The developer of the proposed Tidewater Logistics Center on the outskirts of Windsor is hoping one less warehouse will persuade Isle of Wight County supervisors to waive a one-year waiting period to reapply for industrial zoning.
County officials, however, say the revision isn’t sufficiently different from the concept supervisors voted 4-1 on June 13 to reject.
Meridian Property Purchaser LLC’s rezoning application, at the time of its rejection, proposed a multi-warehouse complex consisting of five buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet.
Meridian has submitted two revised site plans, each dated July 10, showing four warehouses instead of five, totaling 709,220 to 725,960 square feet.
Each site plan shows a 42-foot-wide, 6-foot-tall berm set back 50 to 250 feet from the nearest house on Keaton Avenue, creating at least a 280-foot buffer between the neighborhood and the closest warehouse.
The Smithfield Times obtained the revised plans, and email threads discussing Meridian’s waiver request, through a Freedom of Information Act request that sought correspondence between county officials and Meridian since the June 13 vote.
“Following up on our call two weeks ago, we remain very interested in working with Isle of Wight County and Town of Windsor on a revised plan that addresses the community’s concerns,” Tom Boylan, senior vice president of Meridian’s parent company, The Meridian Group, told Isle of Wight Community Development Director Amy Ring in the July 10 email that included the two proposed site plan revisions as attachments.
Boylan’s email also references ongoing discussions with Isle of Wight County Economic Development Director Kristi Sutphin regarding a “strong potential user” of one of the warehouses dubbed “Project Kermit” by Sutphin.
Isle of Wight County’s Economic Development Authority, which remains under contract with Meridian to sell an EDA-owned 83-acre parcel fronting the four-lane Route 460, frequently uses codenames to preserve the confidentiality of prospective buyers and tenants until a contract is signed. Isle of Wight County supervisors last year approved “Project Air Station,” the first occupant of a long-planned third phase of the Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park south of Windsor. Air Station General LC is under contract to purchase an EDA-owned, 135-acre parcel along Walters Highway.
Meridian is looking to purchase 154 acres that are currently farmland and forestry. Two non-EDA parcels involved in the sale are owned by Hollowell Holdings LLC.
According to Boylan’s email, Project Kermit refers to “a local manufacturer in Hampton Roads that … is looking to consolidate its locations” into one site. If approved, Project Kermit would occupy the 217,620-square-foot building “B” on the site plans.
“It’s understood that further rezoning approvals would be required if we proceeded with this type 2 manufacturing user,” Boylan’s email states.
An economic impact analysis Meridian submitted with its original proposal estimated the five warehouses would collectively bring millions of dollars in tax revenue and over 1,000 permanent jobs to the county, though Windsor residents opposed to the project contended it would also bring constant noise and diesel exhaust to the Lovers Lane and Keaton Avenue neighborhoods abutting the site, and increased traffic to Route 460.
A manufacturer may or may not bring in more tax revenue to the county than a company proposing to use the same space solely as a warehouse, depending on the size of the business and the machinery used, Isle of Wight Commissioner of the Revenue Gerald Gwaltney said. The tax rate on machinery and tools, which manufacturers pay, is $1.95 per $100 in assessed value, while warehouse equipment is assessed at a higher rate of $4.50 per $100, he said.
“Generally, the M&T is much more costly,” Gwaltney said, which is why manufacturers typically generate more than distributors, and why Virginia’s General Assembly allows the lower $1.95 rate.
“The warehouse business equipment assessment would be for all the racking system, which would be the most expensive part of their equipment and assessment,” Gwaltney said.
Boylan separately emailed Isle of Wight County Planning Commissioners Jennifer Boykin and George Rawls on July 10, copying Ring, stating that “a materially different plan can be re-submitted for staff to review at any time,” and asks “whether a plan that eliminates Building A would qualify as materially different and how this modification would be received given this board’s discussion about concern in general for industrial use on this parcel.”
A week prior to Boylan’s emails, Meridian managing director Kyle Maurer emailed Sutphin on July 3 referencing a same-day call in which a purchase price of $50,000 per developable acre was discussed. Maurer’s email included an attachment showing 39.85 acres of the county-owned 83 as buildable, which would make the purchase price roughly $1.9 million.
The revised purchase price, down from $2.7 million proposed as of May, would reflect a loss for the EDA, which purchased the land in 2008 for $2.3 million ($3.4 million in 2024 dollars).
“There are ongoing negotiations between the parties, but to date there have been no modifications to the purchase price,” Sutphin told The Smithfield Times. “If and when the negotiations are concluded, should the agreement be amended, it will be done in a public meeting.”
Meridian’s plans to revise its concept began roughly a week prior to Sutphin emailing Ring on June 24 to ask whether the latter had had any conversations with the company following the June 13 vote.
“I understand they are suggesting to revise the concept plan by eliminating building A hoping it’s a material enough difference that they can move forward with submitting again without having to wait a year,” Sutphin wrote.
“They sent an email last week and my gut reaction is no, but wanted some time to think it over,” Ring said in a same-day reply.
“(County Attorney) Bobby (Jones) didn’t seem to think that removing one building was enough to materially change the application, but said it was your call,” Sutphin emailed back.
“I’m going to have to agree with Bobby. The uses are still the same,” Ring replied to Sutphin.
Jones, in a July 10 email to the Times, said the supervisors can waive the one-year waiting period “on grounds of new evidence or proof of change of conditions” or consider a new application for the same property that “differs in some substantial way from the one previously considered, as determined by the zoning administrator.”
The resubmitted plans for the Tidewater Logistics Center comes amid county officials learning that the 330,000-square-foot Keurig Dr. Pepper manufacturing plant in Phase Two of the Shirley T. Holland park will cease operations by the end of the year.
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