The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Conan Owen Of Sir Speedy Joined Jerry Miller Live On “The I Love CVille Show!”

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Conan Owen, Owner of Sir Speedy of Central VA, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Seville Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you for joining us on a Wednesday in downtown Charlottesville. It's good to be with you. Today's show is going to be a great one. Conan Owen is in the house, his third rodeo on our network and in studio, at least on the I Love Seville Network. Frankly, he's probably approaching, you know, flirting with 10 appearances on the

I Love Seville Network when you consider today a minyana. I think you've done three appearances on today, mania, two or three. This is his third here, so he's at least five, and I think he might be at six, ladies and gentlemen. This guy is an absolute wizard with business development. There is few people in this community proverbially shaking hands, kissing babies, pressing flesh, whatever you want to call it, more than Conan Owen. He is at all the mixers. He's at all the events. He's meeting with all the business owners and entrepreneurs.

We're also going to champion and celebrate his business, Judith, to start the program. He's owned Sir Speedy of Central Virginia for three years now. Today is the three-year anniversary. The firm, Sir Speedy of Central Virginia, has been locally owned and operated for 35 years. He's a Darden graduate, purchased it from the previous owner, and has done phenomenal with the vertically integrated services that he's offering this region. I mean, if you need sideage, marketing collateral, if you have a logo and you need visibility, or some kind of application for visibility for your logo.

You call Sir Speedy Central Virginia. They're literally doing a signage refresh on our studio storefront right now. Allow it we're going to cover on the program, Judah. Studio camera and two shot with a guy that I think is becoming a household name here. Conan, how you doing? I'm doing great. Great to have you. Great to be here.

Three years today, I've got the keys to Sir Speedy, and I'll tell you, it's the best decision I ever made other than marrying my wife. Wow. I've loved every minute of it, working with local businesses, non-profits, new businesses, startups. And one thing I didn't realize is I was way ahead of my, or not way ahead, at least a year ahead of my time. Last month at Darden, they had an interesting conference called the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition. So it's not people with, you know, cool ideas like the Play Henry ladies or, you know, the Nougs, nutritional people that I've been working with. or anybody like that.

These are folks like Daryl Pacheco who bought Shenandoah Joe's. There's an existing business. Someone says, I want to be an entrepreneur, but I'm going to buy somebody else's business and I'm going to make it more than it was. Dave Fafara sold Shandanoa Jos to a Darden graduate.

Fantastic exit for Dave Fafara, who's the friend of the program. Daryl, the new owner, looking to scale Chandono Joe's, to even elevated levels. and it's an already fantastic brand. Yeah, definitely. And then there's another Darden grad who bought Rudy's rug cleaning.

So Rudy is now a woman running the rug cleaning business. But there's this whole movement, not just in the NBA world, but there are a lot of people who are coming out of school now and saying, I'm not going to McKinsey, I'm not going to Wall Street. I'm going to buy a local business either in my hometown or something that I find and build and grow that. you know, we all aren't as fortunate as the Vermilions where you have multiple generations who want to take over the business. And you look at, you know, a lot of the businesses in Charlottesville

that have closed over the years have been kind of the, there was no succession plan. And there wasn't an opportunity to sell the business. And I was amazed at the attendance. They said they had between, it was North Carolina, Duke and Darden MBA students, plus they were investors there. there were alumni there looking to buy businesses there was faculty involved with this there were four or five hundred people attending this conference wow and you know it's not just buying a franchise like i did there are a lot of great franchises out there that you can buy there are a lot of new ones that aren't in the market yet but they're also existing businesses if you look around charlottesville um there are a lot of businesses that don't have a succession you know

they don't have anyone in the family that wants to take over so we bro as the viewers and listeners know, our firm brokers, a lot of buying and selling of businesses locally. Another one that's about to open is what Kit Ashy and her team are going to do on Eliewood Avenue, and I'm excited for Kit and her team to make this announcement of what's coming in the old Kuma location. A lot of folks don't realize with Darden that there is this pipeline of Darden alumni money that finances these purchases. And these MBAs are now looking to get into lines of work that cannot be cannibalized by the Internet or artificial intelligence.

So they're buying service-oriented businesses. We almost helped broker a deal recently. Now, it did not materialize because the Darden MBA was so focused on EBITA and profit and loss and balance sheets that, and frankly, it was probably his investors that were calling the shots. He was looking at seller discretionary earnings, wanted something in the one to two X of SDE, and I'm like, dude, he's not going to sell this business to you for one and a half X of what he's making. I mean, he's crushing it right now.

So we didn't get that deal, but let's start there. A lot of people don't realize that there's this pipeline of capital from Darden to their students to potentially get something on Main Street, Market Street, Press, wherever it may be. Exactly. And a lot of it comes back to the lifestyle. You know, I did the big-time consulting thing for seven years, and I lived on an airplane. I've, you know, lived overseas three different times. You know, it's not your kind of lifestyle, especially with the current generation focusing more on, you know, that work-life balance.

