Economic Development Authority Meeting   2/5/2026

I'll call the meeting to order.

We have a quorum.

I don't see any members of the public in attendance.

Anybody sign up?

Nope.

All right.

So on to unfinished business.

Emily, do you want to do an inter...

So, and he really needs no introduction.

But yeah, thank you EDA directors for accommodating a special, an additional meeting to the calendar of meetings.

We are excited to have not the pressure of time to be able to spend some time today with Steven Pedigo with Civic Soul, as well as some guest presenters that he's invited to attend today, John Provo with Virginia Tech and Marjot Upshur with Lynchburg.

And really, this is the study work, the implementation work that the EDA

really valued kind of coming out of the economic development strategic plan process and asked for sort of a follow-on exercise.

We've had to move this a couple times for scheduling, but we're really excited to have Stephen back to lead us through some presentation and also some discussion later.

Okay, so the last time we met with you guys, we were in all these technology challenges, so now we're all virtual, so hopefully we won't have those.

I'm also reminded that it wasn't my fault the last time, so I initially thought it was my recording, but I think it was the city's AV equipment, so it made me actually feel a little bit better about that.

So let's do this.

Let's just orient ourselves on the work and the purpose of today.

So I've got a really quick agenda that I will pull up.

Just one moment.

There it is.

Okay, so let's talk about the work.

So as you guys know, this was part of two pieces of the engagement.

So part of the big piece of the project

I've been working with Emily and Ashley and Saboon and Avery and the team to really work through a business plan as it relates to the economic development strategy.

So we took the economic development strategy, we've put that into a really good operating plan and business plan for the next 18 months.

into three years actually.

And I believe Emily is, we plan to include that in the next EDA packet for you guys to have.

So we've got some minor things that we're doing in terms of tweaking and putting some final metrics on that, but that work really is done.

And I think it's been a pretty successful initiative in terms of being able to streamline the work and really organize the work around core services that the department was working on.

The second part of the session was just to work with you guys and that was to start to think about how you all could support the work for the strategic plan and so what would be investment priorities and how you would think about the role of the EDA.

Now the EDA and Albemarle has been around for a while, but there's an opportunity for us to spend some time just going through and a little bit of education to understand how EDAs are working across the Commonwealth

as well as looking at some best practices.

So that's really what this session has been designed to do.

So we've got about two hours today.

What we'll do is we'll spend the first hour of conversation kind of in a learning mode, and then we'll spend the rest of the session, we'll take a small break, we'll come back, we'll spend most of the second part of the session in a bit of a facilitated discussion.

A little bit about purpose, and then we'll jump into a presentation from my friend John Provo, who is with Virginia Tech, that's gonna talk about the role of EDA boards across Virginia as the best practice and trends that he sees.

So we're really lucky to have John here, and I appreciate him jumping in on this.

As soon as John is done, he's gonna make a few remarks, he's got some slides he'll share, and then we'll open it up for Q and A's for questions that y'all may have.

And then one of the things that we wanted to do is just think through what's an EDA board that's been pretty active and effective than the work that they're doing.

And Lynchburg is one that I've worked with quite a bit, Marchett Upshur is the director of that group of the economic development department there in Lynchburg.

But she's a very active EDA board.

They've done a lot of investment recently in terms of buying property and doing site development and all those types of things.

And so I invited her and she's going to join us today to talk a little bit about what they're doing.

We're going to run that really as a Q&A discussion where she can just answer questions that I have and hopefully you all will have some questions for her as well.

From there we'll take a break and then as I said before, come back, talk a little bit about investment framework and facilitate a discussion around that and hopefully there'll be a robust discussion and that will lead us to being able to start to put together a framework for that going forth.

No, Stephen, the

I'm happy to do that.

Okay.

So Don, I am happy to assume the role of chair.

Okay, no worries.

So just remember, for what purpose of today is, as I said before, we want to understand what's the role that the EDA can provide.

have an opportunity to kind of learn from some statewide peers and then start to develop a lens for maybe how we think about the work going forward and then finally identify some next steps at the end of this as well.

So that's really what we'll spend some time doing today.

So with that, I'm going to stop sharing my screen because I know Jon Provo, who is with us, has some slides of his own.

And Jon is here.

He was here.

There he is.

I see him.

So Jon, you should be able to share your slides.

And thanks for joining us.

Well, Stephen, you know, someone from Blacksburg and Virginia Tech never refuses an opportunity to, you know, come this close to UVA.

So, and to be Marjette and you, I don't know if y'all understand, being Marjette Upshur's Warm Up Act, you know, it's a tremendous, a tremendous honor because Marjette is just top of the top of the top.

So let me- She's the legend.

Slides Up, and I will tell you, if you don't mind, just a little bit of context.

I always do this wrong.

We're getting the presenter view.

Yeah, wait a minute.

I'm just going to do it this way because

I'll be the one having technological problems today.

How about that?

Okay, perfect.

Well, listen, thanks for the time.

Just to give you a little quick context about why I do what I do.

I run essentially a university engagement center within Virginia Tech.

Every university has a different version of this.

Some of you may know Pace Lochte, I think, who's at UVA, and her role is nestled within the executive suite and has a lot of sort of special project assignments related to economic development.

Ours layers in a little bit more like, you know, the extension mission of the university.

So we're really here to be a multiplier on impact.

Ut Prosim, if you haven't listened to someone from Virginia Tech, that's our little Latin phrase about that I may serve.

And really, all universities are certainly trying to do service.

We think we've got it embedded in the land grant DNA, but what I try to do is add as much value add as I can in my work with communities, companies, and agencies

either from within my team or from different assets I can bring together around Virginia Tech.

And I'm often happy to put those folks together with partners around the state.

And really, for us, this economic and community engagement is about pathways to prosperity.

Every region of the state has

A way forward, even if it's not always obvious to every community in every region.

And we're always super happy when we can help folks get down a road somewhere.

There's about two dozen folks on my team.

We are mostly down in Blacksburg, but I've got offices in Roanoke, Abingdon, also in Arlington and Newport News.

We work on areas, projects like regional transformation.

So we're working with some federal and state funding right now to accelerate adoption of additive manufacturing and novel materials technologies in a footprint from Blacksburg through Roanoke and Lynchburg down past Banville.

And community innovation, we've got a

A program we call Vibrant Virginia, where we're out co-partnering with community foundations looking to imagine kind of what's next in their roles and in their places.

A lot of folks may not know Covington.

It's an old mill town just north of Roanoke.

It's the last stop before you get to West Virginia.

And they are partnering with us.

We're helping them launch a new

Allegheny Thrive's organization that we've been working with them to kind of develop for a few years.

And essentially, they're going to co-fund a position we're going to put in the community on the ground with them.

We do a range of technical studies.

We just finished a national study for the Appalachian Regional Commission on their investments in the outdoor economy over the last 10 years.

A lot of different things come up in Workforce.

We've been involved with the university in some ways to help accelerate internship development and connections for students and companies.

We just finished a multi-year program with some support from Go Virginia related aquaculture education in Hampton Roads.

that's embedded a lot of stuff within our communities.

And I guess I'm sort of beginning to hopefully stack the idea that there's a lot of different stuff that comes into economic development really everywhere in the state.

I think

I think I missed a slide.

Hang on.

Excuse me.

This is not the best way to do this, is it?

There we go.

I know a couple of folks from the county have taken advantage of this before.

We also have an educational partnership with the Virginia Economic Developers Association.

We do an annual conference for folks who are new to the profession.

And what struck me the last time we did this a few months ago

There were people from

The place we typically see people, which is towns, counties, regions in economic development and state agencies like VDP.

But there were folks there from special agencies focused on defense transition, agriculture, small business groups.

There were nonprofits and developers there.

So that's a little different.

I've been here about 20 years now.

And it used to just be great folks like Emily and her team and maybe some folks from the state.

And that was about it.

It's really cool how the team sport of economic development has grown to encompass a lot of allied parts at this point, I guess.

We also do another course for bodies like yours.

