VERONA – To sell, or not to sell, that is the question.
Augusta County must soon decide whether to sell the Nexus Services the additional land in the Mill Place Commerce Park development in Verona where the company’s existing offices are headquartered.
Nexus is hoping to purchase the 4.4 acres next to its current facility to expand its Verona operations and this is the only piece of property that will get that done, Nexus CEO Mike Donovan said.
On the county’s side of things, Board of Supervisors Chairman Tracy Pyles argues that all future developments in the park should be sold to companies for manufacturing use, this use returns the best investment per square foot to Augusta citizens. However, the land Nexus hopes to purchase is situated in the front section, called “Area 1″ in the draft master plan for the park (embedded below), which as it stands is designated in the plan for office space development and potentially the hotel — not manufacturing.
Add into that mix the fact that Nexus has had a history of friction with Augusta County in June 2016, the company filed a $ 1.2 million federal lawsuit naming the Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith and other county employees of the defendants. How will the county play this?
Pyles said he anticipates the board will likely make a decision on whether to sell the land to Nexus at the supervisors’ regular meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 8, probably during the closed session, though Pyles said he would prefer to settle the matter during their regular open meeting. After that decision is reached among the board, the next step would be to reevaluate whether the park’s master plan should be re-worked to shift the slated office space land use to additional manufacturing land use.
In the master plan, produced by the Timmons Group, advanced manufacturing was estimated to produce a potential investment of $ 300 per square foot, while office space or commercial use would produce a potential investment of $ 90 per square foot. Pyles said when he has carried out manufacturing could potentially net the county more than three times the revenue back on its investment, he then asked the Timmons Group about revising the plan from the mixed-use development to all manufacturing and the contractor said that would work well and still be attractive to companies.
“You try to adjust with new information,” Pyles said. “We are responsible for these investments that we’ve made and I think the taxpayer very much wants us to get the best return on his investment.”
With its location right off I-81, the park is the “premier manufacturing site,” and “I don’t think we should diminish it in any way by having anything other than the manufacturing,” he said. He’s asked the rest of the Board of Supervisors about revising the mixed-use plan, but “at this point there has been forward movement,” the other supervisors want to figure out the Nexus decision first.
Donovan said he could understand that argument if the county had a list of buyers lined up for the property — “if there were a line of manufacturers beating down the door to buy that land, that would make sense,” he said. But given that he sees none, he can’t see the reason why the county shouldn’t sell the Nexus the land.
"What’s the point of that?" he said.
The county can sell the Nexus, the land next to its current offices and use the other land in the development for manufacturing purposes — “I think the county has the win-win,” he said, especially since the Nexus isn’t asking for any tax breaks or incentives for development, just the land as it is. “We’re asking for nothing.”
Donovan said he hasn’t come up with another strategy should the county decides to deny the sale. He’s confident Nexus”s history with the county wouldn’t influence the Board of Supervisors to not sell the company the land.
“It would be so shocking to me that I have not considered a Plan B,” he said. “I can’t imagine that the Board of Supervisors would engage in such an action that would really hurt the people that they serve.”
The new Nexus facility would bring 200 jobs to Verona that would pay at least $ 12 per hour and offer full benefits, Donovan said, and so “whatever concerns I may have are set aside by confidence that the members of the Board of Supervisors will do what’s best for the county.”
Nexus actually previously had a contract in place to buy the land in question under the same terms — all the company had to do was exercise it — but Donovan said he got the letter in December 2016 from the county that the contract had expired. He said he didn’t exercise the right to purchase the land sooner because of the delay in finishing the plans for the buildings, but that there’s never been a question in his mind of the company’s intention to buy the land.
If the county agrees to the purchase, he said he would hope to close the sale by March or as soon as the county is ready and then begin construction in late spring to early summer of the the first building of the expanded Nexus facilities.
Pyles said the county has turned companies away in the past because the board is “looking for a certain type of company to come in” — they want the best opportunity to get people jobs.
as far as other interested parties in the land, should the Nexus be denied the purchase, Pyles said, “we have several active prospects,” and that he hopes to have more announcements this year and that the priority for the development is manufacturing moving forward.
Whatever the county decides to of holds significant weight, the revenue potential from the fully built-out Mill Place Commerce Park is great for the county — it could generate about $ 2.1 million in additional real estate and machinery and tool tax revenue per year, the Timmons Group estimates. Fully building out the park is anticipated to take another $ 20 million or so in infrastructure costs, like road, landscaping and water and sewer utility improvements though.
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