And, you know, you talk to Daryl, and that's what he was looking for. He did the Wall Street thing before Darden and decided that, you know, when he got to, you know, got here, you know, everyone who comes to Charlottesville loves Charlottesville and they all try and figure out how to find their way back. And that was my case too. You know, I was out of the area. It took me 10 years after Darden to get back here. Three years at Sir Speedy

as the owner. You said it's the second best decision you've ever made except marrying your wife. Yes. Put in perspective for the viewers and listeners the risk you took here. Because the three year markers, generally the marker where you're like, if you hit the three years as a small business owner, you surpassed that

80% of businesses fail in the first three years of ownership thing. Well, fortunately, this wasn't a startup. That's true. So I inherited a book of business, you know,

had all kinds of problems out front between, you know, retention of people, because, you know, quite frankly, I had to experience people leave. And, you know,

they didn't say outright, but basically they weren't confident that I was going to make it. So they pursued other opportunities. You know, I wasn't worried about that. I've learned all of the mechanics of running the business.

I can run all of the machines in the business. business. I'm not the best person to do any of that. But if somebody's out sick, I can step in and do that. You know, it could have been me installing your vinyl on your windows. Literally happening right now, guys. But, you know, I've learned how to do putting my MBA to good use, getting up on ladders and risking my neck to hang signs and do window vinyl. But if I have to, I can do it, which is one of those great things about entrepreneurship is you eventually learn all of those things. But, you know, I've been able to form now a great stable team that I've had for a couple of years now. and have really grown the business. We're up over 40% since I took over. And if a couple of big things come through later this year, it's going to be even, it's going to be, you know, doubling what I currently have. Well, congratulations.

So that part's been very, very enjoyable, very rewarding. But also just working with the local businesses, the local business community, the educational community, nonprofits, we just helped twice as nice do their first ever fundraising mailing to raise capital for the renovation of their new spot at Reed's market. How's that going? Well, it's going. I mean, the letters just hit the mailboxes last Friday and Saturday,

so we're hoping that they'll get a pretty good return starting. But it was the first time they ever did it. They didn't know how to format it. They didn't know how to create the reply card, the reply envelope. You know, we had to get them a nonprofit mailing authorization. Have you seen inside the space? I haven't yet. I actually am going there next week to look at their signage needs.

So twice as nice guys is, do I call it an elevated thrift store? Is that fair? Yeah, it's a very, it's a very, it's a curated thrift store, let's call it that. Curating, okay. And the nice thing about them is it's all run on volunteer power and they give money back to different charities in the community

on a periodic basis. How does it twice as nice purchase the Reed's building? They got a really good deal, I'm sure. Because the family like the idea of doing something for the community. The sisters who sold Reeves. I'm sure that's the way. And then the other thing is, you know, they they just needed the down payment with the knowing that, you know, with a fundraising campaign like this,

that they can get the capital to do the improvements and make a good dent on the mortgage. What did you make of that transaction? I thought it was really curious because there, I think there were a lot of businesses that would have loved to be in the Reed space. I would have. It was probably too big for my print shop, but one of the best pieces of real estate. That's a great piece of real estate. It's got lots of parking. and yeah, I thought that was a really curious transaction. But, you know, a lot of people say, well, at least it's not housing, well, except we need housing in this town. So, I mean, I'm good for them because they do great work.

I absolutely love their mission. And, you know, it's been great helping them get their fundraising efforts off the ground. But, you know, it's just one of those things that, you know, they were in the right place at the right time and got the right building. because originally they were supposed to move over to the old IGA building over on Cherry. Cherry Avenue, yeah. And that whole thing got all wonky. And then with Reed's closing, they wanted to put a supermarket there. So they got bump.

So nobody's got a supermarket. Yeah, so nobody's got a supermarket. Right. And that place is back on the market for release. Right. So who knows, maybe that'll become housing, although I'm sure that's what they don't want. I think that's also a wooder there. That is wooder.

That is a wooder. And I saw Anthony earlier today. So I'm going to give a little plug over to Anthony. Great to see him on the downtown mall. um what's the temperature for our business community locally owned and operated businesses um generally speaking it's good yeah i mean i think people are doing because you would know my my clients are coming to me with you know new opportunities growth opportunities new businesses um you and i are the confessional for small business in many ways you know they

come to us that we we did a really cool project new for thumbprints bakery which is got a space over in the kitchen over on Carlton. Yeah? The commissary the... Why am I forgetting the name of that place? I know exactly. Beacon kitchen.

Yeah, Beacon, yeah. So they're in Beacon Kitchen, and she, you know, she now has a formal kitchen space, not working out of her house, is doing a lot of festivals and farmers markets, but we were helping her with her packaging. So, you know, she makes up a batch of cookies, and, you know, by law, you have to have your ingredients on there and all of that stuff.

So we created a template for her ingredient decals where it's got her logo on it. But then the rest of the space is blank. And she formatted a template so we can print the decals for her on sheets. And she can run them through her black and white laser printer at home for a penny and come up with 20 decals for her products. So she doesn't have to order specific, you know, she doesn't have to order a thousand decals for chocolate chip cookies and a thousand for this. She can just do batches. So we give her a thousand blanks and she fills them in as she needs to be. And that way it cuts her cost down and just makes things much more manageable,

affordable, and flexible for her. So she doesn't get stuck with any inventory. So coming up with solutions like that for startup business is one of the things I really enjoy doing. Viewers and listeners, put your comments in the feed. We'll relay them live on air. Jude, I'll send you a Facebook message here. Things are rocking and rolling. And for those that are asking for my commentary on what school board member,

Alison Spillman, posted, I will give that commentary. tomorrow. Today's show is about business development of what's happening locally in our community. A little tidbit here, this is some breaking news. I can offer some more specifics tomorrow, but there is now officially a deal in play at an established acquisition number, established purchase price. The city is buying a building very close to Whole Foods that you can see from the 250 bypass that is going to be the new epicenter low barrier shelter wraparound services for the homeless in our community. The city is spending millions of dollars on this, millions of dollars, like a handful of

millions of dollars, more than you can count on one hand. And it's purchased from an established real estate owner, private owner, individual that's of note. And the game plan for the city is to make this into eventually through additional investment, capital investment needed, the epicenter for shelter, laundry, wraparound services, counseling,

addiction, counseling, you know, you name it, the wraparound stuff. Sounds like that vacant office building there that has that funny little access. You can, you can, I will say this for those that remember the space from back in the day.

