The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Roger Voisinet & Richard Price Interview; Voisinet & Price Developers Of Woolen Mills Court

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Fleisher & Wade Win; Pinkston Loses Council Sally Duncan Beats Dave Shreve In AlbCo BOS Roger Voisinet & Richard Price Interview Voisinet & Price Developers Of Woolen Mills Court Woolen Mills Court Located At 1317 E Market St Might Be 1st Approval Under New Zoning Code 15 Months Of Work, 4 Sub Lots, 5 Experts In Project Analysis On Woolen Mills Court With Visuals Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Entrepreneur & Realtor Roger Voisinet and Architect Richard Price joined Jerry Miller 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 Seaville show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Good Wednesday afternoon to you, and thank you kindly for joining us on what we like to call the water cooler of conversation in Charlottesville, Almar County, and Central Virginia. We talk all topics, all content verticals. For example, yesterday we broke the news that there's a team behind Blue Moon Diner.

And while we will not see Blue Moon Diner rebirthed or recreated, we will see a vacant restaurant filled very soon as three men are pursuing an entrepreneurial endeavor to bring a pub and a restaurant to where Blue Moon Diner sits empty today. That project ongoing right now. Breaking news on yesterday's show. At the end of last week we offered you the breaking news of 303 Alderman Road with six luxury brown stones. Now scrapped, the signage gone. An evergreen perhaps pivoting plans to maybe one very large single family detached home where they can quickly exit what was an 800,000 plus purchase more than a year ago in a prestigious

and Tony Lewis Mountain neighborhood that goodness gracious fought and clawed this project from the start. A lot we're going to cover on today's show. We're going to talk a smidge of the elections that transpired yesterday. But I'll offer that commentary on tomorrow's show. Today's program is all about Roger Voizena and Richard Price and what they're doing at Woolen Mills Court. Before we get to two gentlemen in this community who need absolutely no introduction, household names, and I'm not just saying that because they're sitting at the table with me right now. They certainly are. I want to offer 30 seconds of commentary on what happened yesterday in Alamaro County and 30 seconds of commentary on what happened

in the city of Charlottesville. First, the city. Jen Fleischer gets a victory in the rank choice voting, the first rank choice voting scenario in Charlottesville history. Brian Pinkston off a council, Juan Diego Wade elected for a second term. It was a convincing victory for Jen Fleischer. Juan Diego Wade we knew was going to get reelected and Brian Pinkston is now going to be off the dais. Very curious to see how this takes Charlottesville in a new direction. As one very intelligent person told me earlier today, maybe it's a sign that Charlottesville citizens are looking for a fresh start and for actual tangible progress on the dais. In Alamaro County, ladies and gentlemen, Sally

Duncan beats Dave Shreve in the Jack Jewett district. It's very clear that Duncan is going to raise taxes on homeowners and property owners in Albemarle County or make a push to do so while she's on the Board of Supervisors. That was in our campaign material. Duncan and Mike Pruitt team with potentially Ned Galloway to change Albemarle County's Board of Directors in a way that I don't think I've ever seen in my 25 years of being in this community, progressive as I've ever seen in my 25 years of being in this community, progressive as I've ever seen the Board of Supervisors right now.

Those topics on tomorrow's show, Judah Wickhauer behind the camera, we will thank our partners, Charlottesville Sanitary Supply for being a part of the show. Sixty-one consecutive years of business on East High Street and online at CharlottesvilleSanitarySupply.com. Great people, four generations of Alamara County behind that business. CharlottesvilleSanitarySupply.com and in person on East High Street. Lloyd Snook, hello. Georgia Gilmer, hello. Rob Neal, hello. Gary Palmer, the real state broker, very talented. Scott Beyer, hello. Chad Wood, hello. Print Radio and Television, hello. Elected officials from three jurisdictions watching the water cooler conversation and join us in today's show, guys, by leaving

your perspective in the feed. Judah Wickhauer, now is the time, my friend. Three shot. Roger and Richard are now on screen. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you kindly for joining us. Good afternoon. Glad to be here.

It's absolutely our pleasure. I sincerely, sincerely mean that. There are a few topics I enjoy talking more than real estate and development. We've talked a lot about this project with you and with other people, so glad to be back. Our community is excited to hear about this. This could be, ladies and gentlemen, the first project birthed in a historic new zoning ordinance here in Charlottesville. And these two gentlemen are the flag bearers of that project. I will get out of your way, set the stage, Roger Boisinais first, with

what is going on with Woolen Mills Court. You know, we postponed this show for months and months because we wanted to have at least some hurdle that we've achieved, some flagstone event. We finally did a couple of Fridays ago. It was a relief. So here's the story. I moved into the Woolamills in 1982.

And I would drive by this house on 16th and East Market for a decade and I thought this was the worst house in the neighborhood. But then some woman bought it and fixed up a bit and then she put it on the market and I bought it. I had to beat out, I beat out Oliver by one day. Oliver Kootner. Yeah, he wanted to buy it for parking. He wanted to put a parking lot in the backyard. But I saw a great backyard for a second home. The first house is facing East

Market Street. Judah's got the picture on the screen here. You can give us a thumbs up when it's on screen. He'll let us know. I'll let you know when it's on screen now. Good job, Judah. Yeah. So that's what it looked like for 28 years. Then I decided to make an application under the new city zoning. So it's a 10,000 square foot lot. And to do a second home in the backyard facing 16th, I would have needed 12,000 square foot. Under the old code. Yeah. And there was no way of getting around that.

We tried. Richard counseled me about maybe doing a PUD or something, but it never got anywhere. So the new zoning, it's called, is where are RA zoning? RA, yeah. The new zoning allow for this possible sub-block creation. So Judah, maybe you can go to the current picture, which shows the same house with the vinyl siding removed. On screen.

Yeah. And then the third is the plat, the sub-lots. So here's what I had to offer. I knew how to assemble a team, obviously Richard. Daniel Hyre is our engineer, Richard's engineer for East High Condominiums. And we both work with Mike Sadler, our Charlottesville area builders. He's the third member of the team. And of course we wanted to use Brian and Roger Ray to do the surveying. So we made this application the same day the city first allowed it to be.

