The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - What Should AlbCos Tax Revenue Goal Be?; Pros & Cons Of Back-To-School Impact On Small Biz

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: What Should AlbCos Tax Revenue Goal Be? Pros & Cons Of Back-To-School Impact On Small Biz List Of Business Development In The CVille Area: Stewart St. Dominos Becoming Mexican Restaurant Natalie Dressed Taking Over Former Eljo’s Spot Vu Noodles Moving To Cinema Taco Location Give & Take Coffee Assuming Spice Diva Footprint Tobey’s Pawn Shops Consolidating On Rio Road Ivy Apt Builders Raze Former Burned Down Hotel Conan Owen, Owner of Sir Speedy of Central VA, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Seville Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us. It's a Tuesday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville in our building and our studio on our network, the I Love Seville Network, and we have a lot we want to talk about today. Business development is the name of today's game. We're going to talk about who's moving, who's shaken, who's closing, and who's growing on today's program. And today's guest is Conan Owen.

He's the CEO and the owner of Sir Speedy of Central Virginia. This man is as connected from a biz-deaf standpoint as anyone I know in this community. He's arguably the second person small business owners in this area call. The first is someone like me who's going to coordinate a lease or some kind of connection with a landlord or some kind of real estate. The second person is Conan Owen. His company, Sir Speedy of Central Virginia, anything signage or logo related, he can take care of. You need a window decal. You need signage, Judah.

You need direct mail. You need a tri-pamphlet, a pamphlet, or a three-fold pamphlet. You need stickers. You need merchandise. You need glassware. You need pens. Anything that you can put a logo on. Sir Speedy of Central Virginia has you covered.

And goodness gracious, I've been looking forward to today's show. We're going to talk Almorel County as it pursues a mission to grow its commercial and business tax base. The current numbers of about 11. 3% of collections in Almaro County are tied to business and commercial. They want to get that number, the elected officials in Almara County, closer to 20%. We'll talk about that with Conan Owen. We'll talk about the impact of the University of Virginia and all the turmoil with Conan Owen. We're going to talk who's closing their restaurants, who closing their businesses, and who's opening new ones with Conan Owen. Today's program is locked and loaded, including some real estate development with an apartment building being turned down, being turned down, being turned into something special with a hotel being burnt down. Judah Wickhauer, off camera, studio camera, two shot. Let's welcome Sir Speedy's Conan Owen, my friend. Good Tuesday afternoon.

Good Tuesday to you, Jerry. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. We'll start open-ended. Scatter shooting like I do with Jerry Rackleff, anywhere you want to go. Sure. What's been in your notebook? What's been in your desk, the deal flow that you are seeing the temperature on the street

from an economy and business standpoint? What's on your brain? still strong. There has been a little softness in UVA purchasing. I've heard people not related to the research field saying we're putting that project on hold because our budget's been cut. One of our major clients last year was one of the advancement departments that did Jim Ryan's road shows. Well, there is no Jim Ryan. I don't know that alumni are going to come meet with an interim president on a road show.

So that segment of, you know, the UVA business isn't there anymore. But generally speaking, you know, there are a lot of new businesses that are, you know, constructing their new facilities, renovating, closed ones. And just generally speaking, I still see the economy being very strong in this region. What do you make at the Jim Ryan fiasco? It's a lot of self-inflicted wounds. You know, I don't know. all of the sequences, the things I've read, you know, it's just like there are certain rules.

If you want certain rules, you've got to play the game. And if you don't want the money, then, you know, go your own way like Hillsdale College did and College of the Ozarks. But if you're going to rely on federal funds, you need to comply with their mandates, whatever they happen to be, whether you agree with them or not. You know, just like once upon a time, every state had to raise its drinking age to 21 or they wouldn't get federal highway funds. You're a darting graduate. Lens, looking at it through the lens as someone who has origin blue in his body and somebody who's a business owner that knows that UVA is the driver of the economy locally. First, the emotional lens.

Ryan either pressured or voluntarily resigns. The Board of Visitors is under tremendous turmoil. There's speculation that if Abigail Spamberger wins the Governor's Mansion, which right now she looks like the frontrunner, that she may gut the board in totality. Few colleges or universities have been on the forefront of this DEI crossfire like UVA. Just a few in the Ivy League perhaps have superseded UVA with DEI drama. The emotional lens, unpack it for us. Yeah, that's what is going to be.

It is emotion because you hear people, you know, student counsel says we have, you know, vote or no confidence. It's like, that's nice. You know, I don't have any say in how Google handles my online ads, and they constantly do things that I don't like. I can vote no confidence all day long, but unless I vote with my wallet, it's really not going to make a difference. And the flip side of that is the university. If the university, you know, how much money do they have in their endowment?

$14 billion. $14 billion. How much do they get from the feds every year? It's like between $300 and $400 million. Okay, so you've got, what, a 40-year slush fund in your endowment that could replace? It just seems that they're missing the forest for the trees. You're saying that comment means why not operate without ties to the federal government if there, in fact, is overreach from the DOJ and from the Trump administration?

Is that what you're saying? If that's what it is, because if that's what you think it is, then you should decide accordingly. Just like you're saying, you know, well, Spanberger gut the Board of Visitors, it'd be pretty unprecedented. But like so many things, you know, be careful what you wish for because one day the shoe is going to be on the other foot. And you could have somebody come in and gut every college's board of visitors in the country on day one. Is that really the way you want to run your state? I don't think that's, you know, very productive because it's very short-term thinking. John Blair, welcome to the broadcast.

Georgia Gilmer, Rob Neal, thank you for watching the show. Jason Noble, Bob Yarborough, viewers and listeners, let us know your thoughts. Bobby Shada, welcome to the show. Comments already coming in. We'll get to them in a matter of moments. Let's get to the top headline, Al Morrow County. This is bananas to me. and this is flying under the radar,

and that's why you wanted to talk about it here. Al Morrow County is at 11.3% in tax collection with the line item, business and industrial, and it wants to get to closer to 20%, which is an astronomical leap. Yeah, almost double. Almost double. And right now the politics or the perception

of the push to 20% is we want to alleviate the burden on homeowners and their tax base, which I question. That's maybe the second topic. Question. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. For a minute. Okay. Open-ended, anywhere you want to go on this topic is you put the lower third on screen, Judah. Well, I'm old enough to remember 1986 when Ronald Reagan signed the TEFRA, which Congress promised $4 in spending cuts for every dollar in new taxes.

Well, they collected a dollar in new taxes, and they kept spending more money, they never cut it. So when I hear the Almar County Board of Supervisors say, we want to grow, we want to double our business tax revenue so that we don't have. We don't have to keep ratcheting up or real estate assessments or whatever the question is. Okay, great. I want to see that in writing with a mechanism that actually is going to be enforced and can't be overruled by future boards of visitors. That says when you reach a certain milestone, yeah, your assessments can go up, but as your assessment goes up, your tax rate goes down and that the dollars allocated

for schools from the residential property tax revenue stream stays fixed. you know and that's the way it used to be it used to be that as assessments went up tax rates went down so that they would be able to say this is how much we're going to spend on this line item in the budget every year and that way you know the taxpayers aren't are getting persecuted by living in a jurisdiction that has rising property values and it and it affects renters too because let's face it you know and if i'm not mistaken you know a non-owner occupied has a higher property tax rate than an owner-occupied building. So they're building in those property tax increases into your rent. Yeah, the taxes are passed down to tenants, guys. Don't listen to any politician. They're always passed down to the tenants. How do you increase tax collection with commercial and business by a 2x factor in Almarl County? Stop with the crazy zoning. Break it down. Well, you've got, you know, first of all, you know, what is that they say only X% of the county is developable?