Phil Wendell had his Lakeland, I think it was Lakeland Tour's company before he did World Strides out of this particular location. This is the founder of ACAC. You're hearing this for the first time. What do you make of this? I find this incredibly positive. Very positive. I like the location, first of all,

because it's accessible to transit, but it's not a heavily, it's in fact, it's barely, track i don't think anyone drives down that road currently um so i you know it provides that you know kind of ability to create a sense of community because you've got you're going to have housing there you're going to have access to the bus lines um but it also will help take people off the downtown mall which take a lot of pressure off the businesses and allow um you know some of those businesses maybe the thrive we had that meeting a couple of weeks ago with the chief and and the mayor about

and facilitated by Natalie, or not Natalie, Greer. Yep, Greer. You spoke up. Yeah, I did. Because honestly, I think what's happening downtown is criminal on a lot of levels. And, you know, one of the business owners on the downtown mall that I was speaking to, she said her lease is up at the end of the year, and as of right now, she would not renew it. And I get it.

And I can understand why other people are doing that. You know, we saw recently, we talked about earlier. Wicked Hits, that gas station location on Harris Street, where they had that shooting a couple of years ago, is now becoming the headquarters for a landscaping company. Bluebird Landscapes, you are the one who passed that on to me. Which is great for them, because they need a place for their fleet truck. They need to store, you know, mulch and plants and trees and all of that stuff. They got plenty of room.

But I also look at Wicked Hits. It's, you know, between Tiger Fuel moving in up the street with taking over the old Evergrow gas station location and then with this shooting it's impossible to get staff to come work in a place that's known for a night time shooting where

people come in and play the games of chance at night it's no wonder that Wicked Hits went by the wayside but it's nice to see another business moving in there. There are a couple other things happening on Harris Street. Interestingly the old Sarasand building is now an event space

it's got a it's got that boxing gym I can't remember the name of it in the back that helps with the youth there are a couple of beauty businesses and the side off to the side of it that are all under that roof

the building I once looked at for moving into so you know there's some interesting stuff happening on that side of town but it's still a very industrial place but you know I could see how it's not a place where you want you know to have employees late at night with games

of chance going on Yeah. So, you know, that's been, but yeah, so there's some action happening there. There are a couple of new businesses going in down in Allied Square, the Woodard property down there. What's going in there? I don't have the final details on all of that, but I do know Great Harvest just had their first year anniversary of a new owner. We've talked about business transitions. Yeah.

We broker that deal. They changed a lot of, changed a lot of the menu items, and boy, are they tasty. Chris and Tracy Crowley. Yep. They were our clients. They purchased it from Eileen, the previous owner. Chris and Tracy, I'm very excited that they, and this is their news to report. You're privy to this.

I don't think we should let the details out yet. But they're going to be opening a new spoke retail location in the near future and an incredibly optimized location on the downtown mall. I think right there, you know what I'm leaning to. Okay, that's their information to pass a long, potentially more business for you there without a doubt but they're also you know they're also a big presence they've got a double space at the city farmers market they're doing great stuff they're doing a lot of a lot of you know and that's one of the things that i i have found um in my

own experience is by you know one of the great things about a transition and a business is you really shake things up a hundred percent you know we have done more in wearables business in the past six months what's wearables t-shirts uh t-shirts i just did a hundred 52 fleeces for Colonial Webb, which is moving to a new office on the old rug building down by

right across from Humaneck, or not Yomancy, but they're Flo now from Flo Kreisler. Okay. That strip over there where the closed barbecue place is. Yeah. So they're in that old standalone carpet building. Colonial Webb's moving there. We just did their winter fleeces.

For them, we've done t-shirts. We do the t-shirts for we are star children that they sell as their merch. But we've done more wearables this year because it was a new thing that we started promoting and putting out there. So there's been a lot of that. And you find that when there's a new person in charge, like with Darrell at Shandanoa Joe's, I'd stop by the UPS package store one day to drop something off.

And there was a stack of boxes of one pound bags of Shannon Doa Joe coffee that took up two tables. So there's just a lot of new, you know, new energy, new excitement. new ideas, new products, in the case, you know, some of the things that we're able to offer that we weren't doing before. And, you know, that always leads to some growth. And it, you know, propels new businesses. And that's part of the reason why it's great to have, you know, even if it's not in the family pipeline, but like you said, with, you know, Darden or McIntyre, or even just UVA alum's wanting to come back to the area, the opportunity to buy a local business and, you know, put some new energy and new perspective to it.

I think just really helps fuel the local economy. Comments coming in. Let's go to John, number two in the family here. John Blair says, can either of you explain if there is a true market-based demand for a neighborhood grocery store? This makes headlines all the time in Charlottesville, but if you take the pulse of consumers and business owners,

is there any true wide-based demand for a neighborhood grocery store? He's tagging it to the comments that you just said, which I think is news that he just happened to say, in passing without really emphasizing it, that the space that was going to be the co-op and Cherry Avenue and Fifeville is now back on the market for lease? No.