Which was February of 2024, February 17th, if I recall. That's right. And we were the first day. Richard was told to apply online, which he did and it didn't quite work that way. So we applied manually. So once you make an application, we're kind of hoping for the best. And I think it took 90 days to get a response, was it? Do you recall?

On the first submission package, which is the prescribed time. That's right. So you apply in February of 2024 and 90 days later, you get first contact from the city. Well, the first, no, not the first contact, but the first round of comments, official feedback from the city. Yeah. Okay.

Official, official feedback. And that's the regulation to give a response in 90 days, I believe. So we had pre-submission meetings, Richard and Daniel, with the city. So they were aware of what we were doing. In fact, James Fries, who was in charge at the time, at the TomTom Festival. He was the head of neighborhood development at the time. Yeah, he said at TomTom, when I was in the audience, that our little project was his favorite,

which gave me encouragement. But that was just his, that just shows you that they had been aware of it. So that takes us to April of 2024. And they asked us to do things like, tell them what was the flow rate of the nearest fire hydrant. I remember that one as being one of the comments. Yeah.

You remember some others? Yeah, no, those are the typical kinds of comments we'd expect to get from the city on a development review process, so nothing out of the ordinary except, of course, the storm water issue. Yeah. So think about the storm water issue. Yeah. So think about the city's point of view. They have to look at it for all the utilities are underground. So that's a big vector.

Making sure everything would work because we're going to have new sewer and water connections. Of course there's electricity overhead and it has to be a room for the easement for these connections. So I think a lot of it was dealing with the utility ideas behind the scenes and storm water is the one that Richard just pointed out is a sticky wicket. Comments are already coming in. Neil Williamson, president of the free enterprise forum watching the program. He says for what it's worth, per neighborhood development services presentation at city council Monday, since May 2024 to May of 2025, there have been 90 preapplication meetings, 20 applications filed, and only three projects approved under the new zoning ordinance. Only three approved. And he's giving a little background and color here,

Neil Williamson, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum. Elected officials from four jurisdictions now watching the program, as well as Legacy Media. Woolen Mills Court, you said at least 15 months, kind of hitting it's a labor of love much longer than 15 months. When was this idea first birthed? I'm sorry, the idea for the project?

Yeah. Talking about? When did you guys, when would you say that you first started working on this? Well, Roger and I have been talking about this property for years. I mean, he was interested in doing something and it made perfect sense to me as an infill project in the city, probably 10 years ago we first talked about it, I guess. But the zoning ordinance just didn't allow anything. You could have put an accessory unit back there, but not a subdivision and a separate piece of property there.

So when the new zoning ordinance was passed, that opened up the opportunity for us to get serious about doing this project. Why so long from application submittal? You guys were the first ones, I think, probably to submit when the NZO was official. To this point, we don't even have a shovel cracked it. Not a shovel on the ground. No. No.

Do you say why does it take so long? Yeah. Why so long? Well, that's the big question. We don't know. I mean, you'd have to ask the city, I guess. Well, we, I mean, yeah, we got comments on the first round of submission, but more than a year ago. Yeah.

And the sticking point here has been stormwater. And this is, it's an issue without going into too much detail about it. It's, the city has various touch points when you have to file a stormwater management plan for an entire project. And this project is over one of those limits. So we were faced with a project that we needed to file a stormwater plan in order to get it approved,

but a site that is too small and financially not viable really to do a full-fledged stormwater management plan here. And it's an issue that we made the city aware of, several of us made the city aware of during the process when they were writing the code. And our initial conversations with the city before we submitted was everyone understood this was going to be an issue and that the city was going to be working on revising their regulations so this kind of project can move forward. forward and they are still in the process of revising, working on trying to revise the stormwater rakes so that these small landfill projects can move forward like that.

Can you gentlemen give us the layman's flip book of this project? Existing structure, new structures, layman's flip-off. So if it's zoned RA and if you keep the existing home, you can build an additional three or even six more units. Six would come with a caveat that have to be affordable. We chose to do three single-family detached. We could have done town homes or attached, for instance.

Richard did a number of studies. Keeping the existing one was key. I wanted to keep it all along. It's a nice house. Ended up selling it to Dave McNair and his sister. And his son Cole lived there for free for almost the whole time we were going through this. Six-bedroom, I'm going to tell you like numbers because people who are listening might want to know that.

Yeah. Six-bedroom, two bath home with two meters exterior entrance to the lower level. Sold for $295 on sub lot four. So, Judah, can you put up the plat maybe? If it's on the screen, the sub lot four is the left rectangle that has the house rectangle inside it. So, that's already closed. So, I don't own it anymore.

Dave owns it. He's going to use Ben Myrtle's company, Rex, to renovate it. And that should be started any day now. And then we have sub lot one, two, and three. And the team has already expressed an interest in buying each lot. Like Richard's going to get one. And Mike's going to get either two or one.

Daniel would like one. But I think Mike's going to get two, Mike Sadler, the other member of the, I call him the team because it takes a whole team to get this done, which is one of the lessons I've learned and whoever's listening, if they have any property like this, I have some lessons to share with them. You have a team of experts. I mean, Richard, Daniel, Mike Sadler, Brian Ray, you, Roger, how do you do a project like that without this kind of institutional memory?

Now, there's a great question. I think this was for us and for the city, a kind of a trial balloon. You're the beta. That's part of the reason why I think I'm doing this and working with Roger on this. You know, for someone to hire this team off the street to do... It'd be too expensive.

