Economic Development Authority Annual Meeting   1/20/2026

All right, we're ready to roll?

Okay.

Meeting to order.

We have a quorum.

Anybody but Friedman.

Any matters from the public?

All right, so I'm already gonna take us off track here.

So as everybody up here knows, former director

Morrow is here.

He is no longer with us.

We have his placement here.

It's going to be a participant in this meeting until recently.

He was going to have thoughts for us.

If you wanted to share those, go ahead and recognize him to

Also take a seat and supervise with me so I can see everybody.

So, Don, thank you.

It's three and a half years now, about 40 meetings.

Thank you.

And during that time, I've been impressed not only with your ability just to run a meeting that's appropriately loose that allows everybody to contribute,

at the level they want to contribute, but also types that have moved sufficiently and that's its own set of skills and you make it look easy.

I appreciate your sense of humor.

I was thinking too about people who wield gavels in society and you're one of them.

And it's actually, it's a point I made on certain things.

If we had everyone in society that wielded a gavel metaphorically or literally that brought

your level of civic virtue, commitment to the community and fellow citizens, intelligence and character, the world would be so much more of a remarkable place than it is.

So I've really enjoyed working with you.

I appreciate the work that you do and I appreciate just everything about you.

So I'm gonna miss working with you.

Team, county team.

I was just telling Emily before the meeting, I realized, talking to Chris Engle after the last joint meeting with Charlottesville, that the Albemarle economic development staff is very compact in terms of just a few staff members, and Charlottesville has quite a few more.

And if you think about the billions of dollars of investment per staff member on the Albemarle EDA, that the figure is just staggered.

So I want to compliment you for everything that you accomplish.

And that's been really pleasurable to see in action.

And I want to thank Supervisor B for the discipline of attending all these meetings and keeping us connected with supervisors.

And that's a huge commitment.

Chair Galloway here with us tonight too.

And the amount of hours that they put in without staff members.

If you call the phone number or email the address listed in their bio on the county website, you get Bea or Ned on the other end of the line.

It's a huge commitment that they make.

So I just want to thank both of them, especially Bea, that I've gotten to know very well serving alongside her on the board.

and fellow directors.

I think Supervisor Bea mentioned on one occasion how impressed she was with the level of accomplishment that y'all bring to these meetings and in between meetings for the benefit of the county.

And it's a real incredible testament to the county community that we're able to assemble this kind of

of representative from each of the magisterial districts to serve in this way.

And so I want to thank you because the pay and the glory are, I can attest, but it's very important work.

I was sharing with Chair Galloway that the Albemarle, I'm sorry, the Rivanna rifle range, which is on Old Lynchburg Road, it's 1.4 miles from my house, was approved in the 1960s.

and I listen to that range every day.

And so the decisions that the supervisors make and that we help them make on the board, those decisions can be in place for a long time and they really matter.

So it's important that we bring that very serious sobriety of these meetings, which we always do.

And I think it's important that we never forget that the things we say and do here, we can't be sure about how they will

They will affect future citizens, but they're very important decisions in ways that we're not even able to understand when we make them.

I'll wrap up with the observation I had in those roughly 40 meetings.

I've been participating in maybe 120 roughly votes of consequence, not the

What that says, by the time the decisions came to us, are going to come to you on board, they've already been vetted, thought about, but many of those priorities were already established before we all met.

So I guess I wanted to invite you to encourage you going forward.

We have this incredibly talented group of people.

I'd love to see you even more vocal during the meetings, expressing your opinions, being feisty as you want to be, whether it's in between meetings, emailing Emily or Deputy Trevor or even County Executive Jeff or whoever, like, let's make the most of all the, of all this, this they have in this room.

So I encourage you to

to lean into that.

And it's your comments were very educational to me, very helpful to the county team.

And that's really, but for all y'all communicating that to the county team, the county team, you know, with that small staff as busy as they are, they may not even know what's important to you unless you make it, make it though.

So, so I'll leave you with that.

Thank you very much.

I hope

You will feel free to contact me anytime.

You'll have my email address on all those emails.

And I'm happy if you ever want to go out to lunch or coffee, or if there's something I can do for you in some way.

I'm not going anywhere.

My wife and I want to stay here until our deaths, hopefully long in the future.

We plan to serve until the end of our lives, too, just not in this way.

So thank you very much.

Well, thanks, Jeff.

I've certainly enjoyed working with you.

And I think, you know, one of the things that has been nice is, you know, Jeff's always been willing to call me up and talk through issues that we haven't always agreed on everything.