Is that official? It's on the market for lease. Yeah. Okay, so you'll see a four lease. Go on looping it. Okay, there we go. I will. I did not see that.

That's fantastic. Five bucks a foot, but it needs a lot of work. Oh, dude, that place needs to be gutted. Yeah. That's millions of dollars of upfit. Yeah. The thing is, you can't small-scale grocery stores only work as bodegas in New York City.

there really isn't a market for them outside of major urban environments because the cost has got to be astronomer. I mean, like you said, you know, it may only be $5 square foot, but it's going to take million dollars to renovate that. Then you've got the inventory and you're not buying in scale. You don't have the advantage of being a Costco or Kroger or a Wegmans or even a Whole Foods, not that their stuff is affordable. You know, it might work as a trader Joe's because that's the kind of footprint they like to operate on.

But they've already got one in town, think they'd want to put one over there to make it more accessible to the students, which seems to be a big part of their market. So it's like it sounds nice, but I just don't see, I don't think it's economically viable. So that means, that means, that means, and this is breaking news here. This will be reported by the legacy media after Conan Owen just talked about this, and we will emphasize it even more on tomorrow's program. That means the co-op that was going to happen between Woodard and PHA, Sunshine, Maython, and the neighborhood there was a deadline that was set for it.

It did not materialize. And of course, Woodard, Keith and Anthony, Anthony's becoming a friend here. They're business people. They want a tenant. They're like, the deadline's gone. Now it's for lease. You can't sit and wait. Right, you can't sit and wait.

And something is going to bring economic vitality to that neighborhood. That's a critical player. Whether it's housing, whether it's a different kind of retail concept, you know, there could be a variety of different things. You know, maybe a dollar store wants to go in there. Maybe it's not a true grocery, but it's got something that people in the neighborhood are going to want. You know, it's just a small footprint, you know, and then if you're talking about expanding the footprint, because they've got a lot of parking out there, you know, it made sense when it was the IGA and you didn't have these big places at Barracks Road and up on 29 North. But, you know, if you want to expand the footprint, now you're talking about zoning and environmental, you know how that works in Charlottesville.

I just don't see, yeah, I don't see a grocery store going there ever. I totally agree with you. So that's two pieces of breaking news in the first 25 minutes of the program. The first one from me where this deal is done with the city buying real estate off $2.50 a building for a new homeless campus or epicenter, whatever we're going to call it, with wraparound services, many millions for the purchase price, and many millions coming to renovations. To renovations, thank you. Then breaking news from him on the read, not the reeds, the ice. The IGA, the Kibs Market, now for lease, which leads us to believe the co-op concept for grocery and Fifeville is now finito. Deep Throat says even the bodegas in New York City are suffering, and they mainly sell addictive products.

Any major conduit for fencing stuff shoplifted from the likes of CVS won't work here. Does it even really work in New York City anymore? Yeah, I don't, yeah, I mean, people, yeah, you can get, yeah, but if you go to a bodega, what does it cost for an apple? Yeah, you know. And that's the thing is you say, okay, I want to have something like, I want a small-scale thing, but small-scale means your prices are high. Right. And if you're trying to serve a neighborhood that's been historically a grocery desert, the last thing they need are high prices. Right.

You know, you can get high prices by ordering online. Yeah. So, yeah, I just don't see that happening. You, you, this guy is fantastic, guys. How about Fox Den? You sent me this via Texas. This is actually kind of genius the more I've thought about this. Yeah, this is really cool.

So Brian Crow and his team behind the Seaville Blues have leased a space. Which is a soccer team. The local semi-pro soccer team has leased a pretty considerable space up in Holly Mead on the coal side. Okay. At the Holly Mead Shopping Center. What was there? Some kind of like disco social club dance party that wasn't open very often. Okay.

So it's a cross from first free coffee and there's, I think there's a martial arts studio. Steve Harvey owns first free coffee. So the building kind of on the island there, he took the end space and turned it into, I'll call it a sports bar. I'm sure I think he's calling it a different kind of club. But he has got the largest TV, it's 10 by 15 feet, single TV on one wall, lots of leather couches where you can come and sit down. They're going to have full kitchen, full alcohol license. They've got smaller spaces on the elevated backside. They've got little U-shaped couch areas with the six-foot TV on the wall,

and you can rent those, and you get control of the remote. So you can watch a football game. You can watch a basketball game. Basically, it's the biggest viewing venue for sports in the Charlottesville area. So I really like this idea. He's renting couch and TV space, micro couch and TV space, sections of the bar, if you may. Yep, you can rent sections of the bar for your own private viewing. For your own private viewing party, while getting served.

Getting served. Food and booze? Food and booze. What do you think of this? I think it's brilliant. I think for a lot of people, you know, he's going to focus on soccer, obviously, because that's his passion. Yeah.

But between. And he owns a soccer team. And he owns a soccer team. But between, you know, the U.S. women's soccer, the U.S. men soccer, the European leagues that are, I mean, they're broadcast on NBC now. Yeah, right, right. It is very mainstream, you know, thanks to Ted Lassow for people. to watch soccer all the time.

So that's going to be his main thing. Plus, it plays mainly year-round, but then you also think about you've got, you know, big UVA games that are going to be televised that people will want to watch. You know, you've got, you know, big NFL matchups. You've got Monday night football, Sunday night football, Thursday night football.