Probably be pretty expensive, yeah. So we're all kind of doing this. We'll all have some equity in the project at the end, but for us it's just kind of a test here to see what we can make work. This in a lot of ways, you know, I've been thinking more about this the older I get with kids and a wife here. This in a lot of ways is going to be tied to your professional legacies in Charlottesville. You know, the first project potentially under this new zoning ordinance, you guys are the guinea pigs here. Yeah, that seems to be my specialty. Being guinea pig, yeah, exactly. Well, apropos, Richard did Rivers Edge, River Bluff,

1130 condominiums. Which I think are a milestone project on High Street. I sincerely mean that, not just because you're here. That is, I mean, your resume, one of the most milestone projects, I would say, on your resume. Well, I appreciate that. And I think there was a lot of, I've had a lot of great compliments and comments about the project over the year.

A lot of people would like to see more projects like that in Charlottesville. And I would love to do more projects like that in Charlottesville. And I would love to do more projects like that, but I think, you know, some of these zoning issues just need to get, or the planning issues need to get resolved before we can, I think the flood gates are going to open here, so yeah. So, apropos to your question about expenses,

it cost me $44,000 to do all this plus lost income on the house for a year and a quarter. So someone would have to be prepared to spend at least that much. So you figure six, is it six bedrooms, two baths? Yeah. I mean you figure a house like that rents for probably $4,000 a month, easy peasy in that location. Well I didn't charge that much because it wasn't in great condition. So I had a tenant there for 15 years in a row. There's somewhere between, I'd say what, close to $100,000 of lost income here.

Yeah, exactly. I mean is that your number? Yeah, so here's what I would like to tell people who have property that they should look for a parcel that's on the side street that has road frontage in two places like I did? A corner lot. A corner lot because if there was 10 lots on that block and the only there's only two on the end a corner lot Joe Milby's in mine the people in between don't have as much latitude to do what I'm doing. Well, that's why Evergreen targeted 303 Alderman Rd. Yeah. And Lewis Mountain because it had the road, it was a corner lot.

Yeah. And go ahead. The other thing I learned is someone, if someone has property, instead of trying to sell it for a high price because it can be rezoned like so many people are doing. Which is all that's happening now. Like Chesapeake, it's been on the market for two years. Instead of doing that, they should do what I'm doing is hire a team and develop it oneself. Now not many people have the background or the vision or the bandwidth.

But they would have to hire Richard and Dan to get going. Well, yeah, let me throw in a plug for I just resigned from a great group called Incremental Development Alliance, which is a national organization that helps small property-owner cities do do small scale infill development and help just average Joe become developers. And so I think incrementaldevelopment.org, if you're interested, it's a great resource,

but I think that kind of organization is the kind of organization that's needed to help small property owners become their own developers. And quite frankly, it doesn't make sense to try to sell a property to a professional developer to do this kind of development. The numbers just don't work. So I think the future of this kind of small development is property owners doing it themselves with support from, you know, ideally we could turn this into a quick and easy service that we could help small property owners with, with just a very small amount of money to do some consulting and help with this and let them do it themselves.

But I think we're a ways away from that. I think you're right. Yeah. I got so much I want to ask you guys. I have so much. I love this topic here. One of the viewers and listeners that lives in the city that is currently on his ranch in Montana has comets that he's watching.

We call him deep throat. And he says, he has data, he pours through data like no one I've seen. He says, neighborhood development services now has a better database of the projects going on. Of the 715 approved and not under construction units, it looks like under 20 of them are with the new zoning ordinance. Of the more than 900 units that

are under construction currently, every single one is under the old zoning code. And he says, and he wants me to ask you guys, is that an indication, that data, that this new zoning ordinance needs to be revamped completely or maybe currently a flop? No, I don't think so. I think the, I don't think it has anything to do with the zoning ordinance actually.

I think the, if anything, the new zoning ordinance probably makes it easier to develop more properties in more different ways. There's probably some properties that were down zoned as part of that process, which happens all the time. So there's probably a number of things that are going on right now because of market conditions and because they might have lost some potential or had already had some momentum going under the old code. My perspective is the new zoning ordinance is from my perspective

as a designer developer is far superior to the old code. It makes things easier. There are more options available. That said, there are, and I think the city is well aware of this, there are plenty of bugs and tweaks that are needed in the new zoning ordinance to really to make it bring it up to its potential, let's say. And certainly the process that we're going through now indicates that there's other things that need to be fixed

here, too. But I think from my perspective, the new zoning ordinance is a great improvement over what we had before. Yeah, it's way too soon to call it a flop. Think about sports trade. You can't judge the trade until two, three, four years down the road. It's been 16 months.

Yeah, but that's not very much in this world of real estate. Okay. And like Richard said, it's going to offer more opportunities. Well, by the way, my neighbor, Charles Woolheater, to the east, he's ecstatic about this. You wouldn't think so because it's going to have three new homes that will be facing his backyard. But he thinks, I didn't have to sell him on this. He was immediately taken with the idea

and thought it was great to improve the neighborhood. So we're going to have four new homes basically soon. I don't know when now because that's the next big question. When do we apply for a building permit? But just think of this, if this process took six months instead of 15, we could have had all those homes built already. And the city would have been receiving

additional tax revenue. $20,000 a year instead of $3,000 a year in real estate taxes. Michael Corbett watching the program. Roger and Richard are true visionaries, he says. I cannot wait to see this project and what they create. A lot of realtors watching the program here. We got builders watching the program here. I got your architect colleagues watching here.

It seems you guys are the experts. I'm just a layman that likes to dabble in real estate. Maybe you want to put up the images of the future here. Yes, Judah, could you please put up Richard's site plans? Site plan on the aerial shots there. And give us a thumbs up when those are on screen. And then we have probably half a dozen questions for you

guys here. The aerial would be good. That's on screen, the aerial. OK, and then maybe go to the site plans. I think we have two or three of those. So yeah, it's a, I mean, the site is kind of a slam dunk from an infill perspective. It's on a corner lot and the neighboring properties are all in similar size and scale. So I think it's going to feel very much like a neighborhood that's been there for a long time when we're done, as you can see from the images there.