5%. Yeah. Well, how are you going to squeeze what you need into that 5%? Especially if you don't have the site-ready locations. Yeah. You know, trying to find flex space, you know, for my business, for instance, where I need a small retail office component

and, you know, a fairly good size, wide open, industrial space with the loading dock. But you found it. I found it, but not in the county. I found it in the city of all. places. But there just weren't options out there. And there are lots of businesses, light manufacturing.

You just heard on the news. Icarus came out with a new knee brace and they 3D print those in Charlottesville. There are not many places in Charlottesville that have an existing building that has the electrical load that can handle that kind of 3D printing. They looked at my old space over on Harris Street

and they're just like, we'd blow the fuse here in about two minutes. Is that why you moved? Well, and I moved on my own. I needed a new space because my lease wasn't going to be renewed because someone else wanted to lease the whole building and they preferred to have the government

paycheck. You have a much better spot now. Oh, I love it. It's so much better. It's more convenient. It's better laid out. It's better suited for our business. We now have a garage

where we can bring in vehicles and do decaling for fleets. We've got plenty of room for our cats to run around. They love exploring. What are properties? Your landlord? They are. They routine.

watch the program. I'll throw this to you. If you're going to expand the tax base with business and industrial from 11.3% to closer to 20%, the fear is Almaro County's econ development team is going to pursue opportunities that will further gentrify Almaro County. They specifically folks that bring this concern up point to technology, biotechnology, data science, and data centers as ways they're going to try to expand the tax base. And these ways, are opportunities that may or may not cater to the old guard of Almaro County that's currently on the financial margin. Do you buy that argument?

No. Well, actually, yes, unless they pair proper housing development to go with it. You know, because if you're trying to put 10 pounds of people in a 5-pound county, you're going to end up with these problems that we've got now. But there is plenty of land out there. there's plenty of land that can be developed, put more housing on there, get it closer to where people work. I mean, if you look at all the growth north of the county, it's supporting Injik and the new North Fork area. That's the future.

It really is. And you can say, yeah, they're higher paying jobs and they're going to force other people out. It's like, well, not if you give them a nicer, higher pay, you know, a nicer more luxurious destination there so that they don't have to buy the 1940s ranch and tear it down. to put up their house for their four kids in the pool. Hutch Carpenter giving you props. Another UVA in Darden, he's a double who. He's watching the program, giving you some love. Vanessa Parkhill wants to follow up on what you said of lowering the tax rate on real estate

as the business commercial tax line item increases. She says, hasn't that happened elsewhere? It's happened in Nelson County. Nelson County is actually chosen to either drop or keep the real estate tax rate steady over a number of years because it's had incremental tax sources elsewhere to help fund its budget. Vanessa in Ehrlichville, we appreciate you watching the show. If you could pick a pocket in Almaro County, Charlottesville, or Central Virginia, a pocket or area of that region, county or city that has the most tailwinds or upside from a business development standpoint,

what would that pocket be and why? It would be one or two things. I think the whole Zion's Crossroads Fluvana area has a lot of upsides and not just because of the data centers, but things that can go, you know, even just business is something, you know, somebody like Icarus needs a manufacturing plant. They can keep their headquarters on Market Street. That's fine. But, you know, if you need a nice warehouse, you can move out there and build something relatively inexpensively. Your workers can live out there a lot more affordably, without a doubt. northern Almar County with all the biotech and defense going on up there, there's a lot of land

east and west of 29 that is pretty wide open. You drive back through Earleysville. Yeah, they've got some luxury developments up there, but there's still a lot of wide open spaces where you could put, you know, 100 townhouses or 100 single family homes in an area and not destroy the quality of life. Yeah, it's going to, there are going to be spots, but the people have to go somewhere. And if you want economic development, if you want to lower residential tax rates, you're either going to have to slash your spending,

which no one seems to have an appetite to do around here, or you're going to have to moderate that and just bring in more revenue. Conan Owen dropping knowledge here on the program. I drove to work this morning and got stuck in back-to-school traffic. The traffic is exponentially more significant now. I believe county school starts. tomorrow. The pros and cons of the impact of back to school on small business, Conan Owen.

Well, it's been generally good. Sure, a lot of people get their school supplies from the big boxes, but a lot of them are still, they're buying it locally, you know, and you can complain all you want about Sam's Club and Walmart and Staples and Costco, but they're at least employing people here in town and a lot of people. So, you know, that's a good thing. There are also a lot of great nonprofit organizations that are helping the community. You know, between backpack buddies and the back-to-school bash, there are a lot of folks that are getting involved, and they source a lot of their supplies from the local community. You know, I don't think people are going on Amazon and buying 100 backpacks to donate.

They're going to Staples or Sam's and at least buying it here in town. Jay Mulei, Yule, watching the program. And Mexico City, Mexico, I believe. I mean, Darden is representing right here with Conan Owen on the broadcast. podcast. Cons for back to school? Any at all? Well, I mean, because of all of the transportation problems we've had since COVID

with moving the schools, the traffic is bad. And the number, I'm just shocked at the number of parents who take their kids to school. And I get it on one hand. It's, you know, people say, well, it's a safety concern. But, you know, in my neighborhood out in Ivy, there's a bus stop on the corner. and there's usually one or two parents standing with six or eight kids. So they take turns kind of, you know, being the sheep dog. But, yeah, just the number of people who drop their kids off.

And Charlottesville also has a very high number of private schools that don't have transportation. So, you know, there's always that rush. You know, when my previous business was located over in Ivy Square, you know, you made sure you got in there before the St. Anne's crowd showed up. What do you make the Ivy Square? potential development. What do you make of that entire IBE quarter? UVA pays what 20 plus million dollars for Ivey Square.

UVA owns the Mo's barbecue location. The UVA is trying to connect the Boar's Head with the academic village and grounds proper. I mean, that stretch right there is primed for some repositioning. It is.

I just don't know that UVA is the one to be doing it. Wow. Why do you say that? Well, first of all, it contributes nothing to the tax base. other than their retail spend, which they would spend if they were located elsewhere on property UVA already owns. I think it is going to be very detrimental to, I mean, there are a lot of small businesses there that have been there a long time. Was Ivy Square Shopping Center a good shopping center to run a business out of? Well, mine was a little different because I wasn't customer facing.

It was a call center. So we were around back by the train tracks. I think Robert Radaferra has a photo studio. Actually, he took over the space right across from us. Ours was taken over by the escape room. So that worked fine. But, you know, the folks upstairs, they had a pizza hut for a while. That didn't last.