I think that one is, I'll say, I always feel really pleased when we can connect either through the course or through

Any kind of opportunity to speak or partner with.

You all are doing something that is not always recognized, right?

I mean, at this point, there's about 120 plus industrial or economic development authorities around the state.

You know, I have to say plus because nobody really keeps a list.

We try to do this through this effort with VITA, and there are cities, counties, and towns in some multiple jurisdiction EDAs and IDAs set up who are doing just incredibly important work, but maybe understudied is one way to think about it, but also you value, Emily clearly values this group, but not every community

really has the same relationship with folks in your position.

So all of this is by way of saying what you're doing is very important and a hat tip to you for your service and all that you want to do for your community.

So why is this a story we're talking about?

Virginia 60 years ago was a very different place.

agriculture, manufacturing of a very traditional heavy sort of nature that really sort of dominated things.

That traditional growth led to these bodies being created really for the kind of the same reasons that drive you today.

But, you know, the pieces and parts you were trying to put together were very

Very different.

I freaked out one of my students earlier this week talking about the agricultural past in Fairfax County and they were like, wait, what?

So I do think these bodies have been a part of this effort to make Virginia the best state for economic development in a long time.

You are a new model in an EDA.

The main difference is in the name, but it also represents kind of a broader vision.

This was something that was added a number of years ago.

As I said, this doesn't get as much notice, but I know there's a bill currently looking at maybe some changes to notice requirements.

that you guys, I'm sure, are studying carefully.

A few years ago, there were some back and forth to about additional conflict of interest things.

All this is to say, even if you're not making headlines every day, you've been a part of the machinery of Virginia economic development for a tremendously long time.

And I think the other thing to think about here, we still have manufacturing, but now we're manufacturing in life sciences, as you guys are going to get to play with for the next few years, right?

The biopharma boom of the last little bit here has been quite something to watch.

I also think, you know, I was looking back and depending on how you run the numbers, I mean, we were about a 25% defense economy in this period when the IDAs were created.

We're about that now.

And we're actually a little bit higher in overall Fed as we've wrestled with since, you know, over the last year.

Right.

So I think, again, you know, the history isn't always well told, but you're a part of that history.

And and I think, you know, it's great that you're taking on this, you know, very intentional process with Steve.

And I think, you know, more groups should do that.

What are the best groups doing, high impact DDA's?

I wrestled with this a little bit because in some respects, when you do something like this, it's good to talk with you about places that look like you.

There aren't that many places, frankly, that look quite like you.

The mix of things you have in the county and proximity to certain things.

I know you've looked at certain projects in Chesterfield.

Certainly they're in a redevelopment, commercial redevelopment activities.

My team has actually spent the last nine months or so doing a kind of a deep dive study for Chesterfield and its own planning and operations relative to economic development.

And what kind of snuck up on me was how their EDA

was really an active part of every project that you can read about there.

And this, you know, this is a county, I actually did my master's and lived for a number of years in Richmond, did my master's at VCU.

It was still, you know, rooftops and ag pretty much, right?

When, oh, sorry, I didn't say how old I am.

So that would be like in the nineties, you know, way, way long ago.

And, you know, the growth of manufacturing in that community,

The careful placement of data centers in particular areas and the ability to channel growth into some very big corridors.

The EDA's played an important role, not just as a bonding agency, but also there are a couple examples where the

essentially land bank some things that helps the county phase in future development.

And so I think that one is almost, you almost have to like live in that one to kind of get a feel for it.

But there are a few other examples that I wanted to lift up for you about how these connections work where you can see things

Maybe in a more linear sort of fashion.

So, Botetourt County is a rural county literally just outside of Roanoke.

Botetourt was a number of years ago wise enough to set aside a pretty large industrial park for the size county they are.

And it did what those things do and it sat, you know, underutilized for a while.

But as things are picking up pace, I think I was meeting with a guy named Gary LaRue, who is the County Administrator.

He's been around Virginia Economic Development for a while, worked in local government in a number of roles.

Gary got there just after his predecessor had announced a string of new jobs, and again for a county as rural as Botetourt, you know, we're talking, you know,

eight or nine hundred jobs over two or three projects that we're all phasing into this industrial park.

And housing is a thing, you know, I guess I'm going to say this more than once, David, housing is, you know, critical economic development infrastructure.

They had nothing.

They had nothing.

And so, you know, Gary was I think really an early deep diver in that part of the state in terms of pursuing and, you know, working with the toolbox that his EDA offered to pursue additional retail development.

And there's a power center that would look

not dissimilar to things that you might see in more urban parts of Virginia that's really just down the street from this industrial part.

They are also

Now, famously, I think this is the first big data center west of you, perhaps, is coming in from Google into this Greenfield Park.

They are, I think, pretty chuffed up about this.

They're very, very proud of the landing, but they're also wrestling with a lot of things around

You know, surety around the water, the Roanoke region, which, you know, Batatat's a member of their water authority.

They have a wonderful resource that they put together collectively a number of years ago.

and, you know, they've developed some, you know, I think some projects to make all the regional partners happy with that.

They're also getting the data center, which will be located in the industrial park and thus, you know, not, you know, too close to any neighbors who will be bothered.

But they've also got the first onshore wind farm coming up in Virginia, in Bonita County, I think from a Charlottesville-based or a Charlottesville-affiliated company called Apex.

So all of these things, again, you know, flow from filling and servicing this particular industrial park or the logical flow of resources and

non-traditional infrastructure like housing that has to be a part of something like that.

Pulaski Kelly just down the road from me, it's home to the largest truck manufacturing facility that Volvo runs in North America.

40 by 30 is their whole economic development strategy.

While they make a nice living off of Volvo and the suppliers in terms of machine tools tax and the like,

They are really, really, really pressing the button on population growth.

It's really the only community in the New River Valley I think that wants to grow.

and they've got, what they've done is they had an incredible backlog of old industrial buildings and a couple of older sites.

Like my whole time here, that was their whole, we've got to fill all these buildings, many of which date back to sort of a mill and mine kind of economy.

But they had a really big sort of 70s-ish

vacant AT&T facility, maybe 80s, early 80s, something like that.

And they just said, the heck with it.

We're not moving this.

So they actually flipped that into a housing development.

It was well-served by utilities.

The impact on the surrounding neighbors was generally not a problem.

But again, the IDA is undergirding all of this stuff.

IDA, they're super active.

They've actually got

run some other programs that are also not traditional industrial development around small business and things like that.

And one of the most comprehensive ones, I hadn't really tracked this, but as I was trying to pull some examples together, Newport News, which has been a great partner to our university, I mentioned we have an office there, they have a

We actually had built, well sorry, we occupy and manage a developer-built industrial park adjacent to the DOE's, the Federal Department of Energy's Jefferson National Lab there and also down the road from NASA and Hampton.

And that's, you know, a burgeoning sort of opportunity for us.

It's our second

Research Park.

We've got one here in Blacksburg.

They've been able to layer in a lot of things related to infrastructure for us to get off the ground there.

There's a whole live, work, play development that really represented an upgrade for retail and housing options that they

really wanted in that community.

But it's a funny geography, right?

And you know, it's one of those cities in Hampton Roads that was sort of pieced together in part in the 60s through mergers and acquisitions, essentially, back when we used to do annexation in Virginia.

but you know Newport News goes all the way from the shipyards up into essentially you know suburban areas on the way to Williamsburg and so consequently they've got a really weird mix match of development patterns and such and this was an effort again you know undergirded and spearheaded by the EDA to work a package of projects really all over their city and

you know much as you're developing a framework I mean they set some priorities and you know but they wanted to do it in a way for them that you know uplifted all parts of you know their geography.

So I think I already alluded to unique opportunities and challenges, but folks may know Fauquier County, you know, it's another place with horses, but Vid Hill was actually an old Army Signal Corps facility that was given up during BRAC back in the

at the end of the last century, I think.

And it was set up, they've set up an EDA around the redevelopment of this facility.

