The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Emily Kilroy Joined Neil Williamson & Jerry Miller On “Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Albemarle County Economic Development Director Emily Kilroy joined Neil Williamson, President of Free Enterprise Forum, and Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Mejicali and YES Realty Partners.

Trust me, they're here for you. They're always here. Who's going to count us in? Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on Real Talk with Keith Smith. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys on the I Love Seaville Network in our building in downtown Charlottesville on a show and a network that has become the water cooler of conversation for Central Virginia. We encourage you, the

viewer and listener, to help shape the conversation by putting some comments and questions in the feed and we will relay them live on air. It's an interactive program. A couple of programming notes first. Keith Smith, the star of the show, is enjoying, I believe, his 39th wedding anniversary with the fabulous Yona Smith. A couple of weeks in St. Martin. Not bad for Keith and Yona. Next week week Woody Fincham will co-host Real Talk with Keith Smith with me, but today Neil Williamson, a friend of the program, all-around A plus guy, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum is in the house and he has welcomed a special, special guest. Emily Kilroy, the director of economic development in Elmorrow

County has joined Neil Williamson. I want wanna give some props and some love to Judah Wichower behind the camera, director and producer of the show. If Judah, you can go to the studio camera and then I think you're gonna have a three shot ready to go as we welcome Neil and Emily. You are now on camera. Hello, my friends. Thank you kindly for joining us.

Great to be with you, Jerry. Same to you, Emily. Thanks for having us. It's absolutely our pleasure. You set up the you, Jerry. Same to you, Emily. Thanks for having us. It's absolutely our pleasure. You set up the interview, Neil. Thank you for that. Give some perspective on why you welcomed Emily Kilroy to Real Talk today. Well I believe the community has had several discussions about economic diversification

and the concerns about being too reliant on property taxes to make our government go. The Economic Development Department in Albemarle County is currently undergoing a new strategy plan, strategic plan, and it is a time when they have gathered a lot of information from focus groups and other things and presented them to the board publicly. Many of those reports read a lot like the Free Enterprise forum blog about the need for reduced regulatory climate

and less government interference, but I thought it would be better to hear directly from the director with regard to where we're headed with economic development and diversification of revenue. I'm very much looking forward to this. As someone who saw his personal residence increase 23 percent year over year from a real estate tax assessment standpoint, while just recently the real estate tax rate jumped 4 cents, I can't wait to talk economic development.

First, perhaps we introduce you to the viewers and listeners, Emily. Sure. So Emily Kilroy, I'm the Director of Economic Development for Alamaro County. I've been in this current role for about a year and have been with the county in all for 11 years. So I've been really wonderful experience kind of growing with the community through public engagement initially, communications, done special projects and legislative work for the county and have been having a ton of fun the past 12 months in economic development. Same cast of characters, but everyone's wearing a little bit

of a different hat and it's been great to get to reengage with folks in this new capacity. Neil Williamson, my friend, where do you want to start? Well, I want to thank Emily for coming. I've known Emily professionally for about 13 to 15 years. Folks may not know that she started work in this area, working as an intern with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. She actually was the timekeeper for one of the more famous hearings with regard to the

Western Bypass. She I think had to tell John Grisham his time was up. the timekeeper for one of the more famous hearings with regard to the Western bypass. She I think had to tell John Grisham his time was up. These are the stories that you get to gather over this time. My first question really is goals. And that's an important thing that's set by the Board of Supervisors, not by Emily. But what is Albemarle's goal? Each locality has a certain percentage of revenue that's generated from property taxes and a portion that's generated from other taxes. Economic development can impact actually both of those.

And it's a two-pronged question. One, do you consider apartment buildings commercial activity or should that be considered on the housing piece? And two, what is the right percentage for how much should the landowners be paying versus the revenue being driven by the commercial sector? Sure. Thank you. So the first question on multifamily, multifamily can be put in either block because for the

property owner who owns that property, it is a revenue generating use. And so in that regard, it's kind of commercial. But for the people who live there, it is very much residential. And so in finance, in government finance, you actually pull multifamily into a completely different bucket. So when you talk about residential, you're talking about non-multifamily residential properties. And multifamily sits in its own bucket.

When the county talks about revenue diversification for the county and the cost of services and the difference between residential and commercial properties, we're choosing in that moment to put the multifamily with the residential. And that is because if you think about the cost of services by different property classes, a multifamily building is going to drive

a lot of residential type needs. So light industrial property is not going to generate students. The person who works in the industrial building may have a family that will generate students that will need to be educated in the schools and calls for service for public safety, et cetera. And so when we talk about this intentional look

at the revenues in Albemarle, we've got 68% residential, so that's all in residential, including multifamily. In Albemarle, because 95% of the county is rural area, 20% of our properties fit into the agricultural classification, which you don't see in a lot of our pure localities. And then we have 11.3% commercial. And that is really just the office, the retail, the industrial uses.

And that number, to your second question, what's the right number? There's not a right number. There's not a right number in every locality around the country and the world really has to look at, well, what's the right number for us? And so if you look at the revenue mix in a beach town or on an island with Keith, you're going to have a different mix, you're going to have a lot more hospitality than a non-tourist driven economy, you're going to have probably a lot less industrial type uses in a tourism driven economy. So that answer is going to be different depending on what really feels like a right fit.