But, you know, we can talk through it and work through it.

And I think that's what this group has done a good job of talking through the issues and trying to, because I do think it's important for us to get different perspectives and different views as we talk through those different things so we understand, you know, even if we ultimately all kind of come out on the same end,

When we get down to voting, often it's important that we hear from different perspectives.

All right.

So we have a lot of, as you say in the General Assembly, housekeeping matters to take care of.

So, election of officers.

I would suggest that we propose a slate of officers.

I polled the EDA to see if anyone else, if people were interested in certain roles.

No one spoke up wanting to be chair.

Andy has agreed to be treasurer.

Unless someone else wants, that's what I thought.

And then Steve has agreed to serve in the vice chair role, so I would offer that slate of nominations.

Is there a second?

Second second.

All right.

I don't think there'd be much time on that.

Certainly.

So the slate to be voted on is me as chair, Steve as vice chair, and Andy as treasurer.

All right.

So we'll call the roll.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

So let's see.

Did I interrupt?

Certainly.

We have a new member.

Oh, that's right.

I was going to do that.

I was distracted.

The last aye.

I was still glowing from all of Jeff's compliments.

You're going to move.

You want to introduce yourself and then we'll go down the line and introduce ourselves.

Sure.

My name is Andrew Cox.

I live on the north side of the county just outside the city line with my wife Kelsey and our five-year-old and five-month-old boy and girl.

We've been here since after grad school at UVA and work for Faulkner Construction.

I've been here for going on eight years now.

was a project manager and now work in the business development and strategic growth side of the business.

So became interested in economic development through that role and how I work locally and that very rapidly.

Also, Bill Mechnick, I'm not the new guy anymore.

It's just kind of nice.

We're in a district that lives out in the Milton area.

I think you guys are going to be building one of our projects soon.

Steve Hood, Rutgersville, the newest grandfather.

Yes.

There you go.

I'll show you pictures a little while.

Yeah, so.

Thank you for doing that.

Normally, that's me.

Okay.

So I was assigned.

David Storm.

I'm the Scottsville district appointee.

I live just south of town.

I am the father of three boys, two of whom are

Hanging out in the back of the room today as part of their citizenship in the community merit band for scouts.

I worked for two years in the athletic department at UVA and then a 20-year career almost at LexisNexis.

Andrea Johnson, and I am the executive director of the Construction Demolition Recycling Association.

I formerly was the CEO of Vanderlinde Recycling.

and I am in our Jesuit district.

And I've been here, my husband and I have been going on 13 years in here in Admiral County and retired military.

Don Long, at-large member, Andrea and I met a couple of weeks ago, had lunch together, talked about the EDA.

So despite that, we still agreed to join.

Welcome, glad you could be here and looking forward to your participation.

All right.

So policies we need to adopt.

We need to adopt the virtual meeting and remote participation policy, which is no changes.

Same policy as last two times.

So I'm going to make a motion.

and the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia, re-adopt this authority's remote electronic participation policy at all virtual meeting policies.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

So roll call vote.

Chair Little.

Aye.

Director Storm.

Dr.

Hood?

Aye.

Dr. Meddings?

Dr. Johnson?

Aye.

Cox?

Aye.

So these two, all the same policies and procedures, the changes related to

Yes.

So the new wording is up there on the screen for anybody that wants to reference it.

Right.

So I move the

Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia, amend this authority's policies and procedures and re-adopt the policies and procedures as amended.

There a second?

Second.

All right.

All the roll?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And then

We will, the last item is the visiting dates.

If you adopted into your calendar, your annual calendar at the beginning of the year, which you weren't doing, maybe it's

All right.

But please do know that is an additional off of our more regular cadence of the third Tuesday.

All right.

So any comments on the meeting schedule?

I'll move that we adopt the meeting dates.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right.

So next, the meeting minutes.

We did one comment, a name correction from Director Storm.

Any other comments on either sets of minutes?

I move that the minutes from the November 18th meeting and December 16th meeting be adopted as amended.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right.

The minutes are approved financial report.

So we've had a few things happen since our last meeting.

Brookdale and South will habitat payments gone out.

Agrosphere's VDIP as well as their COF match also was processed.

and I think that's it for this front page.

And then what you don't have in your packet, but we're testing out here on the screen is that second page for the performance payments.

So what we talked about over the last six months or so, maybe even a year was giving you guys a more useful time and look at sort of the five-year financial plan for what you guys have.

So what you're looking at right here is just EDA funds

Feedback, and we can adjust as we go forward, but this hopefully has some important things for you guys to look at.