When I was there just visiting, they aren't open yet. I just stopped in to see them, but, you know, they had the President's Cup on. So you can imagine, you know, British Open time, you've got people in there at 7 a.m., knocking a few back watching the golf. And March Madness.

Are you kidding? Now that UVA might have a competitive team again, March Madness is going to be huge. And UVA football turning around. I see some upside with this as well. How much square feet do you think he took? Just back of the napkin. I want to say 4,000. That's a lot of square feet.

That's a class A place. Yeah. And he's got a really cool setup outside. He fenced off an area and put down some artificial turf and they've got two little soccer fields. So your kids can go out there and kick the ball around while you're watching the game and having a little drink. Depending on his nose. negotiation skill set and how

desperate the landlord was, that's probably a 25 to 35 to 35 per square triple net lease. I'd say it's in that range. 25 to 35 triple net for that. Nicely built out, beautiful floors. I mean, this guy's taking a risk here. I think it's a very

calculated one. I would bet on that one paying off. And why do you say that? I just think there's a demand for it. Okay. What's the future? Look where the growth is happening in the county. Yeah, there's a ton of growth there. Green County is ridiculous right now. You know, all that stuff just over the border in Green County, Rutgersville.

Stanley Martin is bringing hundreds of incremental new units in Green County. Well, not only Stanley Martin, but you've also got what's going in off of Polar Browns Road. Yeah. There's a whole new field of red dirt out there that I know Greenwood is in there big time. There's talk about putting an ACAC location in there. I mean, the population is there. And then right down across from Polargrounds Road, they have that whole soccer field set up that he's a part of. Is that SACA?

No, that is the Soccer Alliance. Okay. It's not Saka. It's one of his partners, Brian Cook, who is heading up that area. Okay. So, yeah, no, I mean, it's, I mean, yeah, he's a soccer fanatic, but soccer is the game of the current generation. Yeah. And a couple of generations now.

And, you know, it's good entertainment. I'm not the biggest soccer fan, but I can see why people won't sit down. Oh, totally. Just go to random row. 100%. Superfly. You know, at least Superfly. You've got the authentic British bartender to tell you about the game.

But, you know, it's become a big thing in our society. It's also got Rivana Futures, Rivana Station. Yeah, you've got that all coming up. You've got North Fork right up the street. No, this is a very good. It's a calculator. I think this is a really, and it's the only real bar

everything up that way as a restaurant. Yeah. You got Timberwood. Yeah, that's true. The bar side of Timberwood. Yeah, you got the bar side of Timberwood. But you've also got coming in up there.

There's a new firehouse subs coming in across the way. Yep. So that's exciting for them. There are a couple of new developments further up the road on 29. That thing on the side of the road is now going to be the Dutch country pantry. Yep. That's going to be opening soon. So, yeah, obviously, I mean, that's just a big growth, growth.

part of the region it's no longer the county because green county is now you know it's a bedroom community for charlottesville just like you know northern virginia where i grew up they have the bedroom counties that are now you know outside the beltway um but yeah i mean that's what green county is becoming um it'll be really interesting to see what happens they talked previously about you know these the biotech folks or the pharma folks who you've got the goocheland plant it's going to be really interesting. Eli Lilly. How many people

move towards Louisa and Flavano? I think there are a lot of them are going to live in Spring Creek. Yeah, Spring Creek

for sure. The values I think are going to go up big time. 100%. It'll be interesting to see. I'm not sure what

the Astrozenica of north is. I don't know if that's their North American headquarters or if it's a regional, you know,

if it's a specific division that's going in up there, but you've got access to the airport. Philip Reese watching the program, the owner of

the escape room in Woodard. Yes. Fantastic. I love you. you, Philip. We've got to get you back on the show. And I need to talk to you about your direct mail campaign. Direct mail campaign, Sir Speedy.

He says also on this subject, Panera Bread is moving back into their old place by Harris Teeter. Yeah, the Panera, the Blue Ridge Breds was bought out by an outfit. Callie Jackson, front of the program, Adam Jackson, Rick Postel. They sold. They sold to an outfit in California that

I think they're up to 41. We're talking many, many millions of dollars this deal. Big deal. But this outfit in California also owns any time fitness. They've got like five different franchises

in their portfolio. They specialize in franchises. Yep. They do nothing but franchise investment. So they're reopening the one in Panera in the Panera

in Hallamide. It looks like it's about two months away from being completed. I poked my head in there the other day. Front of the program, Kelly Jackson,

Adam Jackson, her husband, Rick Passel, her father. I hope they're watching the program. They watch all the time. They're getting it

to the Dave's Hot Chicken franchise. Okay. So now they own. on the Terry. Dave's Hot Chicken. They don't own the Fifth Street one, but they are getting into Dave's Hot Chicken and the Commonwealth of Virginia multiple locations. I'm excited

for that to happen with Kelly and her family. Definitely have to talk to them about that. There's another one. I'm telling you, there's a lot of synergy here. And then on a smaller scale, Crate and Mero is leaving Stonefield. Yesterday was their last day. I'm sure escaping the high rent. And they're taking an interesting

but not completely crazy spot down on Harris Street. Right down the street from Boto's. I use the word, interesting. Well, because there's a very large doggy daycare facility right up the block. So if you're sending your people, if you're taking your dog to doggy daycare on a regular basis, you're probably going to buy their level of dog food and dog treats. So it's very convenient for a dog owner to drop off their pooch and pick up something on the way.