For Albemarle, I think the board has talked about 10 years ago it was 15% commercial. So 2015 we were 15% commercial. And that feels closer to the right number than where we presently are at 11.3%. I want to make sure folks are clear because we have not lost value or we have not lost commercial tax base in terms of the number of properties. It's that the assessed values in the residential class have grown much faster than what you're seeing in industrial and commercial. And so it's not like we've lost a lot of property that's commercial.

It's really looking at the valuation and how that sort of carves up the pie. And so more, we know we want more. I think somewhere between 15 and 20% is probably closer to the right mix. For the revenue. For the revenue. So when you're talking about revenue, are you talking about property taxes and the other taxes that these businesses pay? And I just want to be clear, businesses don't pay taxes. Their

customers do. Businesses collect taxes. Because the reality is while the business may stroke the check, that cost is baked into whatever widgets they're making. And people seem to think at times about the property tax, well, I'm a renter so it's not going to impact me. Any property provider that I know, housing provider I know, bakes in the tax bite into the rent as part of the costs of that unit. Would you agree, Jerry? Absolutely. That's how I do it with my leases. Completely trickles down to the tenant. I'll put this in very simple terms for the viewers and listeners. Questions are already coming in. You got media outlets watching you on the program

as well. 68% of tax collection for Alamora County is tied to the category of residential real estate. 11.3% of tax collection in Alamora County is tied to the category of commercial real estate. And you guys would like to uptick the 11.3 percent of commercial to potentially that 15 to 20 percent window which could potentially offset some of the burden of residential owners who are feeling a pinch right now. Is that safe? Okay. So the pandemic, you're the expert, I'm just a guy with a microphone here. The pandemic seems to have driven or had an impact on residential values, certainly in Alamaro County, spiking values because we've had an influx of new population in our community,

people that are able to work hybrid and remotely now that have moved to Alamaro County, driving values tremendously. The pandemic may have also not flatlined commercial values, but slowed value growth for commercial. Is that safe to say? That is safe to say. Okay. So how does the County of Alamaro, and this is basically what you do for a living here, how does the County of Alamaro drive economic development across various categories to potentially alleviate the burden for residential owners that seem to be carrying a lot of weight on their back?

Yeah, yeah. And I want to ‑‑ before I pivot fully there, I want to talk for just a second about cost of services. So the Weldon Cooper Center recently did an analysis for Albemarle to understand ‑‑ and I understand that an industrial commercial property has employees who then have a need for housing and so it's all interconnected. But if you just look at the cost of delivering services to a residential property versus a commercial property, the commercial property and then look at how much tax revenue the county gets from that property. The commercial property uses less services than it brings in in revenues. Same is true for the agricultural class.

Residential it's the opposite. So for every dollar of revenue that we get from residential real estate taxes, a dollar of 30 is spent in local government expenditures to serve that property. And again, that's all in police, fire, social services, schools, schools being the largest one for sure. 60% of Alamaro County's budget is tied to Alamaro County public schools. Yes. This is one of the push backs I have with you, my friend, on the increased housing.

And you're a housing advocate. Is that safe to say? More housing everywhere for everyone. So Chris Fairchild who's come on this program, Flavanna County supervisor running for a second term, he's indicated and he's highlighted Weldon Cooper. I've highlighted Weldon Cooper. Dave Shreve sat in your seat and highlighted the same study. He's running for the Jack Jew the district seat as everyone knows here for board of supervisors that if we add more residential rooftops to Alamaro County, it's actually a net negative to what it does for the county from a strain of infrastructure standpoint. A dollar for residential, a dollar 30 in costs according to Weldon Cooper here. That, remembering that dollar and dollar 30 are based on numbers set by the board of supervisors. So there's a political aspect to any taxation.

Explain that. Well, because if you taxed, if we increased Jerry's taxes, we double it, we could be bringing in $2 and having $1.30. So if you would pay double the taxes, you could be making 70 cents a house, 70 cents per dollar on a house. 70 cents per dollar on a house. So there's a political reality to it. There's also a philosophical reality to the position the free enterprise forum has that housing is important. The greatest strength this community has is its people. And I am welcoming of people, whether they come from New Jersey or Williamsburg, or if

they spend time in Savannah. I probably use it regularly. I welcome these people coming to this community because we're stronger for the diversity and the diversity of the upbringing. Anyone that spent their youth rooting for the tribe is okay by me. And so I will say that it is something that I don't think as a community we want to pull up the drawbridge and say, fine, we'll take the jobs but we won't

take the people. I agree there's a cost associated with it. That 60% of budget is true across every locality within five points. Some localities, it's 55, for education spending. But really this dates back and folks will show my age, but the if you go back to the late 50s, early 60s and the Harry Bird era, Harry Bird said we'll take over the roads, you take over the schools. That's how we got to where we are. Localities are responsible for education, they receive federal and state funding, but not the majority comes from the locality. And Albemarle County

has great schools. And we have great students. We really need now is great places for those kids to work when they graduate because right now There are not career ladder jobs for your kids here in Almar County. I think he's a hundred percent right Do you want to chime in on any of this? Do we go to questions? Yeah? Well, let me just let me just add one thing so so I think That's that is why you want to look at how can we increase the vibrancy of the commercial sector? You because it creates the jobs that we need it creates, you know, it's a mix you want to look at how can we increase the vibrancy of the commercial sector. Because it creates the jobs that we need, it creates, you know,

it's a mix. We're always going to have residential, we're always in this county going to have agricultural. And so how do you begin to shift things and develop a better mix that where you're able to continue to provide really excellent schools, great roads too, thank you, Vidat. And ensure that we have, you know, again, this opportunity.