I think the origin of this code really comes from the question of how do we infill, how do we increase density in the city without changing the character of the city? And the logical solution there, what's happened in the past is tear downs and building bigger buildings in place of smaller buildings. Which is what Evergreen wanted to do in Lewis Mountain with the six brown soots which caused a lot of friction. And I think that this new zoning ordinance does encourage deliberately with some development bonuses for keeping existing units to do infill in scale and in character and kind of in keeping

with what's there which has been our intent all along here. So I think we've been kind of successful, come up with a successful approach to kind of give the city a positive example of what the new zoning ordinance can do here. So that's I think what our... Do we have the pictures on the screen of the new homes? Yeah, he's been rotating them on. And you can call for exactly what you want. He can put them on.

Well, they're all, I don't know what's up there now, but they're all good. They'll show three new homes on their own little lot. The lots are about 2200 square foot each. They're, you know, the dimensions? Some lots, about 40 by 50, 45 by 50. Yeah, they're small lots, city lots. They're, you know, it's not a large suburban house. There's small lots, city lots there.

It's not a large suburban house. It is a single family detached house in the city. How many square feet each house? Well we haven't finalized the design yet, but around 1,500 above grade. Finished basements? Modest side, optionally, yes. I just left Huntley, you know Huntley RR buyers homes and Huntley guys to put those in perspective behind

Dirty Nellies down Strimpling Avenue. Yeah. Very small lots. I just left her because it's gonna be kind of similar those houses will be a little bit bigger. Those are pretty big houses. They're 850 square foot on each floor. Yep. And I'm thinking 700 maybe. 700, 750, yeah. Yeah. And that basement may or may not be finished or it could be semi-finished. Richard and Mike will have a final say on all that. We have to build homes that will be sellable or at least rentable.

And we don't know the price yet. I have to ask you, what's back of the napkin price point? Well you know, houses like this are always $300 a square foot. Okay, so $300 a foot. I tried to keep the lots as low as possible. Did we talk about lot prices? So there will be retail 110. So to give you an idea, down the street at Rivers Edge, at the end of Chesapeake, I sold a lot. On

paper it's larger, but it's all in the floodplain and it's steep for $2.30, four months ago. So $1.10 is pretty fair, but we want to keep the prices as low as possible. But we want to keep the prices as low as possible. So who knows what the prices are going to end up with? We don't know right now. So walk us through the mechanics of the deal here. You sell the lots? We're going to sell the lots.

Roger Voisonet. I'll sell the lots. You guys, you buy a lot? Yep. I'm buying one lot. One lot? One of your partners in this deal is buying one, maybe two. Mike Sadler wants two. Okay, Mike Sadler wants two.

That's the builder. Yeah, Charlottesville area builders. Okay. And Sadler constructs the three homes? Yes. He'll build, well, at least he may turn around and sell one of his lots too. I don't know, but he'll build at least one house. I'll build a house. Mike may or may not be the contractor for that. And then a third lot, and that will be a different contractor

on the existing. So he's thinking Sadler, I'm just talking out loud here, three guys on a talk show are at the bar. Sadler's thinking if he buys two lots, homes are constructed, the value of the lot should he sell the second one, is going to uptick because you've have brand new homes right there next door. Just talking out loud. A lot of that is dependent on market and all that.

It may be advantageous for him to build and hold. He might sell the lot. He might sell the spec house. He never said that to us. I always thought we built three houses at the same time. It's more efficient. Sure. Because these homes are not really in his sweet spot because Mike's more of a 800,000 to 1.5 million guy. Yeah, he's a single family detached 3,000 to 5,000 square foot guy.

Yeah, but he lives, his office is three blocks away. Right. We're all friends. He builds a great house. He does. I would be so thrilled if he built these homes. I think he will. We're talking 1500 finished square feet at 300 foot. So that's about what, 4 quick math 450,000?

Yeah, but then there's the basement. And then the lot set, we're valuing it at $1.10. So we're at $5.60. $300 is usually, for instance, if you took a house in Huntley that's sold, it would be $300 a square foot, which includes the lot. A footing lot, right. So I would say what we're talking about is a house that's

more like 2,000 square feet, or 21 times 3. Yeah, it's got the basement as well. So it's probably up, I would guess, easily north of 600,000 by the time we're done. When you guys come to market north of 600. Probably. Because you guys have to factor in, obviously, realtor fees, closing costs, recording, all the carrying

costs. Well, construction is what it is. We all know land, labor and lumber. Lumber is not going down and labor is certainly not. Land I tried to keep low or reasonable. Let me ask you this question. Tough question for you here, Richard. When you sell what you build, which frankly could be maybe you guys come in a market in this is crazy to say spring 2027. Well hopefully before that

but yes it's possible I mean it could be that long. Because we don't have a permit right? No we don't have a permit yet. We haven't applied for it yet. Right. So is spring 2027 reasonable? Well I thought sooner than that. I hope sooner than that. A permit doesn't take that long. Is it too aggressive to say the spring 2026 market? I doubt we'll make that.

We might make the fall. I think at that point you probably may want to hold to spring 2027. So if you go to market spring 2027 with a six, a six handle there, tough question. Does Richard Price make money on this? Considering everything, the opportunity cost of your time? The big question for me, yeah, I mean, you know, there's a question of holding for a long-term gain versus selling. That's a decision I haven't made yet. Part of that's going to depend on the market and interest rates. Right now, things don't look very favorable to hold it and

rent it, so I may have to sell it. And I don't know. The bottom line is I don't know. And if we're building in a recession, of course, that's going to be another factor. I don't think, the bottom line is I don't know. And if we're building in a recession, of course, that's going to be another factor. I don't think it will be a recession. Well, it wouldn't be the first time that I have built in a recession. That's why people don't usually spec build. Yeah, exactly. I did spec houses in 2007.

It was pretty bad in those times. Chosen place. I finished a couple right as things crashed in 2008. It was painful. A lot of folks coming in, a lot of questions coming in. We'll highlight some of the viewers and listeners. Park, is it Muth? Park Muth.