And if you go in there, if you've ever had a chance to sort of drive through there, there's a neat mix of aerospace companies and some other things that, you know, but it doesn't look oppressively industrial.

They did a really neat job, I think, of embedding a lot of jobs in a footprint that sort of blends nicely for that community.

And along with that, they've built some commercial and housing to kind of service it.

I was actually at breakfast this morning with the Montgomery County Economic Development Director.

We did a Chamber of Commerce panel together and I told him I was going to talk about him and he was

Certainly pleased by that, but a couple of things that we focused in on and that I wanted to lift up for you here is the role that the EDA there has played in helping pull things out of the university into the community, essentially.

So we do have a reasonably successful

Corporate Park that's owned by the University Foundation.

Ours is literally cheek and jowl adjacent to the campus.

So that doesn't feel like it's out in the community to a lot of folks.

We've had a couple of companies come through there, and the mantra there is about lab coats, right?

But a couple of companies, one called Torque, which actually was a student company that began for some DARPA challenges,

they do autonomous systems for trucks and they were actually not long ago bought by or sort of acquired in a 50-50 deal with Daimler.

Their growth definitely was not a fit for the park anymore and they've put two different expansions out in county-owned land that the EDA was

I'm able to help them produce.

And then, you know, we also have a very, very large, actually the single largest research group on our university is our Transportation Institute.

There are a lot of interesting ways public money with EDA help has been layered in there.

There's actually, you know, somewhere on a drawing board somewhere there's a plan that we get their test road all the way down to Roanoke.

We've never found that much money, but we've built out piece after piece.

The last bit was a large rural expansion into Montgomery County.

that was accomplished with about a three or four party deal that would not have come together without the EDA, its authority and resources kind of undergirding the transaction that allowed us to dramatically expand the testing facilities there and they work with cars, they work a lot with trucks

They've got a lot of simulation, not just computer simulation, but they can simulate various weather types.

They needed some different terrain though, so this was a critical opportunity that we needed for this test group.

And again, the county was able to play great roles here at CDA.

You know, I mentioned another example where a deal with a company didn't work.

Scott County in the last year through its CDA, this is all the way, all the way in far southwest Virginia.

Scott County is

It's not the last, but it's kind of the next to last before you get to that pointy part down at the bottom end of the state.

They, believe it or not, everybody's got housing problems, right?

Scott County was trying to service or was trying to resell a call center that had become a little redundant for the company that ran it.

There's been a lot of changes in that industry.

post COVID for sure.

And it wasn't giving up.

It was like, okay, what's a different use we could do if we're not able to market it for anything that it was built for, right?

That whole market had changed for them.

And again, there had not been new housing built in any number in that community.

Ones and twosies was it, right?

So they're moving forward on a mixed use community.

Age-based housing, there's a whole mix of things or very, very specific niche needs.

And again, it was this unique opportunity forced on them by changes in this industry to find some new use for this property.

And again, none of these things would have happened without

Creative Committed People in these EDA groups.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead, Steve.

Yeah, sure.

You had good momentum.

I don't want to break your momentum.

No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you mind going back to the Batata experience?

Yeah, let's talk about Batata.

Yeah, I'd like to get smart on

kind of the machinations of a data center.

And so Google comes to Botetourt County.

What is the bang for the buck for the county to undertake something like that?

How many jobs?

What's the economic so what?

They're kind of here, so I don't know why.

I don't have an agenda.

I just like to learn about it.

I don't know why.

A county would do that?

Yeah, and maybe there's not that many jobs that are yielded.

Well, I think there's a couple of ways to think about this.

I mean, you know, jobs are important.

There are certainly more upfront construction jobs than there are long-term.

And I should also say this has only been a land deal so far.

There

like on the edge of being able to release and go public on some of the plan details.

I think a few things about building site and such has slipped out.

It's related to the question.

Yeah, please.

Steve, when we did our analysis,

and worked through the past year, Emily and community development and the attorney's office related to potential ordinances related to data centers.

I will say from a local government perspective, Emily can speak to the economic development side of it, but from a local government revenue perspective,

You've heard our cost for services study, right?

Every dollar that we get in tax for single family homes, it costs a county like $1.37 in services, right?

So it's a lost leader.

And when houses come, the cost to serve is more expensive than the revenues.

Our economic development strategic plan has really leaned into commercial because for every dollar

of Commercial, it's somewhere in around 35 to 37 cents of cost for services.

Data centers, that ratio is somewhere on the order of for every dollar of revenues from a data center, it's around 17, 15 cents for cost for service.

And so just purely from a revenue generator perspective, it adds a boon to the economy

and it doesn't come with hundreds of employees and school capacity concerns and things like that.

I think that was your question.

What's all the interest from localities?

In part, it's for the revenues without having significant impacts to infrastructure from a local government perspective.

Where you sit from kind of climate action

and a utility, electrical impact, things like that.

That's a different lens, but hopefully that helps.

Well, so yeah, and I mean, I guess where I was gonna land on this is that the bottom line is very situational.

In their case, certainly the fiscal impact

Great.

They're wrestling with some of the details about the water.

They looked into, you know, also having to have this green energy provider coming up, which was appealing for sure to Google.

The job thing, there's another aspect of this, though, and Google's also announced in Chesterfield, some of the sites I referenced there,

Chesterfield has enough of these that they are also seeing like a service specialized services develop around this and in a place like Chesterfield that's kind of interesting because a lot of what that is is sort of trades related that helps them with their manufacturing industry which again may or may not be the the calculus for for the bigger picture here

but I definitely think you know there's a real there's a revenue argument but you got to look carefully at these other utility things as Trevor said.

I think the other thing is like the siding with your community right and I don't want to go too deeper because I bet you're going to have a whole much more fun on this because I and I'm almost done but just last thought about this is the beauty of this one

is it was banked in an industrial park where not only did they have the idea about the utilities and the power, but they didn't have a bunch of neighbors to annoy, right?

And that's not always the case in some of these other communities.

Stephen, there was another hand up from Andrew if we wanted to do that.

You're the moderator.

Yeah, I just wanted to say one thing to the group there.

I jumped in that.

I dropped in the chat today.

It's interesting you brought up a question about data centers.

Brand new, broken study out today about data centers.

I put the link in the chat, and they've actually got some great look about the multiplier of job effects, what it means in terms of power and energy, but they did some of this.

It's fairly robust in the fact they've actually mapped even a lot of the data centers across the country and you can look to see what's actually been happening in Virginia as well.

Andrew, what did you have to... Yeah, I was gonna add a real world.

I think at Culpeper, they've done like the technology corridor overlay.

And I think, I don't remember what the exact timeline is, but I think by the time that their technology corridor is completely built out, they estimate they'll bring in, I think it was something like 20% more than their current overall budget, just from the data center tax revenue.

Yep, yep.

So let me cycle back a couple more down here.

Structure's a big deal.

I mean, strategically, you should be integrated with the county's efforts and everybody, team sport, we're all playing together.

That doesn't have to represent formal structures like some of these groups have.

So Henrico

For example, their EDA, that's the front door.

I don't know the whole history behind that, but in other places, Chesterfield staffs the EDA and it's run hand and glove for sure, but I think those are examples of

very well-resourced developed counties that have definitely integrated one way or another their efforts tightly and that means also that the board itself has good solid structure set up staffing-wise so that you're not having to guess about a lot of things.

I mentioned some of these are multi-jurisdictional and not to suggest anything there but

even just joint meetings.

Bedford, I didn't list here, but Bedford Town and County both have IDAs and they have a regular schedule of joint meetings where they do some discussions.

I've got a similar thing going on.

The IDA is a part of it, but the folks who do economic development in Culpeper Town and County

actually have us up working on a project related to some Dan Henry development stuff.

Whizville, it's formally structured between the county and the two towns.

All of the staffing thing is super important.

The integration with the board is super important because

Every now and again we get one of these that goes kind of sideways and that's not going to be you, but I know and I know it's a pain when you look at like new things coming down from the state that may require some more hoops or whatever but every few years we get one of these that ends up with some negative headlines and the most recent was in Front Row Warren where there was an embezzlement scandal

really that rolled up a lot of folks.