But, you know, the Eternal Addict, which is now for sale, has been there forever and expanded into their space. The vet has been there forever. There was one antique shop, Helen Story. She left town for a while. She's back now. out by Selvage further out on Ivy Road and that new Antiques Road where Comer, the folks across the street, moved out to. So that space has been vacant for a while.

But there, you know, there seemed to be, you know, a fair number of sustainable businesses in there. There's now a new yoga studio in that development. But it just, you know, UVA is a landlord as you never know when they're going to flick the switch and say, you know, we're going to turn this into administrative offices or foundation, you know, call center for soliciting alumni or, you know, they're just all over the place. And I think it would really, it would be a loss for the community to lose so many small businesses because that whole, you know, that whole, if you were to look at that strip all the way up to, you know, all the way up to the boar's head, you know, you've got Vivacchi, you've got

Shandoah Joe's, Shenandoah Joe's, you've got Pico Rap, yeah, Pico Rap, still there. You've got the dentist, you've got the vet at Ivy Square. got all the stuff around the backside of that you've got foods of all nations foods yeah foods has been yeah foods is a staple i can't imagine people you know looking at uva and saying oh gee thanks for you know telling foods to take a hike um you know it's not exactly a food grocery over there but it's still you know i'm always amazed people still have house accounts out there and they can charge their groceries it's really a step back in time but they have a great selection and great quality and the location and the convenience and the location is is great for so many people

out in the west part of town. Logan and Wells Claylow, welcome to the broadcast. Viewers and listeners, put your comments in the feed. William McChesney, Maria Marshall Barnes, watching the show. Multiple folks are asking for your take on Home Depot's impact on Almaro County in the area. I think it's going to be very positive, assuming they can get staff. I don't think people aren't working at Lowe's because Lowe's is a horrible place to work or they don't pay anything.

It's a competitive market out there. I'm not sure where Home Depot is getting their stuff. staff from, but good luck to them because that's the difference. That's why people don't like Lowe's as the customer experience is just atrocious. And hopefully the people they do get, they'll last. I don't know how many they're bringing in from other stores. I know when Costco opened a decade ago, they brought people in from other stores and relocated them to Charlottesville so that there was a certain amount of experience and culture that they were able to transfer. I hope it happens because it's, you know, A, it's a big part of the

It'll be a big part of the tax base in terms of at least retail sales. I don't know, you know, what kind of deal they got on the property itself. It will, I think, lead to, you know, more businesses going into that pretty blighted part between Elmar Square across Ryo Road and Fashion Square itself. And, you know, the out parcels, you don't need all that parking anymore. So I'm going to, I can see a lot of, you know, maybe a strip of businesses being added out in an island sort of like Barracks Road has where Ralph Samson's place is. Have you seen or do you continue to hear the headwinds with labor and hiring locally? To a certain extent. Less so, it's always going to be there in food service and in kind of the entry level.

But that's why it's entry level. You're not destined, you're not meant to be there very long. If you are, then that's, you know, a different conversation. But that's also, I think, what leads to a lot of the people leaving and saying, well, I didn't think I'd be here two years. and I haven't developed into anything else, so I'm just going to go figure something else out, and it kind of leaves a lot of that. But you also see the kiosks taking over,

and it's having a big impact. You look at what's happening with the new wall-waws and sheets and how you order your food when you go in there, and it eliminates that whole counter-issue, and it allows for a slightly more skilled employee that you can command a higher salary that is likely going to reduce your turnover. Christopher Ketchum giving you props?

He says Conan owns a wealth of knowledge. I'm always interested in hearing what Conan has to say. Christopher Ketchum is a talented and unicorn in a lot of ways, and that he's a real estate photographer and a realtor. And aerial photographer. Aerial photographer, he does drone photography, drone photography, and a realtor. What's the temperature you're hearing with real estate locally? Seeing a lot of cooling statistically.

Definitely slowing. Some of our real estate clients, we're seeing. fewer of kind of like the brochures for houses because they'll do those up front. And then if the property sits, they don't reorder because they're like, I'm not sure what's going on with this. But generally speaking, it's been, you know, it's been okay. But yeah, it's definitely been calling a lot. Interest rates haven't come down. It's been what a year now. Yeah, it's about the same for a year and change. So I think that has a lot to do with it. Not only are interest rates about the same for a year and change, but real estate values have upticked anywhere from

5 to 10% over the same period. So things have gotten more expensive. Yeah, so you've got, it's sort of like the, you know, the real estate tax rate and the value of the home. So, yeah, the rate may be the same, but now the value has gone up, so you're getting squeezed on that. And, of course, that's going to change when the new facilities come online here in the area, between the hotel, the data center, the other school. Biotech, yeah. biotech. And getting back to what you're saying about, you know, the UVA position, I've heard from

in the hotel industry that they're already pushing a lot of the on-campus needs to the not yet completed hotel and conference center away from the commercial independently owned properties in town. Well, it means that they're saying, well, you know, English department, if you want to have your annual retreat, you can't go to the graduate or to the Doyle. you have to go up Ivy Road and patronize our facility. So, again, they're competing against the business community at large. Ross Franklin, who I think is watching in the United Kingdom in London,

has watching the program and giving you some props right now on the show. Viewers and listeners, let us know your comments. We'll relay them live on air to Conan Owen on the show. And comments continue to come in. Curious of your take of what the most important drivers of the local local economy are. Clearly, UVA is number one. How would you, how would your top five round out there? Surprisingly, I think a lot of people don't realize this is defense and everything related to it. Injik, all of the civilian contractors, the JAG school. And I think that is something

that's going to grow. And it pairs very well with, you know, things like the School of Data Science and, and whatnot. Because, you know, the work that they do up there at Ravana Station and they just got a government grant to build more infrastructure, you know, sewer and electrical lines and whatnot for a future building. You know, they didn't give them that money just to put up a windmill. So you go, and we know the Department of, we know the defense sector is, we were to agree with the second largest drive for the economy. A few years ago, the County of Almaro, the County of Green, and the City of Charlottesville in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce Commission and analysis on the impact of the defense sector.

locally. And a few years ago, that impact was at $1.3 billion annually, and that number either is flat or slightly upticked, depending on who you ask, how would the rest of your top five look like? I mean, especially with real estate being potentially flat here, we may be looking at the first time at a little while, either flat or slightly down year, year over year, with total volume. Well, I'd say the flip side of real estate is construction. They're just the development piece between what UVA is building with the different private projects going on around town, that motel that burned down years ago, finally got raised to the ground, and it's the same folks that are doing the apartment building out on Ivy Road.

But, you know, again, with the zoning issues, that could very much be, a lot of the stuff could be put on hold, but you've still got all the housing going out at Old Trail. I was out there yesterday. That's crazy. you know, just a big, red, you know, big field of red dirt. Yeah. And I can't even remember where was the other place I was driving by. And it was like, wait a minute, where'd that come from?

And, yeah, they're, they're built. But they need it. You know, no question about it. So construction's a major part, but also all of the growth in the renovation. You've got, you know, new buildings, buildings being repurposed and they've got, you know, whether it's a small construction crew or kind of the more mid-sized folks like Nola builds, or you've got the big, you know, out-of-town folks like Whiting Turner doing the UVA Community Credit Union Headquarters.