Muth, sorry. Muth the 8th. Michael Reisenberg watching the program. Eric Murphy, you got legacy media all over this, electeds all over this, builders, realtors and bankers all over this. Got to talk about the lawsuit with the new zoning ordinance. We have plaintiffs that have tied this up in court for an extended period of time. Crazy to say this, it is not going to

have its day in court, this new zoning lawsuit, until June of 2026. Why is that? Which is bananas, more than a year. I couldn't tell you that. I'm not an attorney. I couldn't tell you why it's taken that long. The city has operated without a city attorney for an extended period of time. They just got one. Okay. There's now one higher. Open ended question first. Does the new zoning ordinance lawsuit give you pause, keep you up at night, concern you at all, or is that just called the cost of doing business

and something you just have to navigate? Well, that's a good question. I mean, there's always, there's a million things that can go wrong in a development project. So on one hand, it's just like, well, just one more thing I've got to deal with down the road. And I guess it's like airplane crashes. It's a remote possibility, but it's not something I obsess about every day.

I'm more worried about interest rates than I am about the zoning ordinance at this point. My understanding, I say that in my understanding is we have the property subdivided and recorded and that at that point we can't go backwards on that. We have buildable lots and that's invested at this point. I'm not an attorney obviously so that I may be misunderstanding the whole point here but my understanding is, you know, now that the lots are recorded we're safe. That would be a natural segue for me. I'll throw it to you.

Last week we had Jerry Cox on the show. He is an attorney. He lives in the Lewis Mountain neighborhood and he's the managing director of the Forerunner Foundation that's following zoning all over the Commonwealth, all over the country. He highlighted on the show listings in Arlington County, which I mentioned to you guys, that are now on the market for sale that have caveats in their listings and the marketing of the actual house that says this home was built under the Arlington zoning ordinance that is currently tied up in court. Arlington County has appealed this

zoning ordinance to make it basically legal, homeowners are fighting against it and the language says that if the homeowners win that are fighting the zoning ordinance, this house could be, may have to be torn down. That language is literally in the listing agreement and he showed it to us on the show. This is the first I've heard of this, again, something we, our attorney has not raised that concern with us. So I don't know where that stands. Maybe the Charlottesville's lawsuit is different somehow.

Neither of us are lawyers here. Yeah, so I don't know what the issue is. It didn't give me pause, but I would have been concerned, had the city like suspended reviews and said, we're not going to go any further. But they proceeded with confidence and they approved our subdivision to the sub lots. And Bill Tucker closed on sub lot four with his title company.

And they have title insurance on the property. They have title insurance. It was a 1031 exchange. And I tell you who, you know, David bought it He's local. He's a reporter. He was well aware of any lawsuits and he didn't He wasn't concerned. So That's about all I know

I'll be selling the lot so I don't have the same exposure as Someone who would build a house. I understand that. I can't imagine a city getting away with tearing down a brand new home in this day and age. I understand that. Maybe pay a penalty or something. Comments coming in. This is an intriguing one for Richard.

Why not hold what you build and keep it as a rental? Well, that's my first choice. And it's really, it's really going to come down to the economics. If I can get a decent return on my capital and that's going to come down to what the market is like when we're done and what the interest rates are, that kind of thing. So it's... Can I put it in perspective what you're saying? Sure. So he's going to take

a construction loan to build a house. Yes. And there's going to be carrying costs on that loan to build the house. Right. And whatever that carrying cost is, it's X. If he can rent it for X plus, then he may consider renting the house. Exactly. If he rents it for X minus, then that's what he you consider selling it. Then I'm losing money. That's what you're saying. Yeah, and you know, I can be as public spirited as I want to, but on the other hand, I, you know, losing money on real estate. We're all business people. Yeah, we've got to earn a living. We have to...

But eventually he will sell it, because everybody does. Eventually I'll sell it. I eventually sold it. I've owned this one over 28 years. Yeah, and there's some other considerations too. I think largely, you know, that have nothing to do with this specific project about how big or small my rental portfolio is. You know, does this fit in with what I'm doing?

I just sold a rental property because I was tired of maintaining it, but this will be a brand new, potentially a brand new rental property which is easier to maintain. So a better deal for me. So yeah. New construction, easier to maintain guys than construction that's been around for a while. So what are you saying? Here's a fantastic question. Richard, why not attach inventory or attach product with this project?

That's a great question. Well, we alluded to that already. Yeah, no, we did look at that. And I think it's a great question. For me, the big advantage of doing single family detached like this is just the flexibility. When you're building attached units, they really need to be to really be have an economy of scale with the attached units. They need to be built all at once. And by having you know four separate projects, one I think it fits better into

the neighborhood into the context and then it also gives us more flexibility about you know do we build all three at once, one into the neighborhood, into the context, and then it also gives us more flexibility about, you know, do we build all three at once, one after the other, one now, one 10 years from now, that kind of thing. So it's... And we really wanted the neighborhood to be happy and we wanted these homes to look like in a couple years that they belong here.

They belong here, yeah. When the trees grow up, it looks like they've been there a long time. I think what you guys did, and you guys are super smart, and you guys got your pulse on Charlottesville, you came to market with the project where the project fits in with the neighborhood feel and I hate to compare and contrast with what they were trying to do in Lewis Mountain. Yeah. But they built something that was going to tower over all the other homes and just not fit the neighborhood profile and because of that they they face significant

friction. You know, think about this. You guys were both first to market at the same time. First to market at the same time. You guys have been embraced by the community. Almost the red carpet rolled out where the other project immediately fighting tooth and nail against it. And it comes to market at the same time. Well, it might have to do something with the neighborhood itself too. Willow Mills is pretty Tony and wealthy and to do these days as well. I know Lewis Mountain is. I don't know that particular part of Willow Mills is necessarily that Tony, I think. It's nice, solid, I would say, neighborhood. But I have not heard any pushback from the neighbors.

I haven't heard a single ounce of pushback. Well, no. I just told you, Charles is all for it. Now, if you look at 1317 East Market on 16, the house directly to the west on the 13, 15, sold for I think 500, two-story brick, older house, and then he put on a half a million dollar addition in the back with Halcyon Construction. He's got like a million dollars in that home. He'll be ecstatic.