I hear a lot from folks whose kids are adults and have kids of their own and they'd love to have them live here and they can't. They may have even grown up here, but there's not the job opportunities that are a good match for them. And so that's really the work of economic development and that's the work that we've been really focused on as we've gone through the strategic planning process to figure out how do we really begin to focus hard on moving the needle there. And again, keeping the thing we heard the most

from every group of folks that we spoke to when we were doing our stakeholder engagement was, keep Albemarle, the wonderful place that it is, and that's the rural area, that's the mountains, that's the view sheds, but also find a way to build better balance for the commercial sector. Viewers and listeners, let us know what your thoughts. Jason Howard's watching on Ryo Road in Amarillo County.

And Mr. Howard's got, oh my goodness, questions are coming in here very quickly for Emily Kilroy and of course, Neil Williamson. And Neil is smirking over here like a Cheshire cat caught with his hand in the cookie jar over here. Jason Howard, with the $1.30 figure for residential, is there a breakdown to show the cost for two retirees versus two parents and two children?

Retirees don't need the schools anymore than a warehouse does, and the schools are 60% of the budget. It's a great comment right there. Do we have that data? I don't have that data handy, but I will say that there have been across the region several 55 plus active adult communities approved, which is an age-restricted residential type that I know Green County has a fair number of as well as Louisa County. I'm not certain that Albemarle County has an age restriction in their zoning code, but

don't worry. It's been 20 years, so they might get to updating the zoning code soon. But I think that it's a reality that we have an older aging population. My biggest fear is that we end up too far down that road. About 10 years ago I wrote a statement that compared Albemarle County and Charlottesville to a city that I lived in on and off for a while, Santa Barbara, California. And my father used to say about that, it's for newlyweds and nearly-deads. And we really don't want to be that.

We want to have the vibrancy of economic vitality across all revenue. So the idea of career ladder jobs is critically important to the community. Thoughts on that, Emily? Yeah, I agree. If you look at, Emily? Yeah, I agree. If you look at, is your community vibrant or kind of petering out?

The vibrant ones are the ones that have a lot of real opportunities, are the ones where people are really interested to live, work, and play in. And we have so many incredible assets here. And when you look at our age demographics, it's really interesting if you look at the number of 18 to 24-year-olds that we have here and if you look at the number of 55 and older that we have here. And this is inclusive of the county on its own and the county and the city of Charlottesville

put together, you would expect there to be a lot more 24, 25 to 55-year-olds in the community. And there's not. The pyramid shrinks in in that middle demographic. So we can see very clearly in the data that we don't have that sort of mid-career, middle-age cohort that is making, continuing to make this place a great, vibrant place to be. And if you look at our businesses, if you look at the profile of the businesses here and the employers here, because we have a lot of non-profit and higher ed, obviously, you can also see we don't have a lot of mid-sized companies.

And we think that's an opportunity for us as we look to the future. Comments are coming in quickly here. This is an interesting one. How much of economic development is tied to potentially persuading economic development from Charlottesville or other jurisdictions in Townmarrow County? That feels very much like a zero sum game. So if you think about how companies make decisions about where they're going to locate.

So if you have a company that's located on the West Coast that would like an East Coast presence, a company that's growing and hitting into some restraints wherever they're currently located and looking for their next location, they're not thinking about Albemarle versus Green versus Charlottesville. They're thinking about Central Virginia. The region? Yeah.

Virginia, Central Virginia. And so we want, and we have people who live in one jurisdiction and work in another. We share a lot of recreational assets, the know, everybody's going back and forth between the jurisdictions all the time. And so we want to make this a really wonderful region and not get into the exact pinpoint of where things are happening. You want to touch that? I think it's important to see whether or not your neighbors are cooperative or competitors.

I think that especially as you look at the defense sector and the investment that Albemarle's made in Ravana Futures and the zoning changes that Greene County's made to kind of create this defense corridor, I think I see more coordination than competition. That being said, I also see over the years certain businesses jumping from Albemarle to Louisa or Albemarle to Green or Charlottesville to Albemarle

and those are not big numbers. Your former associate, Lee Catlin, used to say, we are not hunting the white whale. We're trying to bring up the entire environment for all of them. I'm not certain that we don't want to hunt the white whale since, I guess it was the night before last, I got a media release, or I got a report from Tammy of Engage Louisa that indicated Amazon is seeking a third data center. Yeah, Louisa County.

11 billion plus into Louisa County. Oh, that was just the two. That was just the end. One more. A third center. It's bananas. And it is crazy. Now, I-

There's collateral damage with data centers though. There, data centers are two, are kind of like the bad word now in economic development even though they are incredibly. Can't wait to ask Emily about data centers here. Can't wait to ask. I agree because you know they generate a great deal of tax revenue. They use a lot of water.

