The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Interview Matt Greene, Salvation Army + CRE Broker; $28M Campaign To Fund Center Of Hope Shelter

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Interview Matt Greene, Salvation Army + CRE Broker $28M Campaign To Fund Center Of Hope Shelter City Contributed $3M (Largest Gift) to $28,000,000 Goal Center Of Hope: 4-Story, Ridge St, 47,634 SQF, 114 Beds Existing Shelter No Longer Meets Community Needs Does 2000 Holiday Dr Compete W/ Salvation Army Shelter? CVille Shop Talk: Real Estate, Economy, Biz Sectors Subscribe To JerryRatcliffe.com For $8 Per Month Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Matt Greene, Salvation Army Board of Directors, 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, and thank you kindly for joining us on the program. It's a Thursday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville, and this is the water cooler of content and conversation for Charlottesville, Almore County, Central Virginia, the commonwealth country of the world, where we encourage you, the viewer and listener to help shape the show. Send us your ideas. Send us the talking points. Push back on what we're talking about. We don't want to originate the news. We just want to offer commentary on the news with you, the viewer, and listener making the program.

better for everyone, literally the water cooler. I think today's show is going to embody that, folks. Matt Green is in studio. He's a friend of mine. He is a very talented commercial real estate broker for Tollheimer. He's on the board of directors with the Salvation Army. They are in the middle of a capital campaign to the tune of $28 million for a new shelter on Ridge Street. We're going to put that in perspective first on the program today. Then we will transition on today's show to commercial real estate, the local economy, the intersection of zoning, politics, population increase, UVA's role in the community, and so many other important talking points on the show, this guy, Matt Green, is able to pontificate and offer pointient perspective

on all those talking points and more. I do want to give props to a partner of the show. They've been a partner for nearly two years. I love the family. It's Charlottesville Sanitary Supply and Charlottesville Swimming Pool Company. Two companies that complement each other very well that have 62 years of community history. They watch the show, they listen to the show, we work alongside each other. I know the Vermilions inside and out, honest and communicative people at Charlottesville Sanitary Supply and Charlottesville Swimming Pool Company. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera.

He is a key component of making this a reality, this network of reality. Thank you to Judah. I think without further ado, we go to the two shot and welcome Matt Green to the program. First, I want to thank you for coming on the program. Thanks, Jerry. Glad to be here. Longtown listener. First time, attendee, you know, just you are absolutely right in your opening. I'm a father of two. I've got a boy and a girl. Both have been in Charlottesville City schools. I'm a Virginia native originally from Winchester, moved to Charlottesville in 2013.

My granddaddy used to say, there's two kinds of people in Virginia, those who were born here by the grace of God, and those with a good sense enough to move here. And I'm fortunate enough to have done both. I lived in New York City for a bunch of years after college and then moved back and couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

We're lucky to have you here. I've enjoyed getting to know you over these years of our interaction. I want to talk about the Salvation Army. You're a board of director, the Salvation Army here. You and your colleagues are making a pretty significant push, a $28 million fundraising effort. The show is yours, Mac Green, anywhere you want to go.

I hope you put it in perspective for the viewers and listeners. Happily. So you're absolutely right. We're raising, we're in the middle of a $28 million capital campaign. We just surpassed 18 million, so we're moving. We've got a bit of a tight deadline. We need to hit our $28 million mark by February 1st of 2027 in order to, in order to fall in line, in order to break around while our special use permit is still valid.

And so it's been really remarkable to see how much, to see how much support we've had in the community. It's been equally remarkable to see how much confusion there is around what the Salvation Army actually does. And I've been on the board for a little over a year. And it's, it's really interesting. I got, I got involved with the Salvation Army, because I kept complaining about the, you know, about how the city was, was handling homelessness in Charlottesville. You know, as everybody who's, anyone who's lived here or visited knows that during the pandemic,

the downtown mall just, like, I mean, it was, it was a ghost town and it, it started to resemble a little bit of Skid Row. You know, the businesses were closed. And, you know, and the homeless population really started to, started to flock there. And I, having an opinion about just about everything. That's what I like about you. Sincerely mean that. I, I continued to speak my mind, and I had zero action. I had zero solution.

And I finally started to look into what the, what the solutions might. might be and I stumbled on, I stumbled on on the Salvation Army and what their mission is. And what I find so remarkable about what the Salvation Army does is that their goal is not to treat the immediate symptoms of homelessness. Their goal is not for a bed to sleep on and a warm meal and then send you back out into the world tomorrow. Their goal is to cure homelessness, one person at a time. And they do that by first alleviating the symptoms so that you can focus on treating the root cause.