Yeah, because it's another compound there that just, right. Yeah, we're helping him. And then the other three homes are nice smaller homes. Never see anybody out there, or I would talk to them. I've literally never seen anyone in the other three homes. They all keep to themselves. You know, it does bring up, I think we had a, when I was on with Bob Pinio a couple years back, we had a discussion. Also an architect.

Also an architect and developer. Constantly walking around the downtown mall on the phone, Bob Pinio, always on the phone. He lives in the neighborhood. But one of our discussion points there, which I thought was relevant, is that the small scale development like this is really design centric. You really have to think, it doesn't generally lend itself to just grabbing something off the shelf and plopping it down. You really have to look at the context and the approach that's going to fit in and work there.

So I can't speak to the other project, but I know that. You're saying the temperature of the neighborhood. Yeah. From my perspective, trying to fit in is generally a good design strategy. We called it the bull in the china shop strategy with Louis Mountain, where we called you guys the strategy with what's like your team player.

Trying to be, yeah. Just think, we could have done one house in the back that was 3,500 square feet that wouldn't fit in as well. We wouldn't be as proud of it. It would have been easier. Less friction. Definitely. Might have made it path to profitability much quicker.

We might have actually had that built by now. But it's kind of par for the course of me. I take the long, stubborn route instead of the short, easy route. Well I think things that take slow time or slow progress are usually lasting and something we're more proud of. That's certainly how I talk about the Icerino project. I can't wait to talk about that. Questions continue to come in. This is an interesting one. Can the panel give any insight into the city's ability or performance with carrying

out ministerial acts approvals and how they become either more efficient or less efficient. Well, all I know is it's taken, it was semi-opaque. The whole process, there's a dashboard which maybe Judah can put on the, I took three screenshots of our dashboard, which is the interface between a project applicant and the city. It shows you how many, you can see on the screen how many lines there are. Each one is a individual or department who had to review this process or project, and then they had to pass it on to someone else.

Some of them have hyperlinks to their comments. So that was our connection to the city, say for emailing Ben Colby or Matt Alfell or Kelly Brown or James Freese, who are all really great to work with and very personable. I have a lot of good feelings about interacting with them. But mostly I didn't, neither of us knew what was going on in between answering their questions or resubmitting something and then waiting for a response. I think there's, the city is certainly improving their responsiveness on these kinds of things.

I think there's a bit of a culture shift that I think is in process now from one of being, you know, kind of a strict regulatory enforcer to looking at the big picture here, which is we're trying to get more housing built and we have a shared goal between the development community and the city which is to make that happen. And so I think that shift is ongoing right now that, you know, the question becomes not have they dotted every I and crossed every T but have they, can we work together

to solve the problems, you know, the city has, clearly always has issues with development which are generally, make sense. And the logical strategy in my mind is to work in tandem with developers to resolve the issues to achieve our common goal which is to build more housing here. And I think the city is working towards that goal now. I think they've got a ways to go yet but I think it's, I could definitely have seen an improvement over the years in NDS and the city in general.

So. Yeah. It would be great if there was like an ombudsman or a developer's internal representative who could sort of help shepherd it through. A facilitator. Yeah, a facilitator who we could, not just the neighborhood development guy, but someone who's really in charge of making sure that something gets done on time or, you know, people behind the scenes are on vacation or don't understand something or just forget That would be great to see if there was an ombudsman or a facilitator

We'll highlight some of the viewers and listeners here Nora Gaffney Philip Dowl William McChesney Tina Bryant Logan Wells Claylow Vanessa Park Hill Joanne Moore Barbara T, just a few that are watching the program here. Comments continue to come in. We'll try to get to as many of these as possible. Question for Richard and Roger. What are their thoughts on how some of these properties are marketed with their zoning opportunity which seems to be driving up asking prices? Do they think the asking prices are justified or are they pipe dreams? Well, I mentioned that at the beginning how I don't think that's a great approach for a

homeowner to look at what we're doing and say I want to sell my little house for 400 or 500 and we use that listing on Chesapeake Street as an example where they're touting doing something like this but it's not nearly as practical. I'd love to see whoever owns that property to hire Richard and Daniel and see what they could do. Well, I mean, this is not a new issue in the city. I think the real estate community, Rod, you probably will agree with me, but sees a lot of value in potential that is...

Opportunity. Opportunity, yeah, which is great, but you still have to spend a lot of money and time and effort to realize that potential. So I think in some ways that it's kind of a false, a false value added thing that yes, you can subdivide and get more units in here but, you know, the expense of doing that is you have to take that into consideration when you're actually. Yeah, the buyers are going to take a big risk. And so they're not going to pay a premium for a high risk, especially this time of the whole rezoning. It's just started.

They don't know for sure what they can do. Luckily, so I had a low basis, which is why I could do this. I wouldn't buy this for $400 and try to do it. Right. I understand that. I personally have some questions. Then we'll get to the viewers and listeners questions. Other projects in Charlottesville, you guys follow housing and development across the

board. What did you make of Jeff Levine's pursuit of trying to build that apartment tower where violent crown and asking for some wiggle room with the city on height and stories and floors. Did you guys follow that? Did you think it was a good project for Charlottesville? Did you think it was not a good fit for the mall? I mean, it's not going to materialize now so we can talk about it. Yeah, this is the project on the ‑‑ the movie theater. Violet crown. Violet crown.

Violet crown, that one, right. Okay. It's not going to happen so we can talk freely. Yeah, I mean the zoning ordinance is what it is. I think there is always room to dicker about what the right mass and allowable volume should be in these things and it's supposedly going through a public process. I mean I'm not surprised to hear they couldn't get it through the process.

I think that's, you know, asking for. Same with Keith Widdard's. I mean it took two years to sort to design it and get the utilities. By that time the prices of construction went up 20%. He needed another floor to be added and they said no. It's tough to make the numbers work? So Charlottesville is kind of a tricky market in the sense that our expenses are no different than they would be in the big city, you know, DC or DC area, something like that. But our rents and sale prices are a significant amount below those prices.