Break that development down. Sorry? Talk about that. UVA community credit. I mean, it's going to be a beautiful building. They've already got the siding up. And it's, you know, I've talked to the folks at Whiting Turner. They're a client of ours, and they're essentially establishing an office in Charlottesville.

So they're planning on being here in the long haul for a lot of more projects, whether it's out at North Fork, Rivana Station, UVA, or just the general. general, you know, to the general area. You know, you've got Horrigan, you've got Nielsen, you've got Skanska, you've got Whiting Turner. They're everywhere. Clark is doing the big housing project up at Darden. You know, it's going to keep coming and, you know, more dorms coming on campus and, you know, things getting torn down and replaced.

Or, you know, in some cases, you could take that. down a small building and put up, you know, a large one. Rita's bright beginnings just had their grand opening out on Commonwealth. They had this little mid-century modern ranch office building and whoever the owner is pop the top on it and put this beautiful modern second story on and, you know, it's now triple the square footage. And it's a great new daycare facility. So they're taking advantage of the footprint, which kind of gets back to you, say, where's the

growth going to come from? Where are we going to build this tax revenue? It's doing things like that, you know, taking an existing building that may be underutilizing the footprint and, you know, building on that, you know, you look at the county office building, which, you know, don't get me started on why it's in the city and not in the county, but you've got that giant parking lot. Surely something could fit in there, whether it's, you know, they sell it off and make it a commercial thing or they make it, you know, affordable housing for first responders. I don't know, but there are lots of underutilized footprints in this area because it was developed, you know, 40, 50, 60 years ago when you weren't thinking up, you were thinking, you know, just kind of building something up. You didn't need to. It was like L.A. You know, L.A. grew out. You know, here they put so many limits on it that you can't grow out as much as you used to. So you've got to grow up. But, you know, also think about other things, not just so early in Charlottesville, the tire factory down in Scottsville. You know, the old... Dr. Hurd owns that.

Yeah, the old the old thread factory out on 151 that's now a tasting room. Yeah. But it's just like, really, that's the only thing you could put on this property? I mean, surely there's got to be some kind of tech manufacturing that could go out there. There's this wonderful building that looks like an old school out in Greenwood that's been sitting vacant for, I don't know, how long. Maybe the building isn't the thing that stays, but that footprint could bring something to a rural part of, you know, the area that isn't grapes or peaches. Neil Williamson watching the program right now, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, he shares a link.

Almore County was awarded a $9.7 million grant from the Virginia Business Ready Sites program. I'll read a few paragraphs from this for you, Conan. and he wants us to talk about this. This is a release on the Almaro County website. Almaro County has been awarded $9.7 million in Virginia Business Ready Sites Program development grants administrated by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership to support continued site readiness work at Rivana Futures. The Virginia Business Ready Sites Program partners with localities, utilities, and state agencies

to fund infrastructure improvements that create operations, ready sites. The grant will help ensure the Rivana Future site is project ready, providing an advantage in attracting projects and new jobs to Almaro County. Last sentence, then your take here, Neil, or your take here, Conan. Funding will be used to advance infrastructure design and complete pre-construction activities that prepare the property for future development. That's from Neil Williamson, the president of the Free Enterprise Forum, and then he's got some insight for you on the office building, but first

your take on what he just shared. Yeah, well, the question for me, I don't know the geography up there particularly, is that just within the bounds of Ravana Station? So is it really focused on just the defense? Because I didn't realize they had a security gate up there, and it's, you know, not Ravana Station because it's a cute name. It's, that's actually a military location designation, like Cameron Station used to be up in Alexandria or Vint Hill Station on the way up on 29. So it's actually a military base, so to speak. So if that's the case, then that kind of limits who it is that can be going in there, as opposed to if it's just in that general direction and it could be, you know, light industrial

tech offices. But I mean, but that's what we need because we don't have, we don't have developed space. We don't have recyclable facilities around here. There are very few of them. Neil Williamson appreciates the interview. He says the Albrough County office building was the old Lane High School location, and he's been told the asphalt parking lot that you guys are talking about is the current home of the old football stadium with the Almore County of Lane High School. I did not know that, Neil William McChesney, Bill McChesney, that's up your alley. Can you confirm Bill McChesney that the Almore County office building and its parking lot was the old football stadium at the old Lane High School?

I would love to know that. That would be great conversation fodder here. Comments continue to come quickly in. This one's an interesting one. Neither of you boys have highlighted how blue-collar workers continue having a foothold and a life in Almaro County with any of these economic development plants. Well, I would disagree there because I think things like high-tech manufacturing, look at Blue Ridge Community College.

They have a whole program, a whole degree program, on running digital routers and digital manufacturing and robotics that are the kinds of things like 3D printers. So there's a lot that goes into that. There's also the quality control on a lot of these things. They have to be tested. I mean, if you've ever seen one of those Icarus knee braces,

they literally have to move it back and forth. And that stuff's all custom made. So it has to be made to specific tolerances and you have to compare it to the scan and things like that. And then there's also just the other side of things. you know, it may not be glamorous, but you still have the fulfillment side, is they have to pick and pack and ship all of these things, and then it has to be done in a warehouse,

and you need somebody operating the forklift, and you need people, you know, providing the materials that go to the 3D printer. You know, there's a lot of stuff that can be done that isn't, you know, splitting genes or splitting atoms. Janice Boystrelia, and to answer your question, I know they have guards at the gates. Comments continue to come in, and we'll get to these comments here.

Vanessa Parkhill confirms, yes, the Amar County office building was Lane High School with the football field located right there alongside the high school. Thank you, Vanessa Parkhill, of Earlysville, for watching the program. Print Radio and Television continue to watch the show. I would encourage you, print radio and television, to interview this guy, Coden Owen, for any biz development questions or need you may have, because the guy is super, super connected. Still a little bit of the pushback here.

Maybe we make a push or offer some commentary on the trade. and how that could be a focal point for keeping blue-collar workers local to Elmore County? Without a doubt. I mean, one thing I will give props to UVA for is their apprentice program. You know, unfortunately, they eat all of them up to maintain their own facilities and don't, you know, it's rare that they get out into the wild workforce, so to speak. But, yeah, I mean, trade school, you know, let's face it, less than a third of the country goes to college.

In Charlottesville, it's two-thirds of the people. have college degrees. So there is obviously... Is that the number? Yeah. That's the number? Wow. So you've got essentially compared to another comparable town. You've got half the number of blue collar workers supporting this town.

So there should be great opportunity for them. And it can be in different kinds of manufacturing. It can be in transportation and logistics. I mean, let's face it, where, you know, 29, we've got 64. We've got 81, not too far away. I mean, you look at all the distribution centers in the valley. A lot of them are a fair way up, 81, or down 81 from 64. So you don't have to be at a crossroads necessarily, but you have to have the facility in place.