And think about how much money they're saving on rent alone. The rent, yeah. And it's, you know, it's more of an industrial warehouse space. they're going to have much more room more space their rent's probably going to be 50% lower at least for more space but 50% lower yeah oh because you know the rent structure yeah exactly um yeah i know what the rent structure is in that building um his location was previously there that's what he's talking yeah yeah i used to inhabit but stonefield's no joke though with the right no stonefield's got to be in the mid 30s yeah higher than that even on a deal it's yeah yeah so you know

that's going to be an interesting move for them i just went by natalie dress today they're officially their new space. They've done a great job organizing everything. They're taking in so many more consignments, getting ready to get their signs up in in the next couple of weeks. They took the L. Joe's space. And I haven't heard the final details, but there's a lot of interest in their former space. So that's not going to stay empty for very long. What do you think, you're a great guy to ask about this? The big, almost cavernous, empty space that is plentiful locally, the future usage of this big, empty, cavernous space that we find everywhere? You mean like the malls?

Malls, shopping centers? Well, I think Seville Smash, which I've been to a couple of times, not as a participant, obviously. Yeah. Just to work on some other scientists. Yeah, you don't have to move that much. I think things like that are, and what's the other one? The Coco's Adventure Center is coming at some point. Dr. Halpern?

I think people. The jihitsu studio. the Jiu-Jitsu studio move there. I think, you know, more on the leisure activity side of things, you know, like, as you see with the Sun Pins location at Dairy Market, that's doing really well. Sun Pins is doing well? Yeah. Every time I go in there, it's packed, and I go there, you know, in the daytime.

I'm not there at night. I just think the idea is something that really appeals to folks. When I was in Philadelphia, I saw an indoor put-putt-golf took up like half of a city block. And to me, that was genius. You know, you got the TVs on the wall, you got the bar, you got the food, and you've got some activity for people. And it appeals to families during the daytime. It appeals to younger people at night. I think that kind of a combination, you know, and of course with Seville Smash, it appeals to older people.

I mean, every time I've gone in there. They got 33,000 square feet. Now the owner's friends of the program come on the show, 33,000 square feet's no joke. Yeah. But I'll tell you something. The people are signing up. The people are playing. They got their food and beverage going.

So they do have a limited bar service. So they got beers, cider, wine. Yeah. Some nice local products there as well. So, yeah, I mean, and it's a beautiful facility. And it's the only one of its kind in the area. And, you know, I think that's going to do really well. It's going to be interesting to see how the rock climbing place on Ivy Road.

They're doing well, clients. That was one of the owners watching right now. That was a big space, and I know it takes a lot to remove floors. But I think it's those kinds of activities that people are really interested in. I think the big spaces like that, it's really hard to find a retail concept that works. Yeah, I don't think the retail doesn't work with those concepts. You can't turn them all into housing, although I think a fair number of them should be a nice mix-use. So expensive.

Not if you tear it down. start over it's the land is the thing you've got the location 10 people in the community that can afford to do that what you could do what you could do and to your point what you could do is if you're an owner is get it permitted and sell this permit suite and the upside to out of market potentially well but part of things you look at something like Seminole square just because that's the first one that comes to mind that parking lot is massive it's so big it's such a waste of space

and it's just like that's never filled and and that and that's that land is basically extremely valuable. It's extremely valuable. It's not being used. You know, if they could Greenfield, some housing and some ground for retail. I'm with you on that. And kind of turn it into, you know, kind of like

what, you know, those town center developments of the past, you know, maybe not quite so grand with all the walking around kind of thing. The live work play. Yeah, more of a live work play. You know, and it's right there on a very busy, you know, you can make it, you know, bus line. What they try to do with Stonefield.

Yeah, what they tried to do, do with Stonefield. Which I don't think was executed very well. I mean, that's my comment. I know you're. You agree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've got a lot of vacancies there. You do have shake shack is underway. The chicken salad

place is underway. Trevinia is still empty after all these years. And they've got a few others along with now the crate and marrow space getting vacant. But you go into Burtons and that place is mobbed. Yeah. Burtons crushes it.

Burton's top-line revenue, probably top-five in this community for one restaurant. We know the Starbucks, the Chick-fil-A's, the McDonald's, if we discount those because they have multiple locations. BOTOs. BOTOS. I'm talking to one-unit operations. Burton's probably might be even top three for top-line revenue, one location. Yeah, they do. They crush it. They do.

And they have to crush it because the overhead with that place is significant. Bolo's staff, N-CAP unit, extremely expensive rent district. And every time I go in there, I see the same six guys at the end of the bar. So they've got regulars. Burton's crushes it. What interesting. So you've rattled off quality ideas of what to do with all this cavernous, empty storefront space. The other thing is you can throw in some white manufacturing.

You know, why does it, you know, why is Afton scientific, maybe they're a bad example because they have some very scientific stuff and they need a dedicated space for it? But, you know, you look at Luna Lankton. apps. Yeah. You know, they're booming. They just announced an expansion. They're adding 24 employees.

They're over here on Dale Street. It's like their space is no different than, you know, the old Big Lotz building. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Other than that it's not too, you know, they don't need the giant ceiling. Big Lott's is where Coco's is going with Dr. Halper. Yeah. But, you know, any of those shopping mall spaces, you know, Perone robotics, could they not take over one of these spaces,

one of the big cavernous spaces and actually do the hardcore manufacturing in there with the big machinery. And then you're diversifying your community in terms of you've got people, and you've got some employees who would live down the street in a new apartment building, and there would be restaurants that they could go to. You've got good ideas.