They use a lot of power. Yeah. They don't employ a lot of people. They don't employ a lot of people but they don't produce any school children. Yep that's right. Emily, what do we think about data centers? Great segue. Gosh, Neil, it's like you've done this before.

Listen, so I think there's an important context setting for data centers, especially given that we're in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So some folks are not aware of why there are so many data centers in Virginia. There is a couple. It's the epicenter of data centers for, is it maybe the world? The world. So if Virginia was a nation,

we would have the most data centers in the world. There's a big undersea cable that goes, connecting Europe to the United States, North America, that has its landing point at Virginia Beach. And so proximity to that transatlantic landing point is a huge benefit for these types of facilities. And that has been in place for quite some time. And that's one of the reasons why AOL was located

in Northern Virginia when they first started and you've seen a lot of buildup in that industry, IT communications for that reason. So there's been a lot of development of data centers in Northern Virginia and after several decades of that, they're beginning to run out of space. Loudon is probably the one that folks are most familiar with. They're running out of space and they're running out of good compatible space. So I think everyone's probably seen that picture. It's been in the Washington Post.

It's circulated on the internet. It's a meme now. Where you have a cul de sac that has very large houses directly backed onto a data center and a very large building. Which, you know, you see that and you say, oh my gosh, if that was my property, I would have a lot of feelings about that. They didn't have any restrictions on data centers in Loudoun County for a really long time.

And so that's how that happened. They were a by right use in industrial zoning. They didn't have any special setback, buffering, landscaping, all the things that Neil Williamson loves to help sort of mitigate those neighbor conflicts that can arise. And so they're going back and doing a lot of policy work right now to be able to address that. But, you know, the need for data centers at the same time continues to grow because of the nature of the world.

We are streaming right now. Everybody, most people take advantage of cloud storage and cloud services. And so the need for data centers is as strong as ever. AI has a huge data need that's associated with it. And so it continues to grow. And Virginia has proximity because of that cable and also at the state level some pretty big incentives around locating data centers here. So that's sort of Virginia.

Now that Northern Virginia has many fewer large properties left to do these, data center developers are looking elsewhere in the Commonwealth. And so we're seeing a shift now, sort of down from Northern Virginia, down from Fredericksburg and out west, for folks looking for localities that are interested in having data centers in their community.

Economic developers, you said economic developers don't, I forget what you said, you said something about economic developers and data centers, but they talk about them a lot. And when you think about more rural counties, it can be seen as a way to increase revenue coming into the locality to pay for services without adding population pressure. Does Almore County roll out the red carpet for data centers? Not today, no. Okay. So the board has ‑‑ there was no specific language about data centers

in the county zoning ordinance up until early this calendar year. The board of supervisors then asked staff to put together an ordinance for their consideration that would restrict data centers in the industrial zoning classes. And that was sort of a phase one. Phase two actually is kicking off this month.

So there's, if you go to engage.albumroll.org, there's a webpage that has some background information on data centers. There's also another virtual lunch and learn, which Neil Williamson loves. Enjoy that virtual hot dog. On June 16th, there's an information session that's in person on June 30th to talk more about

what would it look like if there was an ordinance that allowed some data centers with restrictions in certain areas? So if a data center came in and we had whatever bushes that you need for the setbacks, et cetera, would that be a positive or a negative impact on Jerry's tax costs? Well, so data centers generate a substantial amount of revenue. If you look at sort of a per square foot basis, a data center versus any other cat land use.

And really what that is, the buildings are not anything all that exciting. They're tilt up concrete buildings, so they look much like Costco. They're similar size to Costco. But inside, instead of mangoes and sheets, there are just racks filled with servers. And it's not the real estate tax revenues, it's actually the business personal property tax revenues that are generated by just that very high density of high value equipment that is really part and parcel to a data center. Would we, you've touched briefly on Ravana station,

Ravana Futures, Donna Price sat in Neil Williamson's seat while she was on the board of supervisors and said Ravana Futures, which is what, 462 acres acquired by Almaro County from Wendell Wood a couple of years, maybe a year and change ago to preserve the defense sector in Almaro County, there was some scuttlebutt that St. Louis was going after the defense sector with some free land and some folks said that was

river mill and smoke and mirrors. Others said this was legitimate. Regardless, we know the defense sector is the second most important driver of the region's economy. A white paper commission, I think Alamaro County, Green County, Chamber of Commerce, and the city of Charlottesville pinned that

at 1.3 billion economic impact, the defense sector. So Alamaro County, the Board of Supervisors at the time said, let's buy a bunch of land from Wendell Wood and let's provide a home for the defense sector north of town. And Donna Price called this the second most impactful economic development story except for the University of Virginia's creation in Alamaro County. That's how she put it.

The second one in the history of Alamaro County. So two-part question for you, Neil, you jump in. Emily, anywhere you want to go on this here. Could we see a data center? If we do see a data center, is that where we're going to potentially see it? And the second part of the question is, RIVANA Futures, RIVANA Station, the impact of the defense sector, can you offer more insight into that entire story line for the viewers and listeners? Yeah. And I really ‑‑ I'm going to go to the second part of the question because

I think that's really the more compelling story and really the why behind the RIVANA Futures project. So we talk a lot internally and externally about the Ravana Futures project as ‑‑ you know, we're not wedded to one particular outcome. We don't have a schematic, a development plan that we say this is what this property is going to look like when we're done in 15 years. We are intentionally being really flexible and nimble to allow the market to express what the needs, the highest and best use there would be. And it's not about any single sector or single use. It's really about this growing what in economic development you call an ecosystem.