And I only offer that, it shouldn't have been the last thing I offered to my deck here, but I think it is, but I only offer that to suggest that again, what you do is super important.

You know, I'm a planner by training, I don't think I mentioned that, so I love planning commissions and if any of you are involved in that,

That's important, too.

There's a whole lot of structure and legal requirements around what planning commissions do.

You guys run way more under the radar, and I think sometimes that's helpful in sort of speed to market, but sometimes, you know, these tripwires help us not get in trouble.

So, but you're not gonna.

All right, did they tell you how excited I was, Marjette, to be your warm-up act?

Well, all hail the queen of this business, but I'd be happy to take a quick question or comment or just cede the floor.

So we've got time to do a couple questions for John, not about data centers.

But maybe, John, I'll start with the first question, right?

And then maybe others can jump in.

And that is, this group is trying to think about a framework for how it should prioritize the types of investments it's making.

As was mentioned before, the economic development plan really centers on commercial development and particularly support of

the target sectors, defense work, national security work, life sciences, spending out of the innovation out of the University of Virginia, et cetera.

We're not doing a lot around housing and data centers were absolutely a no-no as we went through our planning process.

Although you all should read that study, it's actually pretty interesting.

So to say is that if you were advising this group to think about priorities, things that an EDA should be doing to support an economic development strategy, what would those be?

Well, I think a focus on commercial redevelopment is great, particularly if that's the bigger gap that you've identified alongside the county, right?

I think that making sure, you've got to look to the market, but I think all those drivers you just mentioned,

Getting as much inside where that's going to land in the county, how that's going to affect your customer base, I think is critical.

I think if you go back to what I underlined about the code, your job really starts with jobs in a sense, right?

So you're going to focus on this commercial piece, but it's because, as Stephen sort of suggested, these new economic drivers are going to change what you've got to be able to provide in your county.

So I think that's job one.

Okay.

Other questions for John that you may have?

All right.

Okay, John, you're off the hook, my friend.

Thanks.

Thank you all and have fun with Marjette and have fun with Steven.

It's good when we actually get him in Virginia.

Thanks.

Okay friends, thanks so much John.

Okay, we're now going to move into discussion with Marjette.

Marjette Upshur is here, blue screen, she's on brand as well with her LOYH Loves You campaign.

Marjette has been a long time Economic Development Director in Lutzburg, Virginia.

She'll tell you how long she's been there, but I've known Marge for a really long time.

She and I have probably worked together now for over a decade supporting a lot of the economic development efforts in Lynchburg.

They, too, have went through a strategic planning process.

We've revised that strategic planning process.

I think we're in revisions of a second or third round of that in terms of our unified plan work.

They've done a lot of work around centering out a marketing and comm strategy, a brand strategy for the city.

In fact, the EDA actually funded a lot of that work.

And so, I just thought that Marjette would be great for you guys.

Personally, she's a dear friend, and so I just thought it would be great for you guys to hear from some of the things that she's done.

with her EDA because I just think they have been quite creative and thinking outside of the box and some of the things that they're doing.

And like you, they face some challenges.

They've got challenges in terms of site readiness, commercial sites, land availability, and all those types of things.

So with that, Marchett, welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah, great to be here.

Marchett, tell us a little bit about, maybe talk a little bit about

Okay, well, as Stephen says, we've worked together for quite some time.

I'm originally from Lynchburg, but I left and never thought I would come back.

as I'm sure many of us say over time, but I did.

I worked in the private sector.

And so I came back here and I've been the economic development director for 20 years now.

And we've seen a lot of iterations over time.

One thing I will tell you as I was doing my homework is that the EDA here was established in 1967.

There was no Office of Economic Development when that board came together.

And I think that as we've gone along, I think it really adds some depth to how the EDA operates now and some of the challenges that I faced when I came on board with the EDA here.

As Stephen says, Stephen's been an integral part of having me think a lot bigger than the box I've been given.

I'm a little cheeky anyway, but he helps me to take that to the next level.

You know, I'd rather ask forgiveness than permission sometimes.

But there were a lot of fundamental things that, I mean, being a city in the Commonwealth

You're not in a county, so I'm a really old city and I don't have a lot of greenfield space.

So to try and engage your council when they've got the schools knocking at the door, when they've got public safety, which is the absolute most important thing in the world, they say, is how do you carve out money?

How do you take property off the tax rolls?

to hold that property for the jobs that we're all looking for and talking about for when the cycles come in your economy and the way you have to reposition yourself with all of that.

So I will just tell you, and I don't know whether I'm proud or whether I'm embarrassed.

So either one of those I can handle.

You know, with Stephen's prodding, I've got my first large, large CIP project in the budget in almost the whole time I've been here.

Now, you know Lynchburg's not flat, so you about have to be a mountain goat to come over some of this terrain, which makes it very expensive, but it doesn't matter because I'm surrounded by four rural counties

and their Greenfield space, right?

Lynchburg has been the employment center for as long as I can remember, but they have Greenfield space.

And back to that whole data center conversation, I'll just weigh in on that from what John Provost said, and that is just be very deliberate and intentional.

So, Marjette, as you've thought about the work, so thank you for that, as you've thought about the work that you have done, obviously you've got your staff and the work that the city does, can you talk a little bit about how you balance

what the city does invest in and what the EDA invests in.

I mean, I think for us in Virginia, I think that's a question that this group has, like what should the county be investing in for the Board of Supervisors perspective?

And then what should the EDA be doing?

And I'd love for you to just kind of help us unpack that as it relates to the city of Lynchburg.

And I have a little different situation here because obviously if the EDA here was started in 1967, they were around for a lot longer than there was staff available to them.

So I would imagine that they were business people that were appointed and that the city manager was their liaison

when they met and when they did anything.

So over time, when I first got here, I mean, I didn't even get a seat at the table, right?

That's probably a woman thing, but whatever.

I didn't get a seat at the table and they had their own attorney, not the city's attorney,

And they had their own CPA firm, you know, not just the city financial and accounting.

So I'm saying all that to you because of some of what I heard the end of, John Provost, and that's each ADA

is that the sum of its experiences or the sum of its city's experiences and it's whether or not you step outside that box in best principles for economic development and engage a consultant or engage somebody because an EDA to me is the most valuable asset that a city has.

You are there.

to look at everything across the board, not politically, but in the best interest of the citizens, but also in the best interest of economic development and the business community.

You are there to understand confidentiality when you're talking about a deal.

You are there to make sure you have policies that allow your staff

whether they be paid from the outside or their city staff to move freely about the cabin and be able to talk to prospects and existing businesses about how we can help them.

It is a really important piece that I think in the past a lot of EDAs were there as a conduit and therefore when the city manager or when council needed something done,

You could go through the EDA because the EDA can buy, sell property, they can lease property, they can build buildings, they can issue bonds, they can do all kinds of things.

in an apolitical way, hopefully, that council, you know, you defray those kinds of questions from them.

And I would hope that they treat you as the asset that you are.

I have not always experienced that.

I've had plenty of council members who had no idea what the EDA was and did not appreciate that.

So I will tell you from a funding perspective that for us,

We did not necessarily have a lot of incentive, like a tax abatement types of rules in there for like machinery and tools or real estate.

Some of those things where no money has to change hands, but when you bring in a business that you've already clearly identified in your policies, gonna have a certain amount of jobs, paying at a certain rate, gonna have machinery and tools, gonna have real estate, all of the things.

then they can avail themselves of these incentives or tools that you've put in place.

In my case, being 1967 all the way through, my EDA did whatever the city needed them to do, which in many cases was to go out and we did an annexation, which is still looked at as the Civil War.

People still get up in arms about it and they can have a conversation with you about how horrible it was.

We did that to bring some land into the city from a manufacturing perspective.

But we bought property when it was needed for a prospect and we were embedded with lead generation coming only from VEDP.