Maria, Martha Pinell is giving you some love. Betsy Nuget, one of the most technically sound forehands and back hands I've ever seen. Betsy Nuget. Love you, Betsy. She's watching the program. Bill McChesney, Lord and Ivy, Lonnie Murray, Georgia, Gilmer, watching the program. Max Moore.

Kevin Yancey, Michael Pruitt, Aaron Moody, just to name a few. Katie Pearl, the talented agent watching the program, just to name a few. Chad Wood. Tough question for you, because you're a glasses-half-full kind of guy for most things. Generally speaking. For generally. I mean, you have to be a business owner, don't you? Yes.

Especially to risk what you've risked to purchase this. Yeah. Right. This is a tough question for you. Which business verticals locally are you not as bullish on? which industries if you may food service restaurants i think are it's hard it is hard for them totally great with so many of them on the downtown mall dealing with that yeah um yeah there's some that do it right and do it well and have all the stars line black cows another one in

public i mean you can never get in those places um i've tried That's what some of our favorite places to go. O'Kart also usually slam, you know, the traditional great places like the IVN. They do really well, but you're... Citizen? Yeah, citizen, because it's, you know, everyone, every place needs a good burger joint. Christian's pizza is always good. But it's so hard for a lot of them, between staffing issues, between, you know,

drawing the customers, it's really, it's a hard one, I think. There's always going to be, I think the technology around here is driving so much of the growth in everything. You know, people come to town, they need groceries, they need a place to live, they need a place to buy clothes. I think really, I think there needs to be a concerted effort to really introduce newcomers to local businesses. Because they come from out of town and it's really easy just to fall to online. And whether that's the Chamber of Commerce, who I work very closely with, or, you know, the, you know, Greer and the friends of downtown, or, you know, there was a, what was it, the independent businesses of Barrick's Road who were out there for a while, but there, it's almost like there needs to be a welcome wagon on the commercial side of things because we have so many new people coming to town. And they don't know. Especially since COVID. Yeah, especially since COVID.

I'm just like, work remote. And now with, you know, everything else going on with the new facilities and the new businesses in town and with Afton. How many is Afton going to add? I don't know if the top I had. I know it's a 200 plus million. There's 200 million. Yeah. So it's probably going to be 50 or 60 employees at least going there.

Yeah. Plus the supply chain that bursts from it. Yeah. And then you've got, you know, all the stuff going on at Northwalk. Because you never know when one of those businesses is going to, you know, was it was it, was it, um, was it, um, Alamoa one a million dollar grant? or a contest here in the state, you can do a lot of money with a million bucks. And once you get your technology...

You can really level up. Yeah, and then you kind of build and then you can go get the investors to build that manufacturing plant and get those employees. For sure. So, you know, there is just so much going on around here. I'm very bullish on Charlottesville in general.

Real estate continues to boom. I think we need to push it even further because, you know, we disagree on this, but we need more housing. You got to build it. You know, I'm firmly convinced that that's the only way we're going to change anything with the housing situation. You know, alleviating some of the houseless people with that new move by the city. It's going to take time. The thing on 29 is progressing, but it's another year away, and that's just for the county.

I also think there, you know, could be some talk of creating a regional facility. You know, you look at all of the empty space in Waynesboro. You know, the governments couldn't get together, Augusta County, Nelson County, Elmorrow County, City of Charlottesville couldn't get together and say, you know what, we're going to create this facility, you know, and you can say, well, you can't ship people all the way across it. Well, they don't have a home, but here we're offering them a home. You know, I understand if you're homeless, but homeless doesn't mean you're guaranteed a home in

Charlottesville. You know, we're providing something. You know, Waynesboro's got, you know, infrastructure, it's got buildings. It's. Wainsborough takes a completely different stance with the homeless than Charlottesville does. Yeah. I mean, we talked, we texted back and forth about those don't donate or support the panhandlers that are in the medians. Those signs, yeah. We don't see anything like that in Charlestville. Well, yeah. But, but that's a policy issue, but I think just in terms of a, you know, addressing the problem and finding the infrastructure to do that, you know, I think looking at it at a regional basis. I hate to use

the comparison of a regional jail, but we have regional jails all over the area. I 100% agree with you. Why not have a regional homeless thing. It's not a jail. It's actually a great facility to help people. It's a campus. You know, FI would have been a great one too because they already have housing there. I think it's a, that's what

has to happen. And I think if you can get some kind of cross the aisle, the Thomas Jefferson District Planning Commission was what this was supposed to be, and it has not done that. But this needs that, you're 100% on to it. Yeah. But I mean, I think they're making some, they're making some good stuff. Joint jurisdictions. Yeah. I think that, you know, and, you know, there's strength in numbers. It'll probably help

in getting some kind of federal funding for a program like that. But yeah, I think that needs to happen. Because otherwise, it's going to be really hard going forward for, you know, to create the food service so that you don't end up with all of the automated fast food. franchises and then the white tablecloth service. You got to have that middle ground that the downtown mall really provides. I'm going to ask you

this. First, we'll give some love to Oak Valley Custom Hardscapes. Oak Valley Custom Hartscapes now has an office on the downtown mall. Oak Valley Custom Hartscapes, anything heartscape related that you need, they offer a fantastic strategy, plan, communication of outfitting any hardscape needs that you may have as a homeowner. Oak Valley Custom Hardscapes is who you call for Hartscapes, folks. And trust me, they are absolutely fantastic.