So, bond fees at the top, that includes all the bonds that we have active at the moment.

The loan repayment in this specific case is Lewis and Clark's loans, so you can see how that falls off after FY 27.

The interest on

Investment accounts that the EDA has.

I'll have to get with Tia again to get a little bit better explanation.

So before I give you an explanation on that, admin services is just clerical stuff.

So nameplates, minutes, things of that nature.

That's why it's red.

So stuff you guys are paying out as opposed to the green stuff is stuff you guys are bringing in monetarily.

And then the contingency line item was the one that Tia explained about a year ago, but some of you were not here for that.

It's just the funds you guys have at your disposal to program as you see fit.

And it seemed important enough for me to, while it looks the same all the way across, it should probably be its own line item given the nature of those funds so that you guys can keep track of whether they go up or down and track over the few years.

So like I said, this is the first pass.

Is that our percentage number based on- No, so that is, that would be a separate line.

This is just the cost of the contract for the person,

the company that does the minutes and when we have to refresh nameplates every so often.

So we have a multi-year contract with the minutes company.

So that number should hold pretty true.

The fee on revenues would be separate.

So for this task, we just know our, you know, some level of confidence are gonna

I need to say the work.

As you all know, maybe some of you don't know, traditionally the EDP has not programmed the dollars that it collects and your primary revenue source is the fees that you collect off the bonds that you issue.

and so that contingency funds line item number is many years of accrual of those bond fees on a line item.

You can see now what we've done is we've pulled all the bond documents and you can see through FY 30, if all the payments are made in full and on time, you can see how that number changes over time.

So it goes down a little bit over time, but you do have sort of an annual

My comments on seeing this would be, one, I think the loan repayments probably shouldn't be on these.

That's not our money, so to speak.

Money came from the board originally to be loaned out.

So the collections really, that they wouldn't accrue to us.

And then I think, wouldn't the, I see your year end balance is going up, but I think the contingency funds line item ought to go up.

Understood.

Can you kind of explain how you're getting the year in balance?

You're just pulling forward.

Yeah, in this case, it is kind of an, so if you take, you would take the,

So I didn't add some of these further years.

I didn't re-add that amount because that didn't change for this case.

It was basically you take what's here.

So you have this to start with, because that's theoretically what we're starting with.

And then we look at adding in these positives and negatives and then going forward, you just take this and adding in the new stuff.

So each year, that's why I went up by the sum of this amount, excluding this down here.

Yeah, the increase ought to show up in the contingency fund.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Not in the ED grant.

Yep, yep, yep.

I think that's a good start.

Well, I mean, if the board doesn't mind if the loan repayment stays with us in the future use, I mean, those funds were set,

to the EDA for economic development, they can remain.

I think that's a shy man's- We can follow up on it.

Yeah, let us follow up on it.

Yeah, it's probably a good point.

Any other questions on financial reports?

So we've got something on the agenda later that would impact those numbers though, right?

To go ahead and show the.

Well, it's more just in general.

So these will change meeting to meeting depending on what we do with that.

It's hopefully a tool that you guys can use.

So when you're presented with agreements and things of that nature, you guys can look at this and be like, OK, over the next five years, does this make sense?

All right.

On to, no one finished business, I guess we finished the year strongly.

Yes, you have a memo.

I have just a couple of slides.

Just as a

Probably a refresh.

So you all have seen a version of this diagram, which is sort of the concept plan for the Rivanna Futures Project in the past.

There's been some changes since AstraZeneca has come online.

And we are really excited about that as a county because, you know, the first tenant into the property that we purchased is a huge milestone for sort of food for concept.

of, you know, just the, you know, is there a market, is there a desirability for this type of, you know, land opportunity in Albemarle County?

And we're just, we're so excited to have that on the table now.

After Zeneca is going to occupy a total of 82 acres highlighted on this graphic, what is now Land Bay 54 and Land Bay 27,

There's like when you add those two numbers together, it just pops into 82.

I understand they actually add 81.

And so part of getting them the land that they needed to build the project that they need to build to accommodate the building footprints that they need for their production and their desire to have the two facilities sort of on one campus that would have a perimeter fence around it.

We had to move the road.

So the extension of Boulder Road used to follow a slightly different track.

The landing point at US 29 and across the street from the Austin Drive intersection has not shifted.

So that's sort of a fixed point.

VDOT really prefers that we don't add entrances to Route 29.

and certainly minimize the number of signalized intersections on Route 29.

That is an existing signalized intersection and so it's a great place to have that connection point.