So Ravana Station, as you mentioned, is home to, they have two facilities, three agencies in the intelligence community are located out of Ravana Station. The National Ground Intelligence Center, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. And that is really unique in the intelligence community to have more than one intelligence agency operating on a single footprint campus. And that kind of came out of a post 9-11, how do we build collaboration, foster collaboration and coordination across the intelligence agencies so that we can better see what some of the greatest threats facing our nation could be. And so they've, you know, they've located, they've existed up there since the early 2000s

and they're about built out on their property. And at the same time, sort of federal level and global dynamics level, the work that they do has never been in higher demand. It's a much more complicated world today than it was 20 years ago when that concept first came into pass. And so for many years, really driven out of the, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Veterans and Defense Affairs Secretary, its office has been looking at the military assets in the Commonwealth. And Ravana Station has been identified for quite some time as being really unique as the only military installation in the Commonwealth that's not surrounded by water or development. So the

property that surrounds Ravanna station is rural. Not in the rural area, but rural. A portion of Ravanna futures is in the rural area. The state studied it for a while. Alba moral was pulled into the conversation and really there was this fear that was real that, you know, if they're out of space and their needs are continuing to grow, that they need to solve their space problem. And if there wasn't a good partnership able to come to pass here, there's other places in the country that would very much welcome. So the St. Louis example, the national geospatial Intelligence Agency was looking to relocate

because their building was originally from the 1800s, had been renovated obviously, but was really reaching the end of its useful life. And they had said that they were interested in leaving the city of St. Louis completely. The city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri said that would be terrible for our city to lose our largest employer. And they came up with a project and offered the — Basically free land. 97 acres.

Yeah, right. 97 acres of free land and highway and road improvements to go with it. And so it's a real threat. If you lose the anchor, you anchor, $1.3 billion is the sector. And that's the data number. Yeah, two or three years old. If you lose the anchor, you lose all of the contractors and companies that are here because they want to be adjacent and close to Ravana station. So losing Ravana station is essentially losing all of that sector. That's why we talk

about ecosystems. There's interrelated elements across different organizations. We did not want to see that happen here. So the county purchased the property. Part of that is to see hopefully the federal agencies have an opportunity to expand their footprint here and then also continue to drive the need, demand for contractors, companies, collaborators, academic researchers who can help them with their mission set. So how's moving the dirt going? Well we put some signs in. So what's the timeline for Ravana Futures?

It seems as though a lot of money has been spent. When are we going to start to see some of this benefit? So we're already seeing benefit in a soft way, and I know you don't love that answer. Because we've really raised the profile of our community in that sector. So people are talking about Charlottesville, Albemarle, in the defense sector in a way that they have not. In DC, in Huntsville, in California. And we had an event with a ‑‑ it's called INSA, the intelligence national security alliance. It's a professional organization that does most of their programming in the DC area.

It's government and private sector folks who are in there. Their national conference has thousands of attendees. It's a big organization. They had an event in Charlottesville to talk about Charlottesville Album Oral back in December. And we were talking to the planners for that event. We said how many people are you hoping to have attend? And they said we've never done an event in Alamaro before and maybe 60 to 80 would be a good target for us for this sort of toe in the water.

And we said okay, we can get that. 300 people came. 300 people came who work in the defense sector. A lot of folks came down from D.C. A lot of folks who work here in that sector. And so the branding, the brand equity and awareness has increased. We're also going after several grants to help us actually get dirt moving. So we have one. We got one earlier this year. Because that cost the county a lot of money.

It did. It did, but we- Wendell Wood, nice payday. But, you know, that's a long-term investment. These are these long-term investments that governments can make because, you know, if we're able to bring forward the vision that we have for that property, 5,700 jobs, an additional $1.3 billion in today's dollars of annual economic impact driven off of that property. And so that's the kind of transformational economic development that we think we can achieve.

We have a boatload of questions here. We're very mindful of Neil and Emily's time, especially since Neal has a tee time, ladies and gentlemen, at the golf course. So we're very mindful of that. I want to talk biotech and data science jobs, where middle class jobs are going and are they being eroded. I want to talk the sales tax collection from Q1 2025 versus Q1 2024 with a bar graph that we can put on screen. I want to talk about the impact of UVA sports in this community and how Scott

Stadium has been half full and the impact it has on Alamara County from an economic development standpoint. This is an interesting comment from Gary Grant. What contingency plans does Alamara County have should INGIC and DIA next to county owned RIVANA Futures end up the victim of military realignment closures, consolidations such as Fort Eustis and what has happened to Seattle based military on the west coast. He says with technology analysts can work from anywhere instead of 100 miles south of D.C. Another interesting turn of events here, since RIVANA Futures was purchased, Donald Trump has won a second term in the White House.