Six minutes left, five minutes left. I've got to throw this to you. Time flies with the guy as connected as you. How do you fix them all? How do I fix them all? Number one thing is you have to, you have to, take the unhoused people away. Where you put them is a matter of debate

that's not, you know, whether you create an encamp, you know, they're already camping, so do you create a controlled encampment? Do you find a building for them to inhabit? You know, I did, once upon a time, I did some volunteering work at City Church, and, you know, at the time they would set up, you know, on a weekend, they'd roll out all these mattresses and people come spend the night there. It's like we have all these buildings, you know, in these malls that are empty, Can the city not rent, you know, the old fill in the blank building and use that just as a place to house people?

I'm not sure. But, you know, people say, I don't want a homeless shelter in my neighborhood. I don't want it my neighborhood. And I get that. It's the whole NIMBY thing. Nobody wants to deal with it. But right now, the downtown is dealing with it. And the difference is not enough people live downtown to complain about it.

It's the merchants. And then it becomes, oh, the greedy business people. But you're not going to get the tax revenue that you need to do the things you want to do. if people aren't coming in and dining because, you know, I mean, the meals tax is the highest tax is down, tourism is down, foot traffic is down. It's 10%. I mean, that's a hefty. Goodness gracious, the tax when you go into a restaurant's nearly 12%.

Yeah, okay. 11.5%. So the more people you scare away, that's 12% of every meal that you're scaring away. Not all local, some of that state. Yeah. You know, and then, you know, the rooms tax, it's like if people don't want to stay on the downtown hotel. TOT.

So there are just all those kinds of things that end up being the, the vicious cycle of destruction as opposed to the virtuous confluence of, you know, having an inviting downtown mall. It seems so obvious. When you put it that way, I try to put it the same way you do. It seems so obvious. Why can't, it's so obvious. Why can't it be fixed?

It's so obvious. Because there isn't the will. Because it takes hard decisions and we don't have a history in this town of leadership taking hard decisions. I 100% agree. There's no trailblazer leadership. And it's not about. being popular, it's about doing what needs to be done.

A thousand percent. And ultimately that will result in popularity, but I don't know that, you know, let's face it, it's politicians. Politicians are always out to cover themselves. For themselves. I don't care what part are you in. That's what you do. That's what a politician does.

Yeah. Toughest question I've asked you so far. Okay. At the Q&A we were at, was there a trailblazer leader there? Not on the stage. Because conscious, I say, is. Yeah, but he could only do so much. He can only do so much.

Because if the city says... The other two, you're saying no? If city council says, don't do this, the cops can't do that. Exactly. So you're saying the other two or not? He takes orders. Right. Yeah, ultimately, the police chief takes orders from the politicians and the civil leaders.

So no trailblazer leader? No. That's why I saw it. He could be a leader, but that's not his role. It's not his role. It's sort of like, you know, the commander and chief is a civilian. I'm not even sure it's his role either. Okay.

so no right no until somebody's willing to make those tough decisions we're going to keep doing you know it's the definition of insanity insanity it's definition of insanity you crush this per usual i will do two plugs please a couple of things one is um for the fourth quarter we're doing a promotion uh thanks to dash our customer experience officer we are donating five dollars to the flavana county SPCA for every new customer who comes to us for a quote dash is on screen yeah look at the screen yeah look at the screen for Dash. Yeah, Dash is one of our five, four-legged employees, so we're big supporters of pets, and pets and vets are our two big charities, which leads me to our second thing, is if there's any organizations out there that want to do Christmas cards for the troops, we've partnered with a great photographer here in town. He has a website called Who With the View, and he's given us some pictures of Charlottesville in winter, and we will print up as many holiday cards as people want, as long as they will fill

them out and get them back to us by the first of November. so that we can ship them off to the troops overseas. We're already partnering with the Darden Vets Group, like we did last year. I'm meeting with Fishburn Military Academy, going to get some of those kids involved. I know there have been some elementary schools around the area, especially up towards Injik, that have done this in the past. If you've got a church group, if you've got the VFW,

if somebody wants to do this, just give us a call. Let us know how many cards you need. We'll print them out and get them to you and just fill them out and get them back to us. Dude, you just crush this. This format is tailor-made for you, though. They're the long forum, know a lot of stuff, talk about a lot of stuff, champion and celebrate the community. I mean, that's what this is, right? Well, I mean, that's what I do.

That's what you do. That is my job, is to help build and grow businesses and organizations. That's all I do, and that's why I love this job. And that's why you're good at it, because you have the Darden background, you're passionate about it, and you love the community. Yeah, I do. We've been here 20 years, it'll be 20 years in November, and we've just loved it. loved being here. He did you a great job. Well, thanks. Sincerely, sincerely, sincerely me that. It was awesome. It was awesome.

Conan Owen, Sir Speedy, Central Virginia, locally owned and operated. Locally owned and operated. They literally did the banner behind me. They're updating the storefront graphics, the storefront branding on our studio right now. Help us with our tenant portfolio, some other positions that we're pursuing. Conan Owen, Sir Speedy, Central Virginia, trust me, I've seen it first hand, folks. You can count on them. Judah Wickcower behind the camera. That's all she wrote. program. I promise you commentary for me on Allison Spillman. I'm definitely going to be talking

about this grocery store now being for lease on Fifeville. And I'm going to offer more insight into this deal the city is doing on this piece of real estate that you can see from the bypass for this homeless campus with wraparound services. All those topics and more on the I Love Seville Show. So long. Thanks. Thank you.