK, is there a second?

I second.

All right, everybody's getting in on the act today.

So any further discussion?

All right.

Richard, you want to call the roll?

Director Rolland.

Aye.

Director Mottola.

Aye.

Director Lawless.

Aye.

All right.

Thank you.

So any other matters?

I have one that I'm going to bring up in one of my other roles in my free time.

I'm here on the

Airport Authority, and we were happy to have an announcement today that the airport is going to have direct service to Orlando through Elo Airlines.

They're a startup from 2021.

Can you spell that, Don?

A-B-E-L-O.

So very exciting.

Greg Campbell from the Virginia Department of Aviation was here this morning.

It starts in May.

So their time is 7 37.

It's Chicago coming back.

That's what happens.

I'm going to talk about Chicago right now.

So Orlando was actually the largest area that people were flying from here to get to.

We were the biggest underserved market in terms of direct.

So that's good.

So great.

It's just Mondays and Fridays.

So but I think it's probably just depends on how much traffic they get.

Yeah.

A couple of questions, if it's OK. Sure.

That was fine.

Well, questions.

And it's probably my own fault.

I've not been following.

And I bet Roger has.

I feel like it would be best if J.T.

spoke to it.

Believe it or not, he spoke directly to the committee that was considering that.

Yeah.

So back at the end of last year, the Board of Supervisors every year adopts a legislative a slate of legislative proposals that are

are up to be carried forward by our representatives at the General Assembly.

One of those

reduces the minimum amount of contiguous developable acres that are required by the state to access significant resources for site development.

So you may remember we recently received a three million dollar grant for land within the North Fork owned by the University of Virginia Foundation.

they have 254 acres set aside designated as tier four for this program but that's the only site in Albemarle County that's eligible under the current rules so our board of supervisors advocated for hey let's reduce that down and recognize that economic development happens significant state worthy worthy of state investment economic development

can happen on sites less than 100 acres.

And so the General Assembly has been amenable so far to in both the House of Delegates and the Senate to support that reduction from 100 acres to 50 acres.

And so we'll wait to see if the governor signs it, but all indications are

that there's strong support from advocacy groups and that he will support it and sign it.

And so that would open up the opportunity for Roger, myself, the rest of the team to work with other property owners to approach the state and say, let's go for another significant grant, much like what the foundation got at North Fork.

You know, that was $3 million to prepare a 31 and a half acre site

J.T.

who did you speak with?

I spoke to the subcommittee on general laws.

And, you know, this is a short session.

Yeah.

I mean, I came in on Zoom and I was out of Zoom.

Before, you know, felt like the period ended on my sentence, it was quick and, you know, not a lot of, there was a

a delegate that mirrored the bill that Senator Deeds put forward, delegate Campbell.

So it was advantageous to have both that same language in the House and Senate approved simultaneously.

That's good news.

I wish our school construction bill had done as well.

Yeah, whatever that is.

That's another topic.

Right.

And I have one more quick thing and you all can tell me.

I'm just curious.

So comp plan work is happening.

The Board of Supervisors specifically said review of economic development is going to be important.

I'm not sure where we stand with the comp plan review.

I'm just bringing this up and to make sure we're all on the same page.

And I am curious if as part of the economic development discussion within the comp plan review,

and maybe this is a question for Roger and J.T.

and everybody but is it time or has there been a discussion about taking another look at our targeted industries because those were established a decade ago and it's not good to not have updates and reviews in my opinion

because industries can change, technology changes.

Yeah, I'll start and then J.T., please fill in where I may get exactly correct or missed points.

Kimley-Horn was hired to do the initial capacity analysis.

Economic development provided additional funds to Kimley-Horn to look at it through the lens of economic development.

And you may or may not be familiar with the state's tier system.

They have a tier system where they grade land from one to five, and one is like a cow pasture, and five is everything's ready to go, all you have to do is build constructors.

And they have a confidence level of the site being ready.

And the key targets you shoot for is a tier four target, which means it's zoned appropriately, all the infrastructures there.

There are other

impediments to moving forward, removed.

So all you have to do is submit basically a site plan for approval, and then construction starts quickly thereafter.

So they looked at it through that lens with the help of our department, and they identified what amounted to 39 sites in our community that could be used for economic development purposes.

But then when we put the lens of the tier four system, which really says it's ready, there was only one site in our community out of those 39,

which was the UVA North Fork site.

And the point being is it's one thing to have a property zoned and it's another thing to have it ready.

And so you have to have both in order for us to accommodate.

In the comp plan, we have submitted comments which include not only is it important to have

Sites identified as designated light industrial, but it also needs to be ready.

In order to do that, it first has to be designated and rezoned, and then we can make it ready.

So the language that was included in our comments were we don't need just one big site.

We need a diversity of products.

Some folks are going to want to be close to 64 and 29 for the new technology, biotechnology center or some other intersection so they can distribute goods and services more quickly.

Those are going to want to locate next to the university for the research spin house.

Others at North Fork so that they have ample land.

So it can't just be size of sites.

It has to be a diversity of product so we can serve many businesses and create the quality jobs the community needs.

All of that information has been delivered.

with the comp plan folks, and they are baking that into the process, the next portion will be the policy portion, which will mean how do we turn what all this information into policies so that we can ready land for economic development purposes?

That was very helpful.

That kind of catches me and maybe you all up on where we are right now with this, because it's really important work.

Okay.

So we established through Project Enable our target industries a decade.

That's correct.

So I'm just asking if there is a sense that we need to go back and look at because for all I know, there could be industries we didn't even know existed 10 years ago.

And there's a different world post COVID.

And the answer to that is yes, that's open.

But it's not necessarily through the comp plan.

We have we're working through the county's execs office to

to determine when we're going to launch Project ENABLE 2.0 to relook at everything, but that has to be married up with the capacity of the whole county being able to help because it requires public engagement, it requires communications, and so Christy is trying to balance when we should do certain things,

So we have a greater chance of success across the organization.

We will most likely not wait until the complaint is done because that's a way to get further down the road and not all the way until it's done.

The logical transition plans have been to initiate

And I like the 2.0.

That's great because that's kind of what my head was thinking about.

I was just going to say, we talked about Kamoinge doing the comprehensive economic development strategy.

They also helped the Go Virginia regions validate the target industries for different regions.

And so every two years,

there's been a comprehensive look at the economic activity that's happening in an area so that you know from 10 years ago if an industry has blossomed it can be recognized and so we have validated the industries included in Project Enable and originally I think it was the Thomas Jefferson economic development

Those have been validated every two years.

There's been a look at those as part of the growth and diversification plan for Go Virginia.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

And I appreciate you all.

I want to say we have another

Anything else?

All right, it would have been a record if we hadn't had all those questions at the end.

So the next meeting.

Next meeting is March 21st.