And I don't know about y'all,

but uh-uh, thank you very much but you've got a whole state to cover there and I need a little bit more, I need a little bit more depth than that and I need a little bit more policy and things for my EDA to respond to.

So when I got here, they depended solely on VEDP and we all know that once you get past Richmond, the rest of us just fell off the face of the earth, especially Lynchburg and the rest of them, right?

You know, they'll throw you a bone every now and then, but I can count on both hands the number of prospects I've had from VEDP that were a bona fide prospect.

And if you don't get prospects, your city council and your EDA doesn't know how to respond to them.

They need the experience of having

A competitive proposal put in front of them that you go through and calculate what the ROI is on that in order to move forward and in order to lay a baseline.

So my EDA ended up with, over all those years, a pot of money.

Right when I came and the bottom fell out of the economy,

The EDA has not received any money from city council to do their work in 20 years.

They've used the money that they've been incredibly good stewards of

over time, like buying buildings, selling buildings.

They've done just about everything that an EDA can do.

They paid for the brand.

We had no brand at the City of Lynchburg.

We had a seal.

I see you got one.

But we didn't have a brand.

It didn't speak to you.

It didn't do anything.

Steven busted my chops for years.

He goes, you got no identity.

You're trying to do all of these things.

You need a brand.

So when I came out of COVID,

I got 75 business people in a room and we brought it together and this was the brand that we came up with because they asked me personally to help them sell the city to talent when I don't have the headquarters here to their home offices to all of that plus I've got five colleges and universities here I'm selling the city to parents I'm selling the city to professors I'm selling the city to students

So that, over time, if there were risks to be taken, and risk only means what haven't you done and what aren't you comfortable doing, right?

It wasn't a real risk because we do an ROI on absolutely everything.

But over time, while I've been here, we've gotten a strategic plan.

We've gotten two.

Steven's right.

We're probably on the third iteration.

You know, the unbelievable thing about Steven for us is that he's worn all the hats.

He is teaching.

economic development to the next generation as we speak.

He is practicing economic development, placemaking, all the things.

When I came in, if I said the word placemaking, it was bad enough that I was a woman.

But if I started talking about placemaking, that was like the kiss of death.

They go, oh, here we go.

She's going to want to put up flower baskets.

Well, hell yeah, I wanted to put up flower baskets because that's what draws people to your community.

Everything that I do for a visitor or for talent or for any of that goes back to my residence.

It's like a triple bottom line.

So Marjette, you guys can see Marjette's fired up and she's very passionate about the work that she does.

Yeah, I mean, so it sounds to me, Marjette, that the things that, as you have thought about and utilized your EDA, the places where the EDA and Lynchburg has come into role play is to be some of those game-changing investments, to solve the opportunity to be some of the game-changing investments, right?

The city didn't have the resources to make the investments and or there wasn't political leadership to make that type of investment.

The EDA has stepped up to be the representation of the business community.

I think that's a really foundational point about a role of an EDA.

It plays that role and that potentially that conduit between what the jurisdiction is in this case, what the county needs, but also the representation of the business community.

I guess just two more questions for you and then I want to let other people ask if they've got questions to you.

As you're thinking about bringing investments to your board, how do you think about them in sense of how do you help your board, your EDA board make investment decisions?

Do you guys have a framework in place?

Yeah, so I think it's a good idea to think about, like you're doing today, to think about what potentially you want to be intentional about going after, because I think that's really important.

You don't want to swing at everything.

Like I remember telling them, I go, you know, we just stand in the background with the catch admit and take anything VEDP will throw us.

We want jobs.

We want high quality jobs, right?

We want to be able to have housing for the people so they don't have to live in another county just to work here.

There's lots and lots of pieces to all of this.

So

Sometimes these things can get really political.

I have a lot of respect for council and boards of supervisors.

They have to know a lot of things.

But the EDA has always been, for me, a place where, number one, I help them help me by setting policy, whether it's incentive policy, whether it's investment policy over the money that they hold,

what their charge is, you know, what is their mission statement, what are the things that they are there to do?

And hopefully that is in alignment with your board of supervisors or your city council, but the EDA for me has, we didn't have a website.

I mean, if a prospect's looking for you and they have to look up under the trash tags to find you on the damn city website, not cool.

It doesn't look the same way.

To a citizen coming in there, go out and look yourself, right?

Go out there and look at where you have to go and find most economic development organizations if they're not regional in nature, and that's your money too.

You're paying them.

I'm just saying you need to have something that grabs people's attention and can be a resource, right?

So they did the website.

They paid for the strategic plan.

I mean, when the money dried up,

and all of staff got no raises in Lynchburg for like 10 years.

They did everything.

There would have been no economic development if it hadn't been for the EDA, but I always, I cherish them.

I know that sounds really, you know, that sounds like a lot, but I really do because I know how important they are.

They keep confidences on things.

and I want them to feel comfortable doing that.

I don't want them to feel like that the things that they are doing.

They do where there's no protection there for them.

So that's why policy is really important.

They know when I bring something to them, they can at any time vote on something that is outside of the policy.

But they have a policy to lean back into for most everything.

I have three committees.

I have a incentive committee.

I have a finance committee.

And I have a property committee.

And so I tried to use those committees and help those folks, you know, feel better about and I bring staff in too.

So they have the benefit of thinking about whatever it is themselves.

and hopefully you have members, you've selected members on your ADA that bring some of that expertise to the table.

But we also bring in city staff and we try to look at things so that they feel comfortable because they're liable to get stopped on the street at any time and have to talk to the press.

or in some cases, if it's confidential or it's something that's really hemmed up, I'll tell them to refer them back to me.

So it's the history of how your EDA came about.

How do you feel comfortable plugging into the EDA as you are there now?

How do you see your role?

Are there things you're comfortable with and things that maybe you're not?

that you would want, you know, give me a handbook, let me know, I have a handbook for, I think Stephen helped us with that too, we have a handbook where all their contracts are in there, but my EDA does all kinds of things and I use the word pilot program all the time, meaning if there's something that I need to get the attention

of the constituents or the leadership or something that's a best practice in economic development, I always can go to the EDA and get them to help fund it for a small period of time until we can get it out there.

The EDA, like I said, they paid for the brand.

They've got their own website.

My website is opportunitylynchburg.com.

I went out and looked at all the websites.

We try to make that a resource, but we also try Stephen Hammers on me all the time.

It needs to be a place where site selector can go and figure out what's going on.

Because let's face it, y'all, you know, if it's a site selector or anybody out there, they know you better than they know, than you know yourselves before they even land in your municipality.

So you can take risk, but also I would, you know, hopefully you have policies and different things in place.

Now they need to be looked at and upgraded.

I had covenants to my, I don't know if you all own any property or an industrial park or any of that, but my ADA has two industrial parks.

They're almost all built out.

They have, you know, tenants that have bought the property, but they had covenants on there where I think, you know,

Yeah.

No telling.

Do we have questions?

Yeah, I was gonna just say, let's ask questions.

We can open it up for Q&A.

Yeah, so two sort of practical questions for you.

One is, how do you use your committee structure?

Because I think that's an interesting idea that I hadn't heard.

And then, does the EDA continue to have a separate, you know,

Bank account, all those sorts of things.

It is city staff that supports EDA.

I'm staff to the EDA and I have an administrative assistant who is staff.

They still have their own attorney that comes to every meeting that is not the city attorney.

They also have a CPA firm, and we have an audit done every year by another CPA firm.

And all of that was facilitated by the fact that EDAs were really formed to do industrial revenue bonds.

And right now, there aren't too many manufacturers that need an industrial revenue bond.

But if you have hospitals and universities or nonprofits

Those folks get a better interest rate using the EDA as a conduit for that.

There's a layout in the Virginia statute.

There's an amount of money that the EDA can charge for processing those bonds.

And that money is what would pay the attorney or the CPA or those types of things.

and all of those that I mentioned are tax exempt.

So I really say to them, this money that you're paying for this better interest rate, we all know they wouldn't do it if it didn't add out at the end to be a better deal.