And so it is much, there's a very kind of narrow box at Charlottesville where you can actually make these kind of projects work, which is one of the reasons I sort of stick with single family wood frame simple projects that I know I can make work in that box in Charlottesville, getting into high-rise construction, which makes sense up in DC, can get pretty risky in this town, I think. It would be great to see more housing on the mall, but it would also be great to see the Viola Crown

stay there. I don't want to lose that place. I don't want to lose it either. I am concerned about the viability financially and the business model of a movie theater, especially with a market that has three of them, and it's not a large market. And they've already highlighted the previous owners

that the movie theater business there was not viable. So I'm concerned as someone who has a stake in this building having another Dewberry on the mall. Because that particular structure, you know this better than I do, is not really set up to convey to other use. I mean, we have rooms with no windows that are massive. I mean, a movie theater.

That's my concern. Sure, and truth be told, I think the movie theater is an important part of the viability of the downtown area. So I think, well, it's kind of a side effect, but I think there are other ownership models that might come into play to make a movie theater there viable, like community-supported. That is the kind of facility I think a community probably could get behind. So who owns that now?

It's not Dorothy anymore? So, no, no, no. It's the owner of the business is a movie operating business company out of Texas, out of Austin. Well, Viola Cron. Yeah. I know that. The previous owner was also the operator of the business. The owner of the real estate was also the operator of the business the owner of the real estate was also the operator of the business and the The owner of the real estate said I want to get out of this operating this business

So they sold the business operations to another movie operator. There's less than three years left on that lease So but I was Dorothy Batten used to own the building. Yeah, she she did the lease out regal. She's out. She's out Yeah, so whoever bought it from her may have a vision of something and used to own the building. Yep. She did the lease with Regal. She's out. She's out. So whoever bought it from her may have a vision of something. Whoever bought it from her had a kind of, I don't want to use the word backdoor, but kind of had a side deal in place with Jeff Levine to develop it once the lease expired.

I got other questions are coming in, and I'm mindful of your time here. Very curious of both your takes on multifamily housing. You have four significant development projects. There's the old Ivy residence with Greystar on the 250 bypass and old Ivy Road. Huge. 525 units coming there.

You have the Verve, which is being done by national developer Subtex. 1,332 beds, 463 units by Scott Stadium on Stadium Road. The Bloom, which is a National Developer up campus student living, they're doing 641 beds, 231 units by Moe's Barbecue on Ivy Road. And then you also have the University of Virginia that is trying to bring Darden

students on grounds for them to live there while the University of Virginia is trying to put second years on grounds, all second years. Right. When I went to UBA. The Ivy corridor there? Yeah. So you have minimum 1,437 multifamily units all coming online within like a year of each other. Yep.

While the University of Virginia is trying to get all of second years to live in student housing. Yeah. Seems from just layman's perspective that that's a lot of multifamily coming on at the same time where there's a lot of multifamily locally that's vacant. Yeah. Yeah, I just to go back to incremental development again, that organization, I think one of their key points which I think is right on target is that the real estate market in this country is basically bifurcated.

You've got big track developers doing large scale rental properties like the ones you just talked about. And there's single family guys doing single family houses and very little in the middle, very little in the middle. And that was part of the impetus behind the, my high street project to do what's been called the missing middle. And that to me is really the key to infill development in the city.

So there are a whole bunch of people who are not interested in living in a large rental, apartment rental complex, they don't particularly want single family detached in the suburbs, they're looking for something different. And that's the market that just isn't being addressed right now. Well, because it doesn't often pencil out. Yeah, and part of that is just the zoning ordinance has helped fix that.

Now, there are more opportunities once we can get things rolling, I think. But certainly that was my high street project was a success but probably not as successful as it should have been if we'd been able to move that along more quickly. So, yeah. Neil Williamson for you guys. He's got a question for you.

The number of units on Roger and Richard's project are below the 10 unit affordable housing trigger. Could it be viable if they had to provide 10% of their product as affordable at 60% AMI for 99 years? See, Neil already knows the answer to that question. That is a loaded question. But he wants you guys to answer this. Answer that directly.

The short answer, no. Absolutely not. Yeah. He's doing this because he's lobbying council to change this. Brian Pinkston, who just lost the spot on council, said it's a living breathing document and it's up to be changed.

But it hasn't been changed in 14 months, 15 months, when the development community has said, there's no way we can meet this criteria. Yeah, my first thought was keep it simple and simple is three houses not six and getting into affordable housing. We could have put six units there that would have included two units that have to meet the city's requirement for affordable housing. And that is in my mind was just a for this particular project, added risk to the project you're building, you know,

basically two more units that have to be, you know, filed with the city every year. Yeah, it would look congested. Think how much, how many more cars would have been on that little street. Probably start getting a little fireworks. Yeah, it would look congested. Think how much, how many more cars would have been on that little street. Probably start getting a little friction. Yeah, exactly. I can say that I've, you know, my projects have almost always included some kind of affordable

housing generally as an accessory unit. Yep. Under the, in the project, I have, where I live now has an accessory unit. The house I just sold had one. River Bluff has several houses with accessory units. That is the kind of affordable housing that it is relatively easy to include in these things. And I think that didn't happen on this project with Rodgers because of the, I would have loved to put six units on there, but the risk involved with the city's criteria gave me pause.

I understand what you're saying. Keep in mind the existing home facing East Market will have a one or two bedroom, one bath basement or terrace level living situation for friends or neighbors or whatever. So it's going to have two ways of living in that home. So it is addressing the Ford Blousing situation a little bit. We've got two more for Richard and then I want to get the T's on hockey. Okay. And then we'll wrap it up. This one's for Richard here. And I'm going to ask both of you guys this question last.