You know, you look at that distribution center, they build out on 151. It's just like, that's not near an interstate, not compared to Charlottesville or some parts of Albemarro, but they've got this huge facility out there that employs a lot of blue collar folks. And not to mention all the folks that have to build and maintain these kinds of facilities, there's also, you know, but yeah, I think, you know, you've got logistics, you've got construction, you've got manufacturing and tech manufacturing. You know, if I were able to get three-phase power into my building, I could get a CNC router to do custom-shaped signs, but then I'd need an operator. Right. And probably more room, wouldn't you? I could squeeze by.

at least for now, but that's not happening anytime soon. How many square feet do you have? 6,500. That's pretty big. It is. 6,500 square feet, and it's utilized. It's, I was going to say, I've taken a tour with you. It's pretty well utilized. Yeah.

It's pretty well utilized. John Blair, watch it on LinkedIn. His photo on screen is two individuals with not only a finger, but an entire hand on the area's pulse. I'd like to know if you two believe the 2050 Walden Cooper population estimates of 152,000 for Almore County.

and 57,000 for Charlottesville, do you take the over, under, or push on those population estimates? That's 2050? 2050, what are we at? Well, I was going to say, where are we now? I think we're around 115,000 in Almore County. Oh, piece of care. I'll give you the exact number. I'll take the over.

I'm going to take the over to. Almore County population, I'll give you an exact number. In 2024, it was 117,313. So let's just call it 117,000. So Weldon Cooper is saying a third. 33,000 delta uptick by the year 20. 50. Oh, yeah, easy. You say you, you say easy. Easy. In 25 years. Yeah, that's not even 5% a year. Yeah. Easy 33% uptick. What's the impact on that on Amar County? Again, what kind of jobs are they? And where are they, you know, where are they commuting to work? You know, my brother's in northern Virginia. He lives out in Fairfax, but he's 15 minutes from his tech job. He doesn't go into D.C. You know, I grew up inside the Beltway, and both of my parents drove into town every day.

Oof. Yeah. Well, it was 40 years ago. Different, but still. But it was a different world. But still, it's just like now the jobs are out on that tech ring. You know, when 20, it was the 20, route 28 out by Dulles. And you've got the same thing up in Gatorsburg.

Charlottesville needs to start thinking like that. And you're not going to do that if you're pushing everything further and further into the city. and I think people will start to make decisions on their location based on their job because you're not going to widen 250, you're not going to widen 29, you're not going to widen 20, at least not very far. So all of a sudden transportation becomes an issue and people don't want to spend their lives commuting. I think the Afton bus is a brilliant idea. I think they could really support something like that. especially around just UVA and hospital workers, you know, just run shuttles at change of shift time.

These are really good ideas. To certain points out in the city and then or out of town. I mean, you drive up 29 and you get outside of Culpepper and they've got commuter lots for people going to D.C. So I think it's feasible and not with the issue we had with CAD a few weeks ago. It's $150,000 a day. Yeah. I'm so glad you probably. operate that. It's just like that's one of those things where

it's just like you've got to be kidding me. It's like you've got these people who do the charter buses to New York for $29 a person and you're telling me that it's $152,000 a day to add cat service one day a week. It just doesn't math. So, okay, I can't I'm glad you brought this up. I had forgotten this

but I wanted to talk about this with you. First, the Charlottesville population currently is 44,764 as of 2024. So let's call that 45,000. and Weldon Cooper predicts 57,000 by 2050. Okay, again, it's about a 25%.

It's about the same, yeah. I'm more confident in it happening in Elmore County than in Charlottesville City. Are you? Yeah, it's going to be tricky to cram that many more people. In 10.2 square miles. Within the city limits, without, even with the new zoning ordinance, it's going to be tough. But as gambling men, I know you got a little gamble to you too. Oh, boy.

You take the over on both? I'll take the over on the area, I'll take the county and the area population, not necessarily, I think Alamaro may overshoot and the city may under. Okay, so you don't think over on city on the population? I don't know where they're going to go. It also depends, you know, how do they count student housing? Yeah, good question. Because, I mean, let's face it, those people eat and spend money and shop and mainly here in town. Right.

So, yeah, and do they end up in, you know, near, you know, more apartment buildings, you know, technically there, it's, it's, if it's not on campus, it's, it's a unit that could go to, you know, a full-time resident. Conan Owen is good at this, this format here. Kat, Charlestville Area Transit, we find out a few weeks ago, this is, this boggles my mind, boggles your mind, for Sunday service, currently Sunday not running, $8 million to launch Sunday service. service for Charlottesville Area Transit. That's 52 days a year. We take the 8 million. We divide it by 52. We get 153,846 per day. I don't know how that's possible. That's bananas. Yeah. But here's a great local opportunity for you. Perona robotics. How about self-driving buses? They're trying. You know, if you could do that, you get a local business working with the city to create this. And, you know, I'm sorry, forget electric buses. They cost three times as much as gas buses. You hear that, Michael Payne? And what do they do? You still have to. They break down.

And 66% of electricity still comes from fossil fuels. So you're not really saving the environment. You're creating this huge expense, and then you've got these batteries you're going to have to deal with. And if it drops below 20 degrees, they aren't going to start. It's like, great, if you want to do that with your business and get a fleet of this, but don't take our tax money to do something that makes you feel better when it actually is worse off. for the people you're trying to serve. You could have more buses and more drivers

serving the folks who don't have transportation. One of the smartest things I've ever heard said, Judah Wickauer, on the I Love Seville Network. Amen. I hope the... You know, the county's the same way. The county bought an electric bus and it was $300-something,000. It's because they got pressured into it.

You know, and it's just like, and here's a place where you don't have school. You don't have bus drivers. Guess what? Buy two buses and take the other $150,000 and spend money on hiring the two-bust drivers. Yeah.

Let me throw this to you. The city of Charlottesville is looking to outsource ad placement on Charlottesville area transit buses. I'm going to give you... Sign me up.

So you would take this? That's what I was going to ask you. I wouldn't advertise on it. You would manage it. They're only allocating 35. They want third parties. Yeah. Basically people like you and I.

Yep. right to manage the ad placement on Charlottesville area transit buses i'd take that tomorrow 35% any revenue collected 35% goes to people like you and i 65% goes to the city great you like the model well see unlike you i would be printing the ads that go on the side of the bus and on the bus stops fair okay so you have a little bit more so i have so i have a leverage point there okay where that 35% management fee is just gravy. I make the money, you know, it's like I make the money on the signs and

the window purfs and changing out the campaigns every month. Did you fill a request for a proposal to do this? No, I haven't received it. It was, well, it was open. It was solicited by the city. Well, usually I get alerts when the city is looking for something that's in my field, but I haven't seen that.

But I'll have to look it up. I'll, I'm perhaps creating revenue for Conan Owen here. The deadline is today. Oh, well, that's going to be a little tricky. But I'll go back and look into that. For bids for firms who want to manage ads on Charlottesville Area

Transit buses. This is interesting. The city of Charlottesville's budget for physical year 2026 includes a total of 15,000 $879,000 in revenues that go to Charlottesville Area Transit. This according to Sean Tubbs. That's the expenditure on.