But it's also their way because they get their chops busted all the time.

I don't know what yours is, but in Lynchburg, we're 25% tax exempt.

Everybody else is picking up the tab for the rest of it, right?

So that's their way of being able to give back.

So the EDA has continued to have money.

It leased property.

It's built buildings for companies before and leased it back.

So it's had its own funds there, but I'm slowly trying to turn the battleship around in a canal and put the onus back to some degree on the city for having incentive packages

that are abatements where you don't really have a lot of, you know, cash doesn't change hands.

Did I answer all of them?

I'm sorry.

The committees meet after every EDA meeting because it's hard enough for me to get the EDA members to remember to come to the meeting.

They have to be televised.

All the meetings are televised and they're put on our website.

The committees meet immediately after the regular meeting so that they won't forget and I bring to them whatever is relevant that then gets taken back to the full authority with the recommendation.

My committees cannot vote on anything.

It's got to be the full authority.

So, but what they do is they are agreeing.

We put them on a committee and unless they want to come off, they stay on that committee because I believe that when you get on the EDA, I hope you understand how important you are to the vitality, the economic vitality of your municipality.

And I'm telling you, we have four three-year terms and it takes every bit of that for them to become really, really comfortable.

with what can come across the desk.

Right.

Okay.

Other questions that Marchett, you guys may have for Marchett?

Anybody, we've got time for one, maybe one more question.

Frank, it looks like you unmuted.

Did you unmute?

Yeah.

What is the most significant thing that the EDA has done?

What economic development initiative?

And can you describe what did the EDA do?

What did staff do?

What did city council do to make the initiative a success?

Yeah, that's great, Frank.

I'll say that the EDA, they have done all incentives for every new prospect as well as existing business expansion for the last 20 years, right?

And they do all of that without council having anything to do with that because they don't have to go to council to ask for the funding.

to do the incentives.

So they have done that.

Like I said, they helped us with the strategic plan.

The latest thing they've done is you all are kicking our butt and taking our name when it comes to air service in Charlottesville and in Roanoke.

We only had American Airlines.

And so the EDA, when you want another airline in your community, for the most part, you have to pay them to come there.

And it's no different than any other incentive you do.

When you give an incentive to a company, it should be you are helping them reduce the barrier to entry to your community.

You're not making them rich.

You're just giving them money that helps them lift off the ground there.

And a lot of times you're doing it in conjunction with the state of Virginia at VEDP.

So just recently, my EDA,

Not the companies in Lynchburg, but my EDA went in a closed room.

I will consider that one of the greatest things ever is I couldn't even tell them the name of the airlines.

And I said, you know, we need more service here.

I need a commitment.

We got 30 days to turn this around and we need $2 million in order to, we need to encumber $2 million.

in order to do that.

And so we now, starting March 24th, will have service that we haven't had since probably 2007 or 2008.

Dulles to Lynchburg, Lynchburg to Chicago.

Stephen will be so happy to hear that because he never flies anywhere near Lynchburg because you can't get in there.

And he even told the airport director there one night, that's how he rolls, right?

He didn't even know it was the airport director.

Way to punt one, Steven.

Anyway, and then Chicago to Dallas and then back around.

So I'm just saying that the number of things they've been involved in, the background you see behind me, the branding, the EDA paid for that.

a website for the very first time for economic development separate from the city's website that you're buried down in.

The EDA did that.

The EDA pays for an internship program for Lynchburg interns at a tech company here that then turns around and hires them.

So they give money to the schools.

The school

Lynchburg City Schools was having trouble keeping teachers and the city couldn't handle it and the school system couldn't handle it.

So if you came in and lived in the city and were a new teacher here, they would give you a rent stipend for coming to the city.

So they really go across the board.

I've done two retail studies because if you didn't know it, retail is some serious money.

If you have any kind of trust taxes, and it can help balance some of the things you're doing there, but if you're not strategic about the retail that comes there and you're not in that arena,

you got to have a lot of things that work just like you do for any other kind of prospect.

But they help do all of those things.

I mean, the list can go on and on.

And I'm more than happy if you ever have a question, that's how economic development gets done.

It's EDA members talk to each other.

At Charlottesville, Chris Engle and Brian Schull from Harrisonburg and I, we do EDA

talks at the Industrial Development Authority class that VITA has every year, because we are close together, but our EDAs are so very different.

Like Chris, the city council funds all of the building purchases or the turnarounds or the bigger projects like that, the city funds all of that for him.

Brian Shull and Harrisonburg, y'all, his EDA reports to the city attorney.

So the city attorney is the staff.

They still fulfill the same functions, and they still have city staff.

But it's so interesting how different the ADA can be in a municipality.

Thank you.

OK. Other last questions, good thoughts?

Anyone else?

OK, thanks, Marjette.

We appreciate you joining us.

Thank you very, very much for sharing your thoughts.

OK.

Thanks, Bridgette.

OK, y'all.

We're running a little tight on time.

So what I thought we would do, if it's OK, no breaks.

I only have you for two hours.

It's OK.

If you need to take a stretch break and or you need to hit the washroom, that's OK.

Feel free to do that.

I guess so.

Just the discussion about all the projects that you, I guess, Mr. Provo mentioned as well as, I've been to most of those places and had some kind of impact on one way or the other, which is nice in terms of doing different studies.

And so I'm very familiar with Chesterfield, Belleville, Allegheny Highlands, the Virginia Tech Research Park, Vid Hill, you know,

from all of those places actually, and Lynchburg as well, Ivy Creek Park out of the industrial complex, but they're very different.

We have North, in terms of key properties, we have Rivanna Futures, you know what we have.

So I still go back to some of the earlier discussions about wanting to reverse engineer or, either way, start with the inventory of what we've got to understand the potential

impact, like what's our capacity from available resources like North Fork and Rivanna Futures and other sites that we've been privy to recently that are potentially developing for light industrial uses as well as the potential.

Anyway, just sort of that capacity analysis and how far can we really get with the resources we have versus reversing engineering, the desired effect of tax base, et cetera, and then going back

into what do we really need to make that happen.

So anyway, that's all that, you know, just reminded me of the, you know, we like the data center thing.

We don't really have to land for certain things.

We have limited space to do it.

So anyway, that's what it reminded me of is the need to kind of understand how the actual objective and mission to accomplish that's more, I guess, specific to

Okay, good.

Anything else?

What else?

I'm still fairly new to this and trying to understand it all.

It seems to me there are two different models that have been discussed.

In Lynchburg, the EDA is fairly autonomous and independent of the city leadership, city council.

as Marjette described with Chris Engle, and I've heard Chris talk about this, in the city, the EDA is really a conduit, that was the word she used, a way to implement what city council wants to do.

So it's two very different models of autonomous versus conduit.

As I look at Albemarle County,

I think so.

Emily, what would you argue for that?

I think it feels to me that that's the right structure.

I do think you're right about the Lynchburg model.

They operate a little bit more autonomous.

One of the real reasons I wanted Marja to come in and talk to us about was to show the breadth of the types of investment things that they are thinking about.

So one of the things that makes the Lynchburg model or what has made I think that EDA so successful is that when there has been a gap, for instance, that the city can't fund something or funding is not there and or it's a bit more risky, the EDA has been able to take on that risk to support the economic development efforts.

They've also made big strategic investments to support the work as well.

But Frank, I think you're right.

I think you are much more aligned and you're not as autonomous as the Lynchburg model.

But there are still, I think, some lessons to be taken even from that as well.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I think to date, the Albemarle EDA has been more similar to the Charlottesville model as more of a conduit.

But that being said, I think in the past year, the EDA has expressed its intent to exercise some of the special powers that you all have.

And I think that came up during the MOU

Discussion with the Board of Supervisors about a year and a half ago.

So a little bit leaning, maybe leaning even a little bit less out of that conduit role, but a little, still in that conduit role, right, but also having the opportunity to talk about what are some things that strategically we want to do and go forward with.