And so the Salvation Army does a 28-day program that can be renewed. But they ask you, if you go into the Salvation Army, they ask you to sign up for 28-day. to stay overnight, to engage in the programs that they offer, therapy, mental health treatment, substance abuse therapy, job training, financial training, there's parent coaching if needed, if you're a parent. There's also, you know, there is a huge spiritual component to it. There is an optional study, the majors, excuse me, who run the Salvation Army are ministers. And, you know, and they believe that they're doing, that they're doing God's work. They're doing the work that Jesus calls them to do by, by tending to the sick, by tending to the needy. And it starts, it starts with

the mind, body, and soul. And so what's so remarkable about the Salvation Army is that that is, and this is such an overlooked number, but they transition 10 people a month out of homelessness into permanent housing with jobs. Our homeless population in Charlottesville is estimated somewhere around 300 to 350. And I know the math doesn't work that way, but in its simplest form, it's like, that's three years. And the, and the, and the, and the, And the current homeless population is taken care of. They are on their feet. They are off the street.

They're in permanent housing with jobs, with security, with marketable skills to be able to live a reasonable and fulfilling life. I appreciate the mission. I appreciate the mission. $28 million is a lot of money. It's a ton of money. Okay. You said we're at $18? We're at $18 million.

You got $10 million to go. you have a deadline of Q1 February of next year. That's right. So quick math here. Give us some insight into how the $28 million would be spent. We're talking about 114 beds? Yeah, something like that. 114 shelter beds here.

Yep. So the basic math somebody like me would do would be $28 million divided by $114,000, get you about $250,000 a bet. But there's much more to it. That's what I want to get to. There is. $250,000 a bet. Yes.

So, all right. And we can put a photo on screen if you want. He's got those. Yeah, that'd be great. And, Jude, I'll trust your judgment on whichever photo you think is best. I sent you everything I had. And he'll give you a thumbs up when it's on screen, too. Okay, perfect.

So there's a couple of things. So $28 million is the total. You've got to back out $1.2 million for, you back out $1.2 million for contingency. And then, sorry, you back out $2.1 million for contingency, which is basically a 10% of building cost because you assume that something's going to go wrong. You assume that there's going to be price overruns, that costs are going to increase. You know, you build in 10% for that. You also back out a 10%, which is another 2.1, to go into an endowment that will, you know, help pay for the new operating cost. So one of the issues with doubling the capacity,

which is what we're doing, so at 114 beds, we are doubling capacity from the current, from the current building, you're going to double your operating cost. And it doesn't mean that we're going to double our, that we're going to double our revenue overnight. And so there's 2.1 million that goes into an endowment that's going to generate interest that will pull interest off to help go into the operations. There's another little less than $2 million for FF&E, furniture fixtures and equipment. So kitchen equipment, beds, chairs, you know, all of that stuff.

So at the end of the day, what we're really looking at is $21 million for building costs, plus your contingency, plus your endowment, plus furniture, fixtures and equipment. So $462 a square foot. And when you break it down that way, the $462 a square foot is in line with what today's market is. It's in line with what today's market is, especially when you're looking at,

especially when you're looking at institutional building. This is different than, this is, the way you build a facility like this is so different than you would build your house or even an apartment because there's so much traffic. There are so many people coming in and out. You've got people living there. You've got over 100 people living there 24 hours a day. Plus, you're also bringing in another 100 plus to feed three times a day. So, you know, the kitchen facility not only services, it not only feeds the,

not only feeds the residents of the Salvation Army, but it also feeds the community. And so they feed twice as many people from the community as they do from the residential. And so when you put that many people through a space day in and day out, they're just, they're hard on spaces. And so it means that the cost of, you know, it means that every floor needs to be concrete. Yeah. It means that all of, and because we're, you know, every floor needs to be concrete, we've also have to have steel girders going all the way up, which relieves us of the ability to do timber frame, to do anything with timber frame. Then...

They're building it the right way. They're building it the right way, and the idea is that this building is going to... The building is going to last 100 years. The current building was built in the 80s, and it's falling apart. So is the plan tear down the current building? The plan is to tear down the current building.

And this is Ridge Street. This is the Ridge Street. location. So what we'll have to do is we'll have to do it in two phases. And basically, the current plan right now is to is to tear it down in two phases. So the residential, the existing residential facility will stay while the front portion is being built so that we can still service those 50 plus residents. Now, all of the operations, all the operations staff, the food bank, the administrative staff, they're all going to move. The current plan right now is that they are going to move to the Cherry Avenue site.