Yep. Of that amount, 253,000 is used for marketing. However, this year's budget, according to Sean Tubbs, anticipates no revenue. from advertising. Cat earned 51,835 in revenue in fiscal year 2022, but that number dropped to 12,168 in fiscal year 2020, and 5,700 in fiscal year 2024, 5,700. The budget for 2025 fiscal year anticipated 25K, but the exact amount won't be known to the public until after the audit of the year's budget, all this according to Sean Tubbs and Infocebo. They're now trying to part

with a third-party firm to sell the signage on the buses. The deadline is closed the business today. I doubt anyone has applied. This could be some serious revenue for you. I'll have to go down and do my speed typing. No, I mean, visibility on buses, though? I attributed it to previous shows to visibility. Someone pitched me a business model of wanting to put ads,

banner ads, on our trash cans. Yeah. And so you buy either model, huh? Oh, yeah. Wow. Okay, break us down. Have you been to New York City? I have been to New York City.

New York City is a different animal, though. You're talking about the buses and the ads on the buses in New York City? Ads on the buses? Ads on the trash cans in New York City. I was just there, what was it, like six months ago? But because of the dense population of walkers and pedestrians and the population that uses public transportation in New York City, those ads have more visibility.

Right, but the bigger visibility is the bus driving by. And you're seeing it on the back of the bus when you're stuck in traffic. I'm going to seriously look into it. Because the other thing is, is you charge my eyeballs. Or at least you used to. Well, any ads charged by eyeballs. Well, I don't know. You talked to the local TV stations, show me your rate sheet, and they're like, well, you don't really have one.

It's like, Conan Owen just said something that's extremely applicable. The legacy media that is hesitant to provide us with the eyeball, with the rate cards, with the visibility, with the total reach, is a red flag. There was a whole industry that was called gray. Was it gray that's set, you know, if you have this many readers and this demographic, this was your rate? There used to be, I mean, you know, magazines all had a rate card and TV stations all there. Now you don't get that anymore. Now it's like, well, and then there's digital and there's like, no, I want to know how many eyeballs are my reaching and who are these people. Well, at least you can say, well, anyone who drives down the city of Charlottesville may see my sign on the side of a bus stop.

You don't have to be a bus rider because, quite frankly, if you're in the shelter, you're not seeing the, sign that's on the outside. It's the people passing by that see it. And, you know, with the, you know, the fast food restaurants in town, they don't have to be the national change. It can even be the local. Like Christian's Pizza. He's got how many locations here in town? Yeah. He doesn't own them all, but you've got grit coffee. You've got greenberries. You've got all kinds of folks here that would be interested in doing something like that. Caitlin Lawton, welcome to the broadcast. She's a realtor. She's talented realtor. Interesting. You would take it. I thought self-man, I don't think it's me being selfish, just me being a business person. I thought the 65-35 split should

have been the other way, where the 65 should have gone to the third party that's doing the work, and the city kept 35% knowing it's basically at zero now. And the city says it's at zero and ad collection with its buses, because it doesn't have the personnel to field the phone call or manage the email, or basically be a point of contact, which is what you and I are good at. Well, I mean, it all depends on how it's structured. If you're talking about just the fee for you know, basically making the ad buy. That's one thing. But if I can make the money with the printing and the installation, then...

Dude, if you did that way, then you have a... Yeah, it's almost a no-brainer without looking at the... If I didn't look at the paper, it would be a no-brainer. But I'm going to take a look at it when I get back to the office and see if there's anything worth looking into. Because, you know, it's a natural opportunity. For you especially. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it would be hard for someone else to do it for just that 35%

because then they'd have to hire someone like me to do it. Right. So unless the city was willing to cover the cost of the execution, which I think it is, the 35% was strictly commissioned. Right. Well, I guess it comes back to what are the terms

because if it's 35% and they pick, who does it. Yeah, that's a different story. Yeah, because they're going to, yeah, I don't want them going online and ordering.

Yeah, or going online and ordering it because it's cheaper out of town. Right, right. Are you seeing any of that? A little. I think that's our biggest, when people say where's a lot of your growth coming from, a lot of it is getting folks off of buying on the internet

and realizing that there's a local company. So it's up to you to do this, what we're doing here? Oh, yeah, completely. And also other things. Like, I get these mailers. Every time I get a postcard from a business in the mail, I look at the postmark. Nine out of ten of them come from St. Petersburg, Florida,

or a place in Pennsylvania. What's that, Vista Print? No, it's Postcard Mania, and I can't remember the one in Pennsylvania. So then you just call them up? I sent them a letter with their card in it, say, you know, I got your card and it was, you know, got a little out of town thing.

Like sometimes, you know, I got a couple of responses, but, you know, one of the most amazing things to me, PVC, everything you get in the mail from them comes out of St. Petersburg, Florida. That's crazy. It's insane to me. Yeah, that's almost insulting. Can I say it?

I'll say it. It's insulting to me because they come to us hat and hand looking for money. And then if they then don't keep it in the community. And they get funded by, you know, know, everybody's, you know, all of our customers' kids who go there and they, you know, and they want, you know, people to sponsor their fine arts thing. Right.

And then they turn around and spend the money elsewhere. And, yeah. But, you know, and I reach out to these people to say, oh, I didn't know you did that. You know, so I've got a new tree service, EDDM mailing going out next month. You know, just by, you know, the guerrilla marketing of saying, we do this stuff. Promotional products is a big one, you know, that you see four imprint on. It's like we get everything that four imprint can produce. Sometimes we can get it even.

cheaper and you're dealing with the local company who is going to make sure your proof looks the way it's supposed to and they don't send you back a rasterized piece of junk for your logo and you know we can we can do that and we're starting we're able to do more and more things in-house like you know key tags and parking passes and do not disturb signs and you know basically anything made out of credit card material we can now cut I would love to throw and this has been a fantastic interview I'd love to throw more biz dev to you here Stewart Street Domino's becoming a Mexican restaurant. Correct.

Throw it on screen, Judah. Yep. If you drive by there, they got the paper in the windows, and there's a crew working in there, they were putting in a new vent the last time I stopped in last week. This is the Dominoes on Stewart Street, right off High Street, that had been there for eternity, across from Tubbies. Yeah, it moved to Pan Tops over the, or at the beginning of the summer.

Yeah. So Tubby has closed. Yep. Their equipment sold off at auction. The Stewart Street Dominoes is becoming a messer, Mexican restaurant. That entire corridor is prime for change in development. Oh, big time.

Big time. And you've got that fencing studio, which is an interesting business, but it seems like a lot of space. And again, that's a part of town where everything's single story. You know, I could see a developer coming in. Harris Street where my old office is where most of that is single story. I could see a lot of folks

coming in there, taking out the concrete plant, you know, consolidating those operations elsewhere. You know, concrete's a tricky one because You can only drive so far before the stuff hardens. But, you know, I don't know that it needs to be in Harris Street. You imagine what you could put on that site. Absolutely. Huge potential.

How about this? Lower third on screen. Natalie's dress taking over the Eljo's location in the Milmon shop. Yeah, about twice as much square footage. Eljo's had a buyer. Buyer fell apart in the bottom of, probably like the bottom of the seventh inning, about it in the eighth inning. Now Natalie's dress, which was a neighbor.

of Eljo's in the Milmont shops, basically moves a few stores down and takes over Miles and Trent's store. Yep. Much bigger space, which is going to be great for them. They can hold a lot more inventory because there so many times he go there and they have a sign in the window that says not taking donations or not accepting, you know, incoming clothing. Now they're going to have more space to do that.