His Department of Government Efficiency is consolidating a lot of government operation to DC, and a lot of folks that were in the defense sector in Elmora County, City of Charlottesville, and Central Virginia are now requiring to RTO, return to office up there. Some folks have said that the defense sector locally is facing some headwinds, maybe from an economic development standpoint, because they're having to go back to buildings in

D.C. to work here. All that to you, Emily Kilbride. Well, that was a lot of topics. That was a lot. That was a lot. Thank you, Gary, for that great question. Yeah. And you, I will highlight this.

Every media outlet in town is watching you. All right. No pressure. No pressure. So it's a great question. Yeah and you are I will highlight this every media outlet in town is watching you. All right no pressure. So it's a great question it's something that we have looked at a lot so it's certainly on our minds but as I as I kind of mentioned earlier you know the intelligence community is a part of the federal government the defense defense sector, that is not every agency is being looked at the same way in some of the changes that the administration is putting in place. And the intelligence community is one that has not had the same level of cuts that you've heard about in other agencies happening. And again, the world remains as complicated and more complicated than it ever has. And so it continues to be an area of the federal government where there's strong support and

committed funds. The federal budget is not passed. It's still very much being worked through. But there's actually a line increase on the Defense Department's budget, whereas other agencies are seeing sort of the opposite. And so we continue to work really closely with our federal partners locally. And what I can share is that the excitement and enthusiasm for what is possible here is stronger than it's ever been. And so we feel like we're getting some really positive, some positive energy and momentum.

You want to touch on that? I will say I rarely, this person doesn't get a lot of kudos from me, but when the, when DIA first moved out and Ninja first moved out to Albemarle County, Supervisor Ann Malek raised concern about not owning the higher land. This would be about 2017 or so. And I saw the Riveana Futures acquisition as both a defensive to keep the entities here and offensive strategy in economic development. Whether it was a good idea or a bad idea, other people can decide, but I saw it as both offensive and defensive.

And I think that the Fort Eustis example is a good one, but I believe that the idea of Ravana Futures is to provide a, something I speak of often here, a willing property owner to work with federal partners if and when the time comes that they need to expand their footprint to achieve their mission. And I think that is a positive because quite frankly as you know from real estate it doesn't get cheaper every year. Making that purchase two years ago, I wonder what that land would be worth today.

Yeah, but the flip side of that, I totally agree with you, the flip side of that was there's the likelihood of finding a buyer for that land was not super great. I think they did find a buyer. They found a very willing buyer. Taxpayers, yeah, it was taxpayers right there. But we have 16 minutes left and I have have so much I wanna get to here. Can we do the, do you have the sales tax collection graph? Chamber of Commerce sent this to everybody yesterday.

First quarter, and is that what your interview was with NBC29 about that? Yes, yes. So I saw him in front of NBC29 doing an interview, and I'm like, two things. He's talking about this, and he's gonna go play golf. As I was driving by you here. The graph is on screen. doing an interview and I'm like two things, he's talking about this and he's going to go play golf. The graph is on screen.

So we're showing the bar graph. Q1 2025 versus Q1 2024. What's going on with sales tax collection? Open ended question. Yeah. I mean, so lots of people want to know the answer to that question. But I think when you look at the numbers and, you know, ablumoral is, I think, 2% growth year over year for Q1, and so that's below inflation. So 2% seems like a good,

you know, good steady growth. 2% ain't great. 2% ain't great. Steady. It's steady. Okay. All right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Steady. It's steady. It's steady. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say it's, as you said, below inflation. Is it below what was expected or anticipated? Well, and that's the challenge of quarters, right?

Because quarters can have a lot of fluctuations based on what's going on in the world around you. And I think a couple things happened in Q1 that are worth noting. One is that the stock market was highly variable, lost 10% of value, peaked to trough over that same period. Has since rebounded. Has since rebounded, but just remember. And then if you look at consumer confidence numbers from that same quarter, you had another stark drop in consumer confidence. And so I think

the 2% growth is probably grabbing a lot of the price pressures that were happening during that time. So the cost of bananas and eggs. And I think what you're seeing is that people were not spending as much money for the want to haves and not the need to haves. And I think it's important to recognize that Albemarle in comparing year to year 2023 to 2024 was up 7.57%. On a darker side, Charlottesville, year over year,

23 to 24 was down. How about Louisa? Well, Louisa's down this quarter, but last year they were up. Okay, so- For year over year. So the whole year they were up. So the report's entitled Clouds on the Horizon. Sometimes you see clouds on the horizon and the storm comes.

Sometimes it passes by, but you're wary. And that's clouds on the horizon and the storm comes. Sometimes it passes by, but you're wary. And that's really what I think this report is wary. It's a snapshot in time, the first three months of the year, we did have two snow storms, Easter was late. Stay tuned. Okay. So you're attributing Q1 2025 to uncertainty at a macro level impacting sales tax collection in Alamaro County. That's what you're saying, right? I'm saying I think that's part of the story.

Okay. And you're saying this is not a trend yet. That this is a statistical, what's the phrase? A-nomality. Yeah. That's what you're saying. I'm saying it could be, or it could be a trend. The storm clouds are on the horizon.

Are they going to hit us, or are they going to miss us? What could make it a trend? UVA facing significant federal cuts, UVA hiring freezes, UVA no performance-based bonuses right now, UVA no cost of living raises right now. All those are frozen. The University of Virginia, top employer in the community. They've said all those are on ice right now.