And so the road alignment previously followed the ridge line and took a more circuitous route into Land Bay 54 and 27 before landing again at that Austin Drive intersection.

We really just moved that.

It's almost a straight line now.

The jog in that is really just responsive to some environmental features.

And so that's sort of the new concept.

Well, it's the new concept that is leading into the actual road extension project that we're going to be able to do because of the AstraZeneca project.

It was one thing during our initial site visit with AstraZeneca out in July,

that they identified very early as a real need for them to have the theoretical line on the map actually become a real road in order to better accommodate the truck deliveries and the shipping of product offsite once it's finished and being able to have a redundant road in and out for them to be able to ensure continuity of operations was really important to them.

They are actually a funding partner for this road construction.

We shared with them that while that road extension has always been a line on the county's map for Places 29 Master Plan, for the Rivanna Futures Concept Plan, it's not a funded project.

It's something that we know we need to do eventually.

But at the pre-AstraZeneca, we thought it was probably a decade or more away from being necessary.

and so it was an early conversation with AstraZeneca about what are some opportunities to accelerate the timeline for that road, which is sort of what brings us here today.

So the Commonwealth Transportation Board on January 6th voted to give, allocate $20 million towards the construction of this road.

It's currently estimated as a $42 million road, which feels very expensive for the, your face is telling me everything.

Feels very expensive for the relative short distance of this road extension.

There is a stream crossing parallel to Route 29 that between the stream itself and the terrain leading down to that stream.

It's just an expensive crossing.

So until that point, the road extension from the current terminus to where the bridge structure starts costs about as much as the bridge structure itself.

Which is one of the reasons why we thought it was sort of a more distant need.

So the Commonwealth has awarded $20 million to Albemarle County to build the road.

AstraZeneca is going to provide $12 million towards the project.

And then the county will locally administer the design-build project and also commit $10 million to the project.

That $10 million commitment is articulated on this slide.

and it's exciting for us to look to the Economic Development Authority as a potential funding partner in it.

Because as I said earlier, this was not in the county's capital plan.

So we do capital planning, which is how we borrow and fund capital improvement projects.

We make those plans on a five-year basis.

And those funds are typically pretty well committed for the duration of that five-year CIP.

This project,

to meet AstraZeneca's business need has to come inside of that current five-year plan, but there's not funds in the current five-year plan to meet that $10 million local funding commitment.

Staff looked at some options on how to get that done.

We came to you several months ago,

as part of a closed session to seek your willingness to consider an appropriation of the EDA's funds to Albemarle County to help with that local match commitment.

And that is what we're here for action today.

This is just sort of a, you know, we went from a line on a map to short of a true concept drawing, but this is sort of a, you can get a sense for what this road will look like.

It really takes the existing road cross section for Boulders Road, carries it a little bit further out.

This roundabout will provide access into the AstraZeneca land.

This is access into what we've been showing on maps is Land Bay 25 and then turn down the hill and head back to 29.

also providing some new frontage opportunities for this land bay that in older drawings was land bay 30 and is now currently being shown as land bay 55.

Those numbers are all acreages.

And so you can see it opens up some nice opportunities before this land bay was only accessed off the existing Boulders Road.

We can accommodate one large user like another AstraZeneca size user.

But also if there was an opportunity to subdivide the parcel, we now have frontage on this other road segment that will create some opportunities as well.

But two lanes in each direction with a planted median, bike lanes and some turn lanes.

And this is currently being refined to a sort of a formal concept plan.

Yeah, it's right in here.

They're still refining what that crossing structure will look like.

But it's right now it's in the culvert

Yes.

Okay, we've talked about this in the past.

It'll be a variety of truck sizes.

So I know there's, you know, they'll be receiving shipments of materials, raw materials in, and then they'll be, you know, sending finished product out.

Their estimate has a variety of truck types that are going to be servicing that.

Yeah, they can continue to refine their truck delivery traffic volume, but it's probably on the order of a small handful a day, so it's not

Has VDOT indicated that if they want to do any 29 improvements as a part of this, like I look at the other side of Austin Drive going southbound, there's a dedicated right turn lane.

One last question.

I think the discussion about whether to do what we already

to talk to the committee to go quick, but it's high value obviously for low dollars to a lot of leverage there of contributing.

But I am just curious about, I mean, I know it's evolving, but the contingency plan obviously for pricing to increase and undisclosed items

We used the estimating, VDOT's estimating, and they've sort of checked the numbers.