Salvation Army owns, they own a 13,000 square foot building, which is where the Salvation Army thrift store is on Cherry Avenue that sits on 2.1 acres. At one time, it was discussed that this would be a shelter location. It was discussed and that was by request from the city. So this was before the city had purchased Holiday Drive. There was a lot of public outcry for the city to do something about the homeless population and to treat them. And it was also in conjunction with the police department also wanting to create. golly, there was a huge argument about it. I can't think of the word. It wasn't new laws, but it was...

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was the policy that was no camping or sheltering in public places. Yeah. And that was on behalf of city council. City council's idea, not police department. City council's idea. They had Chief Cottches presented. That's right. And they threw him to the wolves. They did. They did. Yeah. Chief... We love you, Chief Cottes. He watches the show all the time. Yeah. You're doing great. He's doing great. I love you. So and and basically the big outcry was like, all right, well, you can't have policy that makes homelessness illegal. You can't offer the stick without the carrot.

And which I don't disagree with. And so the city came to the Salvation Army and said, will you help us? Because the Salvation Army is the only group in town that's doing year-round overnight sheltering. Right. Potcham does it in the winter. Right. But no one else is doing it year-round. And the, and the Salvation Army said, well, that's not really what we do, but yeah, we'll help you out. And so then there was that conversation of, and this was, I guess about a year ago, there was the conversation of putting, of turning the Cherry Avenue site into a low barrier shelter, one, you know, one night at a time, low barrier shelter with no additional programming, just a warm place to sleep.

And then the city, and while in those negotiations, the city also was exploring other options, they ended up buying holiday drive. And so then the Salvation Army was like, great. We're, you know, we've, that wasn't really, that wasn't really our thing. We were willing to help out. We were willing to be part of the, we wanted to be part of this discussion. But now that you guys have it taken care of and you're working. directly with Pacham on how to

handle that kind of facility, we're going to go back to what we do best, which is transitioning people from homelessness into stabilized long-term housing. Yeah, you guys, I mean, the

Salvation Army model is the model, folks. I mean, you're talking a high barrier shelter with wraparound services that's got a proven track record, proof of performance, a pop of assimilating, the houseless population into society

from a housing, job, and the quality of life standpoint. I mean, it's a proven track record here. What the city's trying to do, basically as a real estate developer that is now trying to form strategic partnerships with Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, Patcham, and the Haven, is

uncharted territories. And it's also the wild card in this is it's a low barrier shelter. I made this, made the mistake again, and another Miacopa for me in the I Love Seville Network of calling this a low barrier shelter on Ridge Street. It's not. It's a high barrier shelter.

There's sobriety standards. There's drug-free standards, alcohol-free standards, and there's – they vet who can use this. We're not talking folks that have checkered history tied to, you know, sex offenses. Right. Which is extremely important to emphasize here. That's the opposite of what Holiday Drive is about. Yeah. Holiday Drive is the low barrier.

variety. Holiday Drive, in my understanding, holiday drive treats the immediate symptom. Yes, that's right. And it does not, it does not address the deeper issues. Yeah, it offers immediate shelter for today. Yes. Yeah, that's you're 100% right. And the Salvation Army is not for everyone who needs it. It is for those who want it. What is there, and this is, I heard from John Kelly after all this. He's fantastic at PR. Yeah, I would imagine that I've known John for nearly 20 years. I would imagine this is something that you guys are talking about in the board room here.

There seems to be a little bit of average Joe and average Jennifer marketplace confusion with 2000 Holiday Drive and this Operation Hope, the Center of Hope on Ridge Street. Yeah. That's, yes, there is. There is a lot of confusion,

and I think because the Salvation Army was involved initially in the low barrier shelter conversations, there is there's a lot of, I talk to a lot of people who say, wait, the city just bought Holiday Drive, why do you guys need my money as well? And, and my answer to that is really, we need, we need both. And, and, and I will go even farther, and this is not a sanctioned Salvation Army opinion, this is just my opinion, but that with the, with Holiday Drive, we need, what the Salvation Army offers even more.

Because historically, and you can see it in all kinds of other cities, when you create, when you offer services like what will be offered at Holiday Drive, when you make being... If you build it, they will come. I just said it right there. There you go. That's what you're saying. Yeah.