One of the takeaways I took out of this, and look, you guys are a small group and EDA in Lynchburg is small as well, but I thought the committee structure that Marj has put in place is an interesting one as well, where they have outlined and kind of put their work together, and certain directors have become

I wouldn't say specialists in that space, but have become the conduit or the go-to people around that space.

I think that's something that may be worthwhile that you all should think about as well.

Do you have a group of folks that work on, or think about, advise on incentives?

Is there a group of stuff that are advising on incentives?

Property Development, is there a group of folks that are advising on other kind of strategic initiatives?

Emily comes to you and says, like, we need a new website to support the workers, we can't get that from the county.

Those are maybe, that to me is something that is possibly worthwhile, or is there an initiative that's a little bit outside of the box, so to speak?

Bye, Bea, good luck, enjoy the spelling, Bea.

Other thoughts?

So what I'd like to do now is spend a little bit of time.

We have a hand spin.

I did not see it.

It was late.

I apologize for that.

One of the things that Marjette talked about and that we do, but I don't know if it can be consistently done, was she made the phrase about competing on an international scale.

And we know with AstraZeneca,

We've done that.

And not to say that we need to find the next AstraZeneca, which if we did would be amazing, but with our proximity to so many places, right?

We are close enough to DC.

We are close enough to the Port of Virginia.

How can we,

Look internationally.

So we're not necessarily

doing some of the stuff that's been done in the past.

I think we've talked about the world strides of the world and the Martha Jeffersons of the world, where it's, oh, it's come from the county and gone to the city or gone the other way.

How do we grow the pie locally and not just

So that's where I'm going with.

And it's not just international, but the fact that she mentioned competing internationally struck me.

But competing against the research triangle area, that sort of thing, right?

We've got some opportunities here, I think.

And I don't know the best way to

Yep, yep, yep.

And I think that gets to this idea of something that's a bit more catalytic, right?

That's a little bit outside of the box to maybe change the trajectory of economic development for the county.

I guess, so Emily, I'm going to put you on the spot.

on the hot seat.

I'm curious, as you now are,

So we're gonna kind of move into this conversation of starting to identify like what is a framework by how the EDA should be thinking about investment ideas.

And if we are thinking about what is the role of the EDA and how can the EDA kind of support the work that Emily and team is doing, I was just generating some lens or discussion points about this.

And again, we'd wanna think about these and talk through these.

but one would be investments that the EDA has to be.

There's gotta be strategic alignment as it relates to the strategic plan, right?

We went through a strategy process for a reason.

We've went through a business planning process of the reason to kind of support that work.

And so clearly anything that gets invested in in terms of the EDA, there's gotta be strategic alignment with that work, partly because it also has been aligned with the board of supervisors.

By the way, these are Stephen Petticoat's criteria, and then I'm going to put Emily on the spot to kind of react to these and then open it up for others.

The second being that what you guys are doing, and David, I think this gets to your point, is that the EDA and the role of the EDA is not maybe to support everyday economic development work, right?

And what I mean by that is

not to support the need to do a site trip to a trade show or we need a little bit of money to do this type of marketing, but stuff that the EDA wants to do should have some catalytic value to it.

So it should be somewhat transformational.

So an idea could be, for instance,

We've got our three growth sectors and the EDA really wants to be catalytic.

And so we're gonna invest in an opportunity to build out a real FDI plan, an international foreign direct investment plan.

That to me is catalytic.

It's strategically aligned with the plan.

It's not something that the staff is already doing, but it is something that could be transformational to the work that we're doing.

Third idea for me is it's got to have some return on economic impact.

So I think one of the things that Marjet mentioned, and I think this is really true with the work that you're doing and now that you guys have Saboon with you and others who kind of has got the data chops.

to support this and I know some of the stuff that Avery does as well is that there's got to be a return on investment.

So if we're making investments, what's the economic impact or what's the economic return on this?

You know, now we can get to the point of modeling those types of things out now to understand if we do an international plan and it attracts these types of investments, what would be these dollars?

Then we're able to not only say it's a line, it's catalytic, but it also has economic impact.

And then the fourth kind of way that I think about this is there's got to be a real independent role that the EDA is playing, right, as opposed to what the county would do or what the partners would do.

So, you know, when I think about framework of work going forward and we look at the economic development plan, yes, we could come with, I think Emily and team could probably come to you and say, as we look at the plan,

Here are a list of eight to 12 things that we think could be changing for the future going forward.

But it feels to me that there's got to be some framework about how we think about these.

And these may be four principles that start to maybe guide that work.

So I'll stop.

I'm kamikazing Emily with this a little bit, but as I think about the work and thinking about the role that you all play, we're starting to outline, yes, you have that MOU with the Board of Supervisors, yes, you're wanting to take on some more autonomy, but here are the types of things that we would do, and here's the principles of what we would do, and this is why we do it.

And anytime something that comes before the EDA as an investment opportunity, you'd ask these four questions.

She's punting.

Way to get out front on that one, Emily.

So I'll share my thoughts first.

I guess as chair, I should do it last, but I'm going to just go ahead and do it.

For me, the things that I've been thinking about are, we have obviously gotten really good support from

the Board of Supervisors, they provided lots of money for lots of projects.

So I think we have money, we've obviously made our contribution to the road, but it is constrained in that it's built up over a long period of time, so we don't necessarily have big annual increases going into the funds that we control.

So I think I like what Marjette said,

You know, maybe smaller things that are projects that we're going to start and see whether they work.

And, you know, maybe things that the county wouldn't necessarily invest in, you know, with it strategically aligned, but not necessarily something the county would want to put their money out there more risky.

Although I also think because we've got smaller amounts of money, I'd want at least there to be a

An opportunity to recoup those funds.

Now we may say if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but it's not less of a sort of grant making thing where here's the money and we don't expect anything to come back, but more programs where we can invest, but there's some opportunity to get some return there.

And I think that's

where I see it within, you know, we've got now a plan that says here's the things we wanna invest in, but really what is those lanes?

The other part that I think we'll do, but probably needs less sort of planning on our part is as the big project like AstraZeneca comes into place, some of the special powers that we've got will get used in one way or another, you know, whether it's

land flows through us, we do leasing, those sorts of things, but I think that'll really come through the process as we go along, just in what we do.

Okay, I love that.

I'm just adding, so you guys can see, I'm just adding a list here and we'll kind of refine, I think, through that list.

So Dave went, Frank, I'm gonna just call on people, because I'm a

I'm a faculty nerd and that's what I do.

So Frank, you're up next.

I hope this is related to the question, but I'm not sure.

That's okay.

I was quite interested when Marjette described the issue of their teachers being unable to afford to live in the city.

Obviously, we have a similar problem in Albemarle County with teachers, firemen, policemen, etc.

And she described how the EDA, if I understood her right, provided funding to provide rent supplements of some sort.

Now it strikes me an initiative like that is going to take a lot of money to make any difference.

I mean, way beyond what we have at the EDA.

So if we recognize that's a problem, can the role of the EDA

to convene, to convene others to try to address a problem where we don't have the resources to solve it, but we bring together

those who might have resources and might be interested in solving a problem.

And so we provide, it's your catalytic word that we're a convener to address problems that are critical to economic development.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

No, I mean, I think it's interesting.

You can at least be the catalytic or the convener of maybe those around the business community, right?

This idea that you could be the voice for that private sector group or other independent foundations and other stuff to maybe think about that.

I like that idea.

I think you'd want to think through how you're selective in terms of how often you do that convening work, given the fact that you're staffed by the department and you guys are all volunteers, but that could absolutely be a role.

I think about the idea of the teacher thing.

You're right, it's not something you could do, but is there a little prototype of something that you could do to show demonstration?

Those are other ways to think about that.

I think that really leans into what Don is suggesting as well about the idea of prototyping.

I love that.

I'll go to David next.

Helps if I come off of mute.

I like the idea of these prototypes, right?

At Lexis, we call them bets, right?

You make a series of small bets, you know, and you make a number of them to see what works, what doesn't work.