They felt comfortable that that budget was sort of a, that number was off of a thought that the crossing would have to be an actual structure.

And so now that we know that we're in the Culvert family,

That should bring the cost down even further.

And so they felt comfortable with, as a planning number, this $42 million being sort of the most needed.

So there, the good news is the state's funding is able to be the first dollar spent.

So the state, on a reimbursement basis, so there's not a check out to Albemarle County from the Commonwealth, but on a reimbursement basis, the state's funding will be the first $20 million.

And then, you know, we're still sort of working through the details of how the AstraZeneca and the local dollars will flow.

But we expect it to sort of follow a similar sort of reimbursement type model.

So I think it'll just be funds unspent by the company and the county.

and we'll refine the borrowing to support the project as we get better budget numbers through the design process.

So those are sort of details that are going to work themselves through the system as we go through.

The design build procurement method allows sort of more of an iterative approach to how you're designing and building.

Committed.

The way that it's written, you all would be committing to providing the cash.

And so that would transfer to the county and be available for the project.

If you all wanted to add contingencies for return of dollars,

Okay.

It just seems a little bit like you would want to actually know the number of the project before saying, you know, to actually fund the project and, you know, looking at, I mean, subtracting what the state's going to put in AstraZeneca and then seeing what's left.

I mean, it just seems a little bit like you'd want

So we need the funding identified and available to be able to start the work.

And then also part of the county's local funding strategy will be through debt service.

And so finance will then look through to get

to be able to pay the debt service for this amount of debt issuance, how much cash do we need to be able to make those payments?

And so, again, if the EDA wanted to put some contingency around, you know, if there's savings on the project, you would want to save a return of some of the funds that you're approving, I think we would just need to pause this item for today and come back, because I'm not prepared to talk through how that impacts the borrowing schedule that the county does.

I know we do bond issuances as a,

County every two to four years, depending on need.

But those decisions get have to get sort of lined up, you know, in the spring time frame.

I would just offer again, we have a cap on this.

This is high value leverage dollars to prime the pumping of the start.

And it's a it's a good idea.

It's

I don't feel like we need to know an exact number.

I don't think we ever will talk or spill.

So if we were to defer this, does that create any issues in terms of timing if we don't act on this today?

One alternative too that we, I think, could consider would be agreeing to make the contribution but continue the discussion with Albemarle County and agree on what the, I mean, it seems to me that we could say, you know, if there's money left over,

You know, we would get our pro rata share back from the county or our money would be spent pro rata with the county so that there's leftover, but I assume we could have that discussion later as well.

I think it would be better if we deferred to have

terms that work for the EDA.

Because they'll take the amount of money that the EDA commits and put it into the model that again drives how much funding does the county have to borrow.

And so if that number is changing, that changes their modeling.

Knowing how much cash is available today

puts them in a much better position to borrow the appropriate amount.

I don't think that's, that's not what I'm suggesting.

What I'm suggesting is, maybe we still wait, is that we commit to the 500 and we say, you have the 500.

But if we get to the end of the day and we spent 40,000 of 42, we get,

And so, I mean, I don't know whether that works or not.

So we're talking about, I'm sorry, we're talking about one and a quarter percent, if I did my math correctly, of the entire thing here that our piece is.

I really don't want to, and you've said that it's not necessarily a timing issue, but I don't want to be holding up a four plus billion dollar investment in Almora County

in terms of breaking ground and getting things built and getting things done and getting things open when the longer term benefit to the tax base over $50,000.

I understand where we're coming from here, but in my opinion, we're being penny wise and pound foolish here.

We've proven, I think, as an authority that we're good stewards of the county's money.

I believe we can say, in return, the county will be good stewards of our money.

And so we're getting hung up, I think, on a number that feels big to us because of what we have available.

But the big return, and Director Mechnick?

Thank you.

I'd like to be right in the vicinity.

Gentlemen, two seats to my lap.

As pointed out that this road, and Emily has pointed out that this road not only jumpstarts AstraZeneca's project, but it makes that backside of that other parcel available in businesses that may not have wanted the entire parcel.

can look at that and it may have a multiplier effect.

So I'm happy to vote on this today and I think many of my colleagues are as well.

Mr.

Do you remember that?

Sure.

I mean, I think we can vote on this if everyone else wants to and then I think we can have discussions about the process.

If there is money left over, how that works.

How about that?

Yeah, we can, as a follow up to this meeting, connect with finance and budget on much as we will do with the Commonwealth Transportation Board who awarded the $20 million funding, sort of talk through the mechanics of how it all actually works in the end.