Would you guys do this again knowing what you know at this point? Would you do this project again? But first I would love for Richard to compare and contrast the High Street project with this. What has been more begging your head on the table or frustration? Well, I tell you, I... Because that was no easy task on High Street. It was not.

It was, in my opinion, unnecessarily complicated for a so-called by-right project. You said previous shows you would not do that project again. I said, well, I said, and until things change, I'm not going to do this kind of thing again. I certainly see the potential under the new code for things to change. I think they've got a ways to go yet. And I think we're learning a lot with this new process. Let's just say I don't want to categorically roll out never doing this again, but I'm, you know,

once the city kind of gets things fixed up and the process gets rolling, I would certainly consider doing more of this in the city. So, yeah. Okay. And then same question for both you guys before hockey. Would you do this again? I would. Yeah? The hockey?

No, no, this project. I got to get a hockey because he wants to talk hockey with you. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, he just asked. I'll answer. I would do it again. Yeah. The hockey? No, this project. I gotta get a hockey because he wants to talk hockey. I'll answer. I would do it again. Although I was, Chagrina took so long, I was sort of prepared for that and everything takes a long time. Apropos to just mention the ice arena project at UVA, it took 45 years. So 15 months is nothing.

So literally 45 years for me. Yeah. Less skin in the game for you, though. Which? With this project. With the Market Street project? Less skin in the game? You mean financially?

No, more skin in the game. I don't have a financial skin in the ice arena project. Oh, no, I meant with the other folks involved. Market Street. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, no, I would love to do more of this. I would love to do more projects like this, Market Street. What I would like to do is more of the...

You want to build the playbook to help people do this. That's what you want to do. Exactly. What I would like to do is to just... That's totally you. Just help people, so we can just kind of bang these out and do more of these quickly and not spend a lot of time kind of pushing these things through the process with the city. He's basically saying they're the beta test for pursuing this new zoning ordinance. He wants to create a playbook, the X's and O's of doing this, and when people approach

them he can charge a nominal consulting fee and say here's how to get from here to there. That's what you want to do. Right, sure. That's a business. Here's some quick sketches of how you can do this. You should totally do that. Yeah, and I'm doing that to a certain degree with a couple other projects right now, but I think that's sort of what the city needs is just kind of a, you know, people look at

their lot and say what can I do here? And well, how do you answer that question? You go to the city, the city can't really give you an answer to that. Richard is the guy. They'll say you can do this, this, this or this, but that doesn't really help. Totally get it. The average Joe or the average Josie is not going to be able to build the team that you give you an answer to that. You can do this, this, this or this, but that doesn't really help. Totally get it. The average Joe or the average Josie is not going to be able to build the team that you guys have, but they can call Richard and get the playbook of what to do.

Yeah, get a quick bit of quick advice about how to proceed on these things. I think that's really what the city needs. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. That's the best takeaway from this whole show. Yeah. Once we get things worked out, let's figure out a way to really apply this. Scale. Scale it up.

Scale it up. Roger, last one. I cannot. I'm going to try to pull this out of you here, but you're going to tease the community here. Hockey. Hockey, my friend. So if you know me, you know that I believe for good reason that the only way an ice rink or ice arena in this community will survive 50 to 100

years is if it's part of the University of Virginia and I've come to that conclusion through helping do this at Miami University in Ohio. So I've behind the scenes lobbied UVA since literally 1980. I can show you letters from the athletic department. I paused while we went through the ice park creation and then Main Street Arena, but when Mark and I and others decided to take Jeffrey's offer on selling it, we re-engaged. And there's, you know, the universe says it'll support you in your endeavors if you take a step forward and then another step. Well, one day a woman told my partner, Dan Smythe and I, you gentlemen have been working really hard.

You need fiscal assurance when dealing with UVA. You can start with $10 million from me, but I think it's a 20 or $30 million project. I trust there's other hockey families out there. All the best. So with that, we were able to finally get the attention of everybody at the universe from the Board of Visitors to Mark Llewellyn, President Ryan.

But we're ending up at the UVA Foundation. I'm not going to tell you anymore because I have such great respect for everybody I've worked with over there. We're about 30 to 60 days from really embodying this in a press release. Just to give you an idea, today I was at UVA alumni setting up an account so people can give us money. Officially has to go somewhere so you can get your tax deduction.

So I know Richard wants to make half a million dollar donation. So he's an alumni, it's gotta go somewhere. Anyways, no one would be more anxious to tell you the rest than me, but I've got to play this correctly. That's why we didn't come on the show about the real estate project too early either, because it wouldn't have been as impactful. But the next time I come on, I hope it's with my partner Dan and maybe Andrew Hickson, who's

the current coach. We could talk about past, present, and future. Love to do that. And where it's gonna be and who's gonna design it and what it's gonna be like and who's gonna go there and how many kids are we gonna serve. And we might even have a temporary rink somewhere, like at the Boer set or X, 60 by 100,

little ice rink for the winter time. Probably talking too much right now, but you wanted some teas. Oh, that was a hell of a tease. I got a lot more. That's a hell of a story. You're going to be so happy when you hear what I have to say. I cannot wait to hear it. I think it's going to be great for the community.

You guys have taken too much of your time, but it's been to the benefit of the viewers and listeners. I'm sorry for the questions and comments that we didn't get to. We've been going 71 minutes straight with these guys. And we're mindful of their time. The show is archived for those that are asking, wherever you get your social media or your podcasting content. And as multiple people have said in the feed, these are two of the good guys in the development business. And I absolutely concur. Roger Voizena and Richard Price and I have to highlight Judah Wickhour behind the camera. The show and the network do not operate without him. My name is Jerry Miller. Tomorrow's show,

the development team behind Seaville Smash, the new indoor pickleball facility that's being developed in the old Marshall's location on Route 29. Nearly ten indoor courts coming to an old retail location. Goodness gracious, wait till you hear what they have gone through to get to this point with the old Marshall's location and Seaville Smash, which is approaching a grand opening. Mark your calendars for 1230 tomorrow.

So long, everybody. How many pickleball courts will that be in Charlotte?