When you make it easier to be homeless, you will bring it, you will attract more homeless. from out from other communities. And so as our homeless population is expected to grow, and in fact our entire population is expected to grow, we will continue, you know, the Salvation Army will be needed more than ever because we will have more people coming in. And over time, there will be more and more people

who reach a bottom, who cannot, who wake up one morning, and they just can't live that way anymore. Yeah. Um, and, you know, I've been, privately, I've been pretty critical of, of the, you know, of the holiday drive and, and, and of how the city of Charlott'sville has handled homelessness with the, with the public camping, with the lack of, of, of, of ability, you know, really hamstringing the police on, on, on how to police the downtown mall. But when I, when I really think about it, you know, it's like, you need to, you know, you know, need both because there needs to be because not everybody is at a place not everyone in the homeless population is at a place where they're willing or ready to go to Salvation Army and they still

have to they still have to have a place to go so that the police can say hey you can't be here you can't camp next to the river you can't sit in the in the doorway of somebody's business during business hours right you know like I have my kids are downtown all the time my office is downtown. My church is downtown. It's a matter of safety. It's not just a matter of, it's not just a matter of being made to feel uncomfortable when I see somebody in, in that stage in their lives. It's a matter of safety. It's a matter of property rights. It's a matter of property. I mean, then there's the economic piece. Yeah. It's a matter of economics. It's a matter of tax revenue for the city or lack thereof. I mean, it's a matter of, and I catch so much grief for this.

I want to talk CRA and commercial rural state with you. We're clearly going to have to bring you back here. We're about 25 minutes in. Time fly. I told it flies, right? It absolutely flies. The city is prioritizing a houseless population of roughly 300 to 350 people ahead of the city population in totality. Right.

And a lot of circumstances. And I can be critical of that while still willing to offer. a hand up, not a handout, but a hand up to this 300 to 350 people. But Mary at Tools Jewelers, who's had this business in her family forever, should not have to have a gentleman's agreement written on a napkin with the two guys that are living in her vestibule where they cannot pee, poop, puke, or do anything else. And if they promise that they won't do that, they can live there until 7 a.m. each day.

And then have to be out at 7 a.m. That's wrong. Yeah. That's what she has to do now. Well, and you can see it, and it's, I mean, good for her for being willing to, but she's kinder than me. She's, she is a real sweetheart. Yeah, I like her a lot. But you can see it in the, in the vacancy on the downtown mall, you can definitely, and there's some retail vacancy, but you can definitely see it in the restaurant vacancy.

I mean, we've seen in the last six months, a year ago, a year and a half ago, there was zero. second generation restaurant space available. And now there's, golly, there's at least a half dozen restaurant spaces that are available. Give me a call. Yeah, yeah, he's good. I got your coverage. He's absolutely good. I like that.

But ABC. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I like it. But anyway, back to the Salvation Army. Ultimately, what they're doing is they're investing and asking the community, they're investing in the community and asking the community, the, the Charlottesville community to invest in them so that we can build a hundred-year building that can that can treat that can treat and dare I say cure homelessness I my another my granddad had all kinds of great

sayings and another one he said is is son there's no there's no money in the cure there is infinite amounts of money in a treatment and I think one of the things that I love about the Salvation Army is that they are privately funded completely. They don't take, they're not a 501C3 in that they, I mean, they, they are a nonprofit, but they're not collecting government grants. Nobody is building a career on, you know, on treating homelessness through the Salvation Army. And so the incentive is not to continue to grow the numbers of how many people they're

treating. The incentive is to transition as many people as. they can into permanent housing so that they can treat more. And that has everything to do with faith. $28 million. They're $18 million in. Their deadlines February of next year support this cause. This is a proof of performance that's backed by data in history and practice. This is not a on the whim game plan. I'm throwing shade here like 2000 holiday drive. Salvation Army is legitimately backed with history and performance. And, and, and,

and track record. So let's support this calls. We've got to get you back on. We do have a $1.15. I want to talk. Next time we get you back on, I sincerely mean this, I will text you. Commercial real estate,

population trends, the Rale University of Virginia, zoning. Next time we'll get you on for the full hour, and we'll do an update on the capital campaign. Where are you guys staying? I sincerely mean that. Thank you for joining us.

Absolutely. This is water cooler, content and conversation. A 30-minute version of the I-Lef Seville Show today because I do have an important meeting at 115 that I've got to get to. Judah Woodcower is behind the camera. We're back on the saddle tomorrow at 1015

with Neil Williamson, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum on Real Talk, and then at 1230 to close the week down with the I Love Seville Show. Thank you very much, viewers and listeners for joining us today. So long, everybody.