The uncertainty at a macro level persists. I think that's fair, right? It's continuing. We have a movement, I've been here 25 years and I have not seen the commitment to shop local, stay local, keep it local, like it once was pre-COVID. I think we've had a significant impact of population influx and the new folks that are living in our region, county, Charlottesville specifically, do not have the same institutional memory of waving the Almaro County pro flag, the Charlottesville city pro flag

for keeping everything in the community. Those are the elements that I think could make this potentially a trend to worry about. Well, I think that's true. I also think you should, I encourage folks to look at the restaurant sector. You really can't order a sandwich over the internet in general, but from a local retailer. So what's happening in the local food and beverage? Local food and beverage has significant headwinds.

Rents have escalated to points that are unaffordable. Cost of goods are absolutely through the roof. The lines of credit have floating debt that's extremely expensive. The labor pool is non-existent. It's being gentrified outside of the community. I think the headwinds for FNB are as significant as I've ever seen. I think the biggest headwind, and it's a great question for Emily,

is the middle class, the working class, the blue collar is just being gentrified out of Almaro and Charlottesville. And as these data science and biotech jobs become what's in vogue, the working class and the middle class is heading to Fluvanna, heading to Louisa and Waynesboro. And a wise man once told me that the community is only as strong as its middle class. Anywhere you want to go on these topics. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think the strategic plan work that we've been doing has really focused in on this issue as well. Again, we're missing the middle‑sized firms, we're missing the middle‑aged folks, and the mid‑career jobs. When you talk to employers in the area, they talk about how hard it is to get local talent that has the right skill sets for the jobs that they need, which then forces them to look out external. And then, you know, there's challenges with that.

Is there a, you know, in a two earner household, is there another job also for the other person in that family unit. You know, cost of housing, cost of living are big factors there too. And so that is the work that we're trying to take on. So economic development is not a sprint, it's a marathon. But we think that we can do a lot more and a lot of people in the community, it's not about album oral, it's not about Alba moral, it's not about local government, it's about workforce development partners, educational partners, employers, are all saying we could do better by putting the right programs in place to make sure that

our current population, our high school students and college students, are able to be successful candidates for these jobs and take that pressure to recruit from outside the community away. And so there's been a lot of focus on how do we focus on the sectors that we think the greatest growth is going to happen in or has the potential for the greatest growth to happen in and what do we need to be doing in high school to make sure that our students are the right successful candidates for those jobs?

Right, and the workforce is a part of that, but the other part of that that ties in, and Jerry, I'd be remiss if I didn't raise it, is the product you have to sell. We heard a couple months ago that there is one tier four level opportunity site. We know that less than 5% of Albemarle County is dedicated for development. If we increased that and perhaps increased the amount of industrial and commercial land

and thus reduced cost, would that missing middle of housing and Opportunities come about that's a loaded question. That is a loaded question. But go ahead if you want to touch that I will take it We have so we had we had one when that report was done a couple years ago the county now owns One that's very close to hitting tier 4. So you have two? So we have two, but several hundred acres. It's one, two properties, but several hundred acres. That's several hundred opportunities.

Different combinations of an advanced manufacturing facility, a couple of office buildings. buildings and so, you know, and there are so many interesting opportunities on the horizon. In the biotech space you have the new bio accelerator that opened at North Fork earlier this year. You have the Manning Institute which is under construction just south of town at Fontaine Research Park which is going to have 100 clinical research labs. Where are those people going to live? No, can you also put in, because no one's talking about this,

I feel like besides what we're doing here on this network, can you put in perspective the impact of what biotech is going to do to Alamaro County? And maybe, I mean, you don't want to talk for Charlottesville, so I'll just say Alamaro County. Over the next few years, this is under the radar, what's happening here. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

And I want to, some folks will hear biotech and think, that's not for us, Those aren't jobs that real people who live here today can fill. And that's actually not true. When you have a startup company that has fewer than five employees, most of them are going to have Ph.D.s. Because you're in the, you're heavy into the research phase. But as you're able to raise funds, scale, now you need lab techs. You can do that with a high school diploma. You're going to need to bring on HR and finance and marketing and business development. And these are not PhD jobs. These are really

great jobs. Great career ladder jobs, good opportunities for lots of folks with different interests. And so we think as we can help the biotech companies scale here and be successful here in that, we can really open up a ton of opportunities for other folks in the community.

But Afton Scientific made an announcement in September that they are on track to hire at least 200 new jobs in their manufacturing facility. So again, those are manufacturing jobs. $200 million investment for the Avon Extended Afton Scientific. This is incredible. Yonkin was here to celebrate this. Yes. Yeah.

And the Manning Institute will have, you know, the solid numbers are a little bit unknown right now, but again, 100 research labs, that's, you know, 100 principal investigators and a team with each supporting each of them. And they're going to be doing groundbreaking research that is going to be generating opportunities with real commercialization opportunities. And so we expect start ups to really start spinning out of the work that Manning Institute will do. Not tomorrow, but over the next several years there seems to be these real line of sight opportunities that are going to really grow what's possible here.