And we can see if there's an ability without making their modeling too complex a way to

You know, carve out some return to the EDA if it comes in less.

So we can do a follow up on that.

The money is available.

OK. All right.

I'll make a motion.

OK.

All right.

Any further discussion?

All right.

All roll.

All right.

That was for you, right on.

Alright, in the interest of time, because we do have a closed session this evening, I'm going to just hit a couple of points, but I'll flip through all the slides if you want me to stop, I will.

One is that you all considered matching an AFib grant for Pennies and Perfect Pizza, Olive Branch Farms.

It was awarded, it was successfully awarded from the Commonwealth.

And so your previous approval stands on that, but we'll be excited to support that project to increase their, some of the infrastructure to support their business growing.

On business retention and expansion, here's where we've been since the last meeting, which was right before Christmas holidays.

So we had a short timeline, so I actually was surprised that these numbers were as high as they were, but we made the most of it.

And this month, or this quarter, we're focusing on biotech and life sciences.

Ashley Hernandorena is working on coordinating

those business visits probably in February and March.

And she'll reach out for ones that it would be appropriate to invite EDA directors to attend with us.

And we're in honor of open meeting requirements.

We would just cap that at fewer than three EDA directors if there was a lot of interest in attending any of those.

We've been at some meetings.

One exciting one,

Last week, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state agency, hosted their international team that focuses on foreign direct investment.

They wanted to see where AstraZeneca was going because they facilitated some pieces of that opportunity and also just get a better understanding of opportunities in the region for other foreign direct investment, which is exciting.

A couple of upcoming events that might be of interest to you all.

The State of the Community, which is a Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee event, is January 30th.

I don't know if Jeff Richardson and Sam Sanders will embrace again.

Here's hoping.

That's a great event if you've never been.

It's an interesting take on sort of what the opportunities and challenges facing Charlottesville and Albemarle are.

Siebel Biohub is hosting their third annual device tech expo on the 27th from four to seven up at North Fork Discovery Park.

And there's a Tourism for All tourism conference at the end of February, hosted by the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau with their new branding.

Check that out.

and then save the date for the Piedmont Ascent Business Conference, which is hosted by the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center.

Director Hood served as a judge for the pitch competition last year.

Director Long has done that in the past and they're putting together a really solid program.

It was very, the attendance last year exceeded expectations on the conference, in particular the educational programming.

And so they're looking forward to leveraging

For you, a number of local tourism events got grants from this Commonwealth recently.

Albemarle County has an arts and cultural funding program that runs in parallel to the annual budget process.

When the county receives requests for more event type items, that is the channel that we would funnel them into.

and thinking about the economic development strategic plan and how we're trying to focus more closely on our target sectors.

If we received one to the economic development office, we would direct them to that arts and cultural funding program.

Yeah.

All right.

So now let's close meeting.

I move that the Economic Development Authority convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia, funded subsection 5, to discuss and consider respective business or industry or the expansion of existing business or industry in the vicinity of Seminole Trail and the Rio Magisterial District, where no previous announcement has been made of the businesses

for industry's interest in locating or expanding its facilities in the communities under subsection six to discuss and consider the investment of public funds related to a potential agreement for a commercial development on Seminole Trail in the Rio Magisterial District where bargaining is involved and where it may public initially would adversely affect the financial interest of the authority and under subsection 29 to discuss the negotiation of separate public contracts within commercial

Development on Seminole Trail in the Rob and Hysterial District, each involving the expenditure of public funds where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the authority.

Continued.

The back is just the certification.

All right.

Back continued.

That's the motion.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

I think there was something coming in.

So we stand up and we walk over to room 235.

Eventually a symbol, but I didn't see it.

Okay.

All right.

I move that the Economic Development Authority certify by recorded vote that to the best of each member's knowledge and only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Emily.

So thank you, directors of the Economic Development Authority.

Coming out of closed session, I'll do a short presentation on the Northside Drive Industrial Performance Agreement and Building Reuse Grant Agreement.

And then you all are teed up to take an action if you so desire.

So the Northside Drive Industrial Project is located on Route 29 between Airport Road and Lewis and Clark Drive.

There's a frontage parcel of about nine acres and a secondary parcel that's

a little over 20 acres that are under contract to purchase by Southern Development and they're seeking to do an industrial development project there.

Charlie Armstrong representing Southern Development is with us this evening and he can address any specific questions that you all have.

But just by way of location, the airport, this is right near the airport and directly behind the second parcel is the North Fork Research Park.