And they've got a great mission. I love them because after a certain amount of time, if it doesn't sell, they donate it to the SPCA rummage store. That's pretty awesome. Don Flores Building on a renovator. It is. It's going to be the new location for Poster Studio, which is leaving right down the street here, because the, what is it, the hotel is going in there at some point, the guy who owns the West Main apartment building. Yeah, Levine, Jeff Levine. He's going to be putting in his AC hotel, a Marriott brand. So that's in the Arfell Lodger space. Poster Studio is leaving for the Don's Flores location.

on, yep, on Ridge, McIntyre. Look at Conan Owen dropping knowledge over here. More knowledge for the viewers and listeners here on the show. Toby's, and we talked about this because of you on the show, Toby's consolidating at Rio Road,

closing the Pantop spot and the Pantop spot, I believe, was once a Hardee's? It was. A Hardee's? He had a tank, an army tank outside of Hardee's where he was selling guns very successfully. Toby's crushes it at Pond. does. He's got an amazing business model. Even when I called to talk to him, the young lady that

answered the phone, he was, we were changing pawn. She was like a Chick-fil-A employee. She was so happy and positive and helpful. And I was like, wow, this is not what I expected. It's exactly what he said. So, yeah, he bought the Photow Works Group building there on Rio Road, which is just a block and a half down next to the big apartment building that's going up there. And PhotoWorks Group sold to a company in the Valley, and he bought the building and has consolidated everything in that location. So he's got, you know, quite, I think it's a 10,000 square foot building. Get out of town.

It's two floors, so he's going to have administrative offices upstairs. But he's going to have a giant show. He's knocking down walls and building out space for his counter. He's got lots of parking. Good for Toby. Yeah. No, it's a great location. It's a great location for him.

More news and notes to get to. The viewers and listeners are loving this right here. Voo Noodles moving to the former cinema taco location. This is a big one. That's my next stop. I've got to go measure their sign. Vood noodles. Yep.

And they're transitioning from... The old crepe spot. On Water Street. The crepe closet on Water Street. So they're pretty much going the same spot. Flipping over to the other side. But flipping on the mall. Yeah.

Do you like the move to Cinemataka? I just don't know how anyone operated out of that small space. You're saying the crepe spot or the cinema taco spot? The crepe spot, they're now going to have sit-down space. You know, you didn't have sit-down space was on the street. You know, if you've got bad weather, nobody's coming to stand in the street. line to get noodles. I can at least walk indoors and get your meal. So I think that's, I think that's great. I love it. Give and take coffee working on taking the old Spice Diva spot

and Alan Kajin's building. Yeah. My wife's landlord Alan. Yeah, they're looking at expanding. They were in the little tiny old Spice Diva space outside, that little closet. Yeah. They moved inside when the gift shop closed a while back. And they've been looking at the the old or the most recent spice diva right next to orzo yeah that's all papered over there is that phyllis was the spice diva I think it was phyllis hunter I thought she sold it to a pair of jents

she she had the the small one outside and then when it expanded she sold inside when it took the old the French was it the French cook space the cooking shop yeah a couple of guys took that over and now it's hopefully it's going to become an expanded coffee shop which will be a great compliment because feast doesn't open in the mornings right that's a great spot

for it and right now uh give and take doesn't have a whole lot in the way of the food and you love the give and take owner oh she's wonderful um she's she's a really interesting person um she's got some really creative um coffees they had a what is that a rosemary um i can't remember it was a rosemary infused coffee um and she's you know working she's working with local graphic artists to come up with the line of merch. So she's really engaged with the community. Nice. Nice. How about this one? The growth of the direct primary care business model. Non-insurance, monthly subscription, health care, two growing practices in Ivy and Croze.

I want to highlight one of my favorite operators that's not an Ivy or Crozee, but it's the same direct primary care of business model, Dr. Rebecca Downey across from the truest in court square. But you're right. This business model is exploding. Yeah. So there's a husband and wife doctor team in across the street from Harris Teeter in Crozay in those buildings. And then there's a, I think it's Dr. Johnson is behind Dunors. And they both run the, you know, subscription based primary care, no insurance. Which is genius. It's just a different way of looking at it. You know, we talked about doing a direct mail campaign and, you know, it's like, well, do you want to do it? demographic driven and she said no it's just like our customers are everybody because you've got people who just say you know i'd kind of rather you know on the more affluent of the scale where it's like i'd rather kind of self-insure because i mean i'm i'm paying 1500 a month for insurance which is

ridiculous yeah um so i can for you and your wife no just me oh just you jesus yeah i'm over 60 so yeah we're each paying 1500 bucks a month i yeah um so yeah i could see a lot of people going you know, the self-insurance route or buying, you know, one of those catastrophic policies for when you get hit by a truck. Yeah. But for your day-to-day, kind of the way it used to be, you go see somebody and you, instead of paying out of pocket, you're paying a monthly. And, you know, all the colds and flus and general aches and pains and discomforts are covered.

But the fact that there are two, yeah, there are at least three MDs within a few miles of each other there in Crozee is, that's a big, that's a big, that's a big, you know. change. And prior to COVID, this model did not exist, folks. A couple more points here. The hour flies by when you're having fun. Your item in the notebook, former burned down hotel raised by the same builders as apartments

on Ivy Road. Yeah. Purcell construction put their fencing up and you drive by there and it's raised to the ground. I don't know if it's still going to be a hotel like they were talking about originally. I'm not sure who the current owner is. If it is the same guy as before, but

you know, progress. It's, you know, Because that's been there for a while. It was sitting there burned for at least three years. Yeah. And it's a total eyesore right there. How about this one that comes from LinkedIn? I truly love this interview. Here's another for you guys to chew on.

If you had to locate a food service business in the area, where would you locate it? The Ivy Corridor, Dairy Market, or the downtown mall? Ivy Corridor. I would go Ivy Quarter. Yeah. I would absolutely go Ivy Quarter. Why? Okay.

Why not the other two? Not to put you on the spot. Downtown mall, people, it's just nasty. I'm sorry, it just is. I will say this, and we talked about this a few weeks ago on the I Love Seville Show, Judah, that there's some policy that's coming in play before city council where the policy will allow

Charlottesville to take the possessions of the houseless that are sleeping on the mall. And this is coming before council in September. So this coming month in September, city council will be able to vote on the opportunity or the ability of Charlottesville. And I would hate to God if this fell on the police, where they would be able to take the personal belongings of people that are sleeping on the downtown mall from them.

I hope to God that does not fall unconscious in the police department. I just think that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. And why do you say that? You're saying that will not have an impact. Is that why you're saying it? Or are you just saying it villainizes whoever's doing it? Well, it does a lot of things. It villainizes whoever's doing it and it's going to be the police. Yeah. You know that. The second thing is just like, you know, a lot of these folks don't have a whole lot. So what are you really? You're taking their life. They're pretty much they're one of the few reasons they have to be alive. But what? Some clothes? You can get that at the Haven.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, it's not like you're repossessing their car or you're finding them. Not that I'm advocating those things, but there's something has to be done if you want the downtown mall to be a viable place. So you're saying the downtown mall is not your pick because of the houseless. I am in agreement with you. But also parking is not a pleasant experience. It hasn't recovered since COVID. How about dairy market? I had a conversation with Dino yesterday.