I was told by someone that was very, very close to the money, I'm talking about potentially holding the checkbook that close to the money, that we have 5,000 to 8,000 new jobs coming to Almar County and the city of Charlottesville in the next 24 to 36 months. Wow. And that was somebody that, you know, it's very close to the money and I'll leave it at that. How much of economic development is tied to using the county's influence to potentially encourage and or slightly politically pressure the University of Virginia into contributing its share of taxes from a real estate standpoint? So the University of Virginia, our local government partners in Charlottesville Green, really our whole central Virginia region, are at the table

working together ‑‑ so I'm side stepping here. I see that. You're welcome. Are at the table working together right now to look at what does it look like to truly collaborate around economic development? We have a feeling that there's just ‑‑ there's so much happening with new jobs, new opportunities. Ravanna Futures is a game changer. A lot of what's happening in the biotech space, the

school of data science opening up a second school that's focused on entrepreneurship in the data science space. There's a moment and we might miss it if we don't work together to figure out how to really take advantage of some of the really exciting things happening here. And so that is a really productive way to have conversations with all of our community partners about how we can grow the community that we want, in the way that we want, and to really raise the profile of this community so that, you know, Huntsville is big in aerospace. Well, why can't we be big in intelligence and national security?

Boston is a really big place for biotech right now. Why not Charlottesville too? And so there's a lot of really amazing work happening to make sure that we've got the right pieces in place to be able to not miss the moment that we find ourselves in. You wanna touch on that? I think it's important to recognize. You navigated we find ourselves in. You want to touch on that? I think it's important to recognize. You navigated that very well there.

Thank you. You recognize the shift in Albemarle County. I've been doing this long enough that I go back to when there wasn't an economic development department where we used words like vitality rather than development because they were bad words in Albemarle County. There's been a reckoning of the tax benefit and the quality of life benefit that economic development brings. And I commend Albemarle County for waking up and smelling the coffee. 100 percent because if we're not careful, I mean,

look at neighboring jurisdiction in Fluvanna County, where is it 93, 94 percent of the county's budget in Fluvanna is tied to residential rooftops? I mean, I don't think anyone wants that. And the biggest complaint I hear from the viewers and listeners on this show, which I'm sure you hear all the time and I know you hear all the time, is they're being penny pinched with the homes they own to fund a budget that is north of 600 million dollars. I mean it's it's it's astronomical how much the budget has

increased over the last few years. Dr. Mark Esser, I hope I'm pronouncing his last name right, the executive director of the Paul Manning Biotech Institute, has straight-up said on the record I want this to be the Silicon Valley of biotech, the Charlottesville area. And that exhilarates me. The business owner and the entrepreneur and the guy who owns real estate and likes to move and shake and make deals, that exhilarates me.

Also terrifies me as the husband and father of two young boys, who I would absolutely want to one day live here and maybe continue the family business or just see my grandkids. I can't believe I'm talking about that, but that's just the nature of getting older and having a wife and kids and gaining different perspective.

We have one minute left. We could spend two hours with you, but we can't. We gotta do this again. Can I ask you the impact of last question, the University of Virginia struggling some with its sports. I mean, I see Scott Stadium at like half full maybe, and that's six or seven home games a year. The impact that has on economic development in Elmora County?

Yeah, you know, I think that the university has some good headlines there too. The, oh, what's that sport called? Lacrosse. They'll be hosting the Lacrosse National Championship next year. That's a space, you know, there's been some other exciting NCAA tournaments. There was a cross country race held at Panoram Farm not that long ago. The swim program, the number of Olympians that we have swimming in our community. But those don't drive attendance.

Those don't drive a lot of people. I would push back on the national championship for lacrosse as a huge economic development driver. That's not going to be consistent. That's an anomaly tied to the World Cup, tied to soccer taking up a spot. Right, understood. Seven home football games and 25,000 people in the stands at Scott Stadium

for seven home football games for 62,000 is a red flag. I'm not going to disagree with you. Yeah. And but I will say that the ebb and flow of athletics has been remarkable in Charlottesville over the years as one who used to read this guy Jerry Miller in the newspaper Yeah, I was used to work for the progress a long time ago. I'm curious. Okay time is we have 30 seconds I'm very mindful your time 25,000 people at Scott Stadium for seven home football games for

62,000 yeah, I mean JPJ is full for basketball though I you know, I I think there's there's good stories there too JPJ is full for basketball though. I think there's good stories there too. And we certainly wish the Hoos all the best in their athletics. And I love going to Scott Stadium to cheer for the home team. Okay.

Neil Williamson is the president of the Free Enterprise Forum. You did a great job. Have you done an interview this long? No. This is an hour. It goes by quickly, doesn't it? It does. This was, you know, fun feels like a strong word. Okay, fun feels like a strong word. We thank her

for joining us. Emily Kilroy of Almar County, the Economic Development. Is it Economic Development Director? Yeah. Okay, Economic Development Director. Judah Wichower is behind the camera. Everyone's asking. It's going to be archived wherever you get your social media and your podcast content. I want to cut the sizzle reel for Rivena Futures from this show and play it at our 1230 show. Thank you kindly for joining us, guys. Unreal Talk with Keith Smith. So long. Excellent.

And it's 11.15. We're out. He's going to tell us right here when the mics are off.