The only thing that I would note on this slide is that nine acre parcel at the frontage has heavy industrial zoning and significantly that has had that heavy industrial zoning since the county adopted the zoning ordinance originally in the 70s.

That parcel has never developed and that's part of what we're going to talk about today.

So just looking at parcel A, there's a capital expenditure estimate of just about $10 million to do the site work and the hard costs to develop the site for the project that's been proposed.

And that is to build sort of an LI warehouse flex building that fronts Route 29.

And it's a 72,000 square foot floor plate

built into bays that are in 50 foot wide increments.

And the idea is that the building is flexible and adaptable such that a potential user or occupant could take one, two, four, as many bays as needed and available.

to suit their business needs.

And there's sort of a customer receiving in the front of the building.

What the inside looks like will depend heavily on what the user is, but you could imagine that there might be a sort of a reception area with some sort of display or customer receiving.

And then in the back, some warehousing or maybe some light manufacturing.

The rear of each bay has a loading dock and there's a truck driveway at the rear of the property to provide access to that.

The staff evaluation of the project is several fold.

Again, the industrial zoning on the property is quite old, but the conditions have never been exactly right for it to develop.

This is a product type that's in limited supply in our region.

And also it's in demand.

My office probably receives the most phone calls about this type of use need.

And again, it can serve several different purposes.

Small scale production, R&D flex for scaling startups, regional warehousing.

Some of the challenges associated with this parcel are the cost of getting sewer service to it based on rock conditions of the adjacent sewer line, as well as entrance corridor requirements that require different landscaping and material choices than may otherwise have been made for a building of this nature.

Staff looked at the newly adopted Economic Development Strategic Plan and felt like this was a really strong alignment with Goal 5, which is to position Albemarle as Virginia's most investment-ready county and looks to leverage the EDA and public-private partnerships to drive strategic investment in the county, as well as a desire to maintain a pipeline of buildings and sites aligned with cluster needs.

So the first item before you this evening would be consideration of a synthetic TIF performance agreement.

And just as a reminder, the way that these deals are structured, the owner would pay their taxes for each tax due date and all of the value associated with the tax revenues that they're paying associated with that improvement for up to a certain amount of money for a certain period of time.

would be transferred from the general fund to the EDA.

And then the EDA would issue a grant to the property owner of a set amount based on the terms of the agreement.

And then at the end of the performance period, once they've met the cap or the time cap has elapsed, all of the new value associated with that property

go to and stay in the general fund moving forward.

But in that sort of ramp up phase, this can be a tool to help close financing gaps for projects that we hope will be successful.

So the synthetic TIF performance agreement that would be for consideration by the EDA today would provide a payment to Southern Development of equal to 75% of the amount paid for a period of up to 10 years in an amount up to $350,000.

Contingent on the owner staying in good standing with the county, delivering quarterly progress reports, receiving all of the approvals and permits necessary for the project,

and that the purchase and development of the parcel would occur by June 30th, 2027.

The funding source is the economic development investment pool, again, via the general fund revenues coming in from the taxes paid for that property.

Just for clarification, the Board of Supervisors actually approved it last Wednesday, which would have been January 14th.

Yes, you're right.

Thank you.

And so that's the presentation that I have for that agreement and would be happy to answer any questions.

Charlie, do you have anything you want to

Emily summarized the project very well, but I'll describe the magnitude of some of the challenges real quickly.

The sewer is on the other side of Route 29 or north several hundred feet through some of the hardest rock in the county.

So estimated cost to get sewer to the site is about a million dollars.

and then of course the project.

We had some really successful meetings with the county's architectural review board and just three or four meetings with some back and forth with their input on the project.

We did go in with a higher cost, more attractive building

So it will look good.

Still a pretty massive building on 29, but they got behind that, and that has been approved by them.

So that is one of the other things that was a challenge for approvals, but now it's not, and now it's just a cost challenge.

Any questions?

Alright, is there a motion?

So staff has prepared resolutions for each of the two grants that have been discussed.

One of them is this resolution approving the development grant agreement that should be in front of you all.

I motion to approve the, I moved that the Economic Development Authority adopt the resolution approving a development grant agreement among the county

Second?

Second.

Is there any further discussion?

All right, call the roll.

Mr.

Chair, Chair Long.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, and then the second item before you this evening for action is the building and reuse grant application for the same

Same project, different elements of the project.

The Building Reuse Grant was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2022.

This is actually our first application to that grant program, so we're really excited to have the opportunity to work through the guidelines that were adopted at that time and also administer the first application process.