He's trying to talk to him. He's trying really hard. You know, I think there's some good opportunities there. The new Sun Pins Place is tremendous. I went and talked to George, another Darden grad, who's the owner there. The Duckpin Bowling and Darts Place. I think that's a really, I think entertainment, that kind of thing, especially when the students come back, is just going to be huge.

But even, you know, now in the summertime, went there at lunchtime to see them and they were they were pretty busy um i think it's it's hard to market a food court because food service really needs at least two seatings a day and i don't you know unless you're fine dining like tabula and you don't have that big a foot they're not getting two turns a day well certainly not during the week certainly not too full you're not getting two meals out of it yeah um you may get you know early lunch and late lunch but that's all you're getting as lunch. I don't know how they, how they, how they survive, how a food service of the food court kind of food can survive long term. You know, Mootho's great people are always going to want

ice cream. You know, Dino's pizza and chicken are great foods. And those have been the, the long-term tenants there. Everybody else has been, you know, it's been a bit of a revolving door. going to be interesting to see what happens, you know, Star Hill often is empty. Dude, I, I, I, and you've seen issues. And you've seen issues with the other, the other breweries in town, maintain them. So I think that's, that's a tricky one. You know, they fix the parking situation by having free parking.

But it's still, it's just, and it's a really noisy place. You know, that may be great for young families and kids and students, but, you know, My wife and I go in there, we get an ice cream, and we'll eat it in our car. We're not going to sit in there with all the noise and the screaming. And then they bring in DJs and whatnot. It's just like, that's not what we're looking for in a lunch place. And we used to go to dinner when South and Central was open, but that, for whatever reason, didn't survive. I just, you know, I think Cumbra will do well because it's delicious stuff.

And everybody loves coffee, and that's nearby coffee for there. But, yeah, that would not be my choice. Ivy Corridor, it's tough because, like you said, you know, the university took over Ivy Square. So how much more open real estate is there? Because you never know what the university is going to do with that space. You know, a couple of places like, what was the great, Tokyo Rose, you know, is now a Latino market. That place is great. Oh, LTO, yeah.

Yeah. He's got a restaurant and a market. And he just opened a laundromat over on, over by Whole Foods. I didn't know that. There wasn't a laundromat there. He just turned it over to an LTO laundromat. Good for him. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there just aren't that many. You've got the space over by Shannon Doa Joe's. They always seem to have an opening or two. But, you know, unless they do something with the, where Anderson Seafood sets up there across from the boar's head, unless that becomes something viable or they do something down by the old ivy store which is under new ownership now hoping they'll bring back the christmas lights they've got their pet mascot they've got an australian shepherd nice not homer the cat but they've got they've got a dog um but yeah or you know even over by duners i don't know if any of those little

spaces could ever support food service um that's a good spot for it where savvy russ is next to duners there's a couple home builders that call that their headquarters yeah great spot for that yeah an old bank building but yeah i mean there there are a couple of things um you know one that I think would make, it take a lot of renovation to work, but right across from Fifth Street, there's that bank building up on the up on the hill. The Carter's Bank? Was that what it is?

Basically, it's across from Wawa. So it's on the opposite side of the street, overlooking. It's had a for lease sign forever, but it's got a nice parking lot. It's, you know, probably 2,500, 3,000 square feet. You know, they could probably make an addition if they needed to, but, you know, that's also an underserved,

you know, outside of the food court. You've got it at Fifth Street, there isn't a whole lot in the way of eateries when you go out that direction. That's true. That's true. Dude, you killed this. This is fantastic. Jeanniehu said I went Wednesday on what Conan's saying. I went Wednesday to communion at church downtown, drove around 15 minutes looking for parking, ended up in the garage. Was two minutes over the one hour window? No problem. I'm willing to pay my prorated portion of the two minutes over the free one hour.

The machine would not take cash. So instead, I had to use my credit card and then got popped credit card fees for not paying cash even though the cash machine wasn't working at the garage absolutely ridiculous she says but there's no human there one last thing for you how many licensed businesses do you think there are in the city of charlottesville i have no idea now that includes you know sole practitioner or therapist in one of the row houses no across the way yes um city of charlesville that's not tied to population because like me you don't have to live in charlesville to operate in the city 10,000 yeah 4,000?

That's it? That's it. 4,000 registered businesses. And that includes all the sole proprietors, which is about half the number. Where'd you get that data? City. 4,000 licensed businesses that operate within City of Charlottlesville. Can you turn that into our headline for tomorrow? Can we write that down so we can talk about that?

I have to digest that. 4,000? That is minuscule. When you heard that stat, were you floored like I am? More so because of the number when it says, name of the business and it's just Jerry Miller. Yeah. And the owner, Jerry Miller.

Yeah. You know, it didn't look like a place that has many employees. 4,000 licensed business is absolutely unbelievable. They got to fix that. But how do you fix it in this environment when you, the downtown mall is a mess? There's no, there's no space, there's very little space for rent that's reasonable or, you know, especially for a startup. Yeah.

Who's going to move into the city an existing business? Nobody. Right. You're vetoing the wetlands renovation into light industrial. Yeah. You know, how do you turn it into something more than that? And when you look at those numbers, you drive up and down Jefferson Street and over here by Court Square, and you see these, you know, nice A-frames and whatnot, they've got seven shingles hanging out front because there's seven businesses in a single, you know, old five-bedroom house.

Yeah, right, right. Would that 4,000 businesses include where, with that 4,000 businesses include where, with My real estate holdings, we start a new LLC for LLC. So Jerry Miller, Real Estate 4 LLC. If you've got a different business license account. Unbelievable. Yeah. So you're one-tenth of 1% of 1%.

Yeah, so we have seven time to ours. So Jerry Miller's accounts for, with the businesses. 0.2% of licenses. So that $4,000 is way less. Yeah. That is bananas. I am completely floored on that. What a way to end the show.

Conan Owen, ladies and gentlemen, is the owner of Sir Speedy of Central Virginia. How can they contact you? Just visit our website, surspeedy.com, and it will take you to Charlottesville, or you can email us at Orders at SurSpeedy, Charlottesville.com. His contact information is all over the internet. Yeah, and we've got two new employees to come visit. We've got to check out, Nacho and Cheeto. Nice.

They're working in production. Very nice. Learning the ropes. You've added two more kitty cats? Yeah, we're up to five. Five kitty cats at Sir Speedy. Yeah, two more. the SBCA, they're cheddars.

Which is the cat that is like a dog? Dash. Dash. That's my favorite one. He's still everybody's favorite, and he's tolerating the interns, but he's training them well. Dash. Conan is fantastic in this setting. We just went 75 minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Conan Owen, Sir Speedy, Central Virginia, Judah Wickauer behind the camera, the I Love Seville Show Archive, wherever you get your social media and podcasting content. Thank you. My pleasure.

It was our pleasure. We are back in the saddle, folks. tomorrow at 12.30 p.m., thank you kindly for joining us. So long. Thank you.