Not all of them are going to pay off, right?

I don't want to turn away, you know, the honey refiners of Albemarle County or the

um the the pizza makers right right we want those right we want to grow those businesses because everybody's got to start somewhere um and and so we we need to have that ability to even if the return direct return on investment isn't big um another piece that is not in our

It's not in our strategic plan really, right?

Home Depot wasn't in our strategic plan, but as a catalyst for redevelopment of a parcel where we've got limited commercial or light industrial space, I think it was important to do.

And so I want to be able to continue those types of opportunities.

If Home Depot comes back to us and says, we've got a great opportunity to redevelop the rest of Fashion Square Mall,

I want to hear it.

I want to know what that return on economic impact is going to be.

I want to know what that data is.

And so those are the types of things that I'm looking at.

I was trying to look at Lynchburg's annual reports to find their budget.

I didn't get there yet.

Yeah, that makes complete sense.

And I think one of the things that you do, and the reason you develop this kind of criteria is

It's obviously on Emily and team to be able to come to you.

I mean, one of the things I think you can see with Marjane and the EDA is that she's serving as the conductor of the symphony a little bit, so to speak, right?

She's coming to the EDA and saying, here are the things that we should be thinking about.

Emily is your conductor, right?

Which is to say, if we are thinking about the strategic plan and the business plan going forward, it's not uncommon upon you as the EDA members to say here, you know,

Here are the things that we're doing.

It is Emily's role as the director and kind of lead and kind of the thought leader for us to say, hey, EDA, here are some opportunities for us.

And by having this type of criteria in front of us, I think it helps to inform the types of things that Emily is able to bring forward to the EDA for consideration.

Yeah, it does.

And I wonder if I can sneak back into the speaking line to see, to get a reaction from the full EDA, but sort of trying to triangulate Don and Bill's comments with sort of a test.

Do you think it would, like a good pilot effort that the EDA would be interested in supporting that might not have a direct ROI?

So this is where I'm trying to test.

Chair Long's thoughts.

We know that we have the remaining portion of Rivanna Futures.

We know that North Fork has some property left, but we don't necessarily know where the next property is.

And so there's a level of analysis that we could do where we would

work with engineering resources to evaluate what are those next good opportunity sites in Albemarle County.

And then we could start to think of, OK, let's build a plan for how might we engage the property owner to try to position that site competitively with the types of prospects that we're seeing.

I'll go.

I think the idea of land banking, that was one of the notes I took.

This would ultimately maybe lead to a land banking, a use of those special powers.

The return on investment may not be instant.

Nobody expected the Rivanna Futures return on investment in the fewer than five years that we had it.

unless they were really clairvoyant, in which case we need to talk to them about other things.

So I like that idea.

I think there are options and opportunities as well to engage other parts of county government there, Emily.

One of the things that we're facing is the potential need for a comprehensive high school.

which requires between 50 and 70 acres and they're doing the same sort of look at land that you're talking about doing what's the next parcel and we don't want to necessarily compete with them but we're also identifying sort of the same things right because transportation's an issue topography's an issue access to water and sewer issues right these are all the same things and we don't want to necessarily

The schools are important because they drive the quality of life that wants to bring people here to do business.

But on the other hand, we don't want to compete with them to bid on parcels and drive up the costs, which is great for a landowner, but not great for the county and the taxpayers of the county.

So I think there's an opportunity.

I think there's an opportunity here.

And I don't know

How to fully embrace it for the best, right?

And this is what somebody was saying, right?

That we look at it from the best overall import without politics for the people of Albemarle County.

And I'm not sure the best way to get there, but I think it's possible.

So y'all, I know we're coming, we've still got about 10 more minutes or so before, and I will make sure we're done in time, but I do wanna give Steve an opportunity.

So Emily, let me stop here.

Steve, Emily, did you get a response to your question?

Yes.

Okay.

I have a simple response.

Yes, I think it's a good idea, Emily.

Okay, thank you.

So I was thinking about when we brought DIA down and I was running NJIC and I brought the Board of Supervisors over in three two-person tranches, of course.

and I could tell them specifically how many people DIA, how many humans were gonna move from Washington area to Charlottesville definitively and what their pay grades would be and then the Board of Supervisors obviously could extrapolate how that would benefit the county and so forth economically.

I'm not sure and maybe I'm just you know backseat student that we've done

An adequate job of the impact of AstraZeneca because all of defense is 1.2 for the county, as I understand it.

AstraZeneca will be 4 billion.

I mean, do we know all the ancillary effects, people coming down?

and just all the goodness that we'll have to work through.

I just don't know, and I'm not, hey, I'm certainly not calling for more committees and more meetings, but I contradict myself.

Perhaps if there's one committee that we could theoretically stand up is something to study that specifically and that we have provided the Board of Supervisors as much

information and help them as best we can to have the county prepared for a four billion dollar inject which is three times what defense is so it's going to be massive and I don't know

I mean, again, maybe I'm behind the times.

I don't know if we've done that degree of specificity and that we know, okay, here are the steps we're going to have to do to get like high schools, like whatever, that are going to be a requirement when people, and I don't know the exact number, people will come here, new people,

Taxbase, et cetera, et cetera.

So I don't know.

Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, Emily.

So I have to fire me.

But I am Don's destiny now, so remember that.

It's like a job at church.

It's for life.

So anyway, but anyway, so I don't know if we've done that yet.

OK.

So thanks for this.

So in terms of next steps, here's what I'd like to suggest.

Hit Steven.

Before we do that, I wonder if Andrew... Andrew was having some technical... Oh, is he back?

I thought he dissed out of the party.

Short lived.

You're telling him he's chair of the new subcommittee, right?

The subcommittee on choosing committees, I mean.

Yeah, I think the data center thing brings a lot to mind.

I know you don't want to go back to data centers, but I do think

You talk about how do you advertise, how do you attract the next AstraZeneca, and I think anytime your show is closed off to investment, whether that's like a specific investment or what, I think that is less attractive to all investment in my mind.

So I think how you can show positivity.

You talked about being the next Research Triangle.

I'm actually in Raleigh right now.

I think you look at the pros of being in Charlottesville compared to the cons of being in Raleigh in the nicest way possible in Albemarle County.

And so I think you say, hey, if you want to go 45 minutes, you're actually going to go someplace and not halfway across town.

I think that's the story you can tell.

So here's what, so thanks for that.

So here's what I'd love to do to propose kind of the next step is that, so we've obviously, you guys will see the business plan that Emily and team has been working on that will be in your packets this next thing.

What I would love to do is I'll take this conversation today and our conversation about a framework about how do we think about investment.

And Emily, maybe you'll throw me that Board of Supervisors memo too, where I can have that as reference.

And what I will do is just draft a framework, right, maybe for you guys to think about how you should be, you know, what are the things, what would be our decision making or framework for how the EDA would be invested.

And I'll share that as a draft to you guys and you guys can start to think about that as some guiding principles.

as a first step about how to start to advance work forward.

And then I think once you land on those guiding principles, then the kind of next step would be to take a look at the, for Emily and team to say, let's look at the strategic plan and here are

three or four proposal ideas or things that are coming in the pipeline that we could start to consider as opportunities for the EDA to have a present.

That's sort of my thinking on this.

Emily, does that align with your thinking?

None of my peripherals are connecting to my laptop, so I am also challenged today.

So we'll do that.

That'll be the next step.

And then you guys can react to it.

So now we've had a good discussion.

Now I can spend some time doing that, putting together a little bit of a framework for that.

Yeah, just so you know, I mean, we do have, we've got some time.

I think at the February meeting, if we needed to, depending on what, you know, maybe that's the,

Chance to just talk about the business plan or get initial thoughts on that.

And then we can obviously put time on the later agendas at whatever point we need.

OK, thanks.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, it was great.

Thank you.

All right, anything else?

Anybody on the board?

Pass.

All right.

Well, then I guess we'll be adjourned.

Yeah, for sure.

Thanks so much, guys.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

Bye.

Stay warm.