This is the staff review of the application received for this project to the program.

and just a couple of noteworthy items here.

The funds requested is equal to $250,000, which is the cap for this grant program.

As Mr. Armstrong just described, the cost associated with the material choices for the building, this is more about the building than the infrastructure, are increased by the parcel's location in the entrance corridor.

And so material choices and landscaping choices are different than they might otherwise have been.

So this again is supporting 72,000 square feet of industrial flex space in Albemarle County with a significant private investment.

We did feel like there was strategic alignment with building reuse grant policy as well as the new strategic plan.

It will address some industrial supply and a high demand building type.

The project is in a designated development area and meets all the program criteria.

And there's a catalytic potential here as phase one will hopefully generate a phase two.

And we think we'll open opportunities for other properties in this part of the county as this one comes online.

Actually, I did have one because it's called a building reuse grant.

So I guess reuse should have been the emphasis there as opposed to grant.

So that was as Mr. Armstrong brought the opportunity to staff and staff were evaluating what tools were in the toolkit that would be a good fit.

The name of the grant would not necessarily suggest that this would be a good fit.

But as we actually read the grant guide policy and guidelines that were developed when it was approved in 2022, it actually felt like it met all of the

elements that the county was seeking to advance, which is to really activate properties that have been dormant, inactive, vacant for a period of time.

The time in the program guidance is actually six months.

This has been vacant ostensibly again since industrial zoning was applied to it, you know, decades ago.

And so we had three staffers look at it sort of objectively, read the guidelines of the program and see if it checks the boxes.

And we all came away saying, again, while the name of the program doesn't feel like the strongest alignment, when you look at what are the things that a property has to prove to accrue the points in the application, this one came away with a strong scoring.

Did the council's office weigh in?

I'm sorry?

As to whether this was a permissible use?

Is there a thought to changing that memory?

Yeah, I think staff's perspective on that is if this application is received favorably by the EDA today, then I think we would look at what are some programmatic changes that might help.

Again, we were really pleased to have a tool like this in the toolkit when this program was created and approved several years ago.

It's telling that it has not been used.

And so we're very hopeful that there's some good opportunities that will come

Yeah, I think that's a sort of, as we've talked about in the past, kind of a lesson for figuring things out.

You know, we can come up with ideas, but you've got, and that might work, but obviously what the market says and what people want to use, so we need to adapt as we go along and figure out, okay, well, what, because I see this as being a, what's something that we can, an incentive we can provide to make something happen?

We'll use context.

What are the costs of using these properties and get them activated?

And so, yeah, how do we encourage people to do these things?

And obviously, I think the fact that we have one that we fully approve now will encourage other people to bring us ideas.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I move that the Economic Development Authority adopt the resolution approving a building reuse grant agreement between the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County, Virginia and Southern Development Group Incorporated.

Is that a second?

Is that a second?

Second.

All right.

So I did have one question here.

This is only a two-party agreement.

Go ahead.

Right.

Any further discussion?

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

If we could call the roll, please.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Excellent.

Approved.

All right.

No other matters.

The next meeting, the fifth, are we doing that as a virtual meeting?

Yes.

Or are we doing that as a virtual?

Yep, that's what I'm saying.

It will be virtual.

We don't have the Zoom link set up yet.

Yes, starting at 4.

And there will be, so Stephen Pettico with Civic Soul, same person, DeBrenthe Company,

So Steven is not local and so he was going to be virtual no matter what.

We were discussing, you know, it would be great if everyone had their own, rather than him talking to a table of people, it would be nice if he could, you know, if everyone had their own box.

And then he also, because we're virtual, has invited

an economic developer in the Lynchburg area and an economic developer in the Roanoke area to talk about how their EDAs sort of exercise their special power groups to support the strategic plan in their community.

So we're still confirming that those folks are available, but they will also be able to participate because it's a virtual event.

Yes, which we uncovered were the counties.

It was something in this room that was malfunctioning.

It was not.

So anyone that was watching Stephen talk, who was also on Zoom last time, had no problems hearing him at all.

Yeah.

And we also have our meeting on the 17th?

Yes.

Just for the record, I'm going to be coming out of another meeting, so I will be late for that meeting, but I'll just skip.

Avery, are you on the...

I'll just sign in normal.

And unfortunately, I won't be able to be here.

I have a conflict of two other meetings.

You can't have it without me.

Oh, yeah.

I'll listen.

I'll listen to one.

So I'm holding you all accountable because I'll be listening.

Yeah.

All right, sir, we're now adjourned.

All right.

Thanks everybody.