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Tom Boylan, of The Meridian Group, presented a revised plan for the Tidewater Logistics Center warehouse project to a group of about 23 people Thursday, Sept. 26, in the Windsor Town Center’s Arrowhead Conference Room.

Boylan’s presentation included some new updates to the plan since an Aug. 27 Windsor Town Council work session in which he presented revisions to the council.

The purpose of Thursday’s public meeting was to hear feedback from Windsor residents on the latest revisions to the project, which TMG is trying to develop on the outskirts of Windsor.

The meeting featured a brief presentation from Boylan followed by a question-and-answer period that included mostly civil dialogue but also a testy exchange that revealed some of the frustration felt by both town residents and the developer.

WHAT LED UP TO THE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER REVISIONS

TMG is the parent company of Meridian Property Purchaser LLC, which previously submitted a rezoning application to the county proposing a multi-warehouse complex consisting of five buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet that were set to be adjacent to the Lovers Lane/Keaton Avenue neighborhoods.

Influenced at least in part by vocal opposition to this version of the project from some Windsor residents and council members, the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on June 13 to reject the rezoning application.

THE LATEST VERSION OF THE PLAN

Boylan opened the Sept. 26 public meeting by noting that he had been working with a lot of people in the room for more than a year on the Tidewater Logistics Center application.

“I’ll kind of walk through where we were and point out a lot of the changes that we’ve made since our initial application was submitted to the board earlier this year,” he said.

The project features two main sites, the County Site, which is the one most directly adjacent to the Lovers Lane/Keaton Avenue neighborhoods, and the Hollowell Site.

In a previous version of the plan, the County Site contained three buildings: Building A was 170,000 square feet and located closest to the residential property lines; Building B was 542,000 square feet with at least 80 loading docks on the back side; and Building C was 121,000 square feet.

“We were showing some conceptual impacts to the wetlands buffer, the Chesapeake Bay Protection Area, the (Resource Protection Area) zone,” Boylan said. “We proposed a culvert bridge over the wetlands to connect to the adjacent parcel owned by the Hollowell family and proposed two buildings there, buildings D and E adjacent to the Saunders historic house.”

Then Boylan went step by step through the TLC plan revisions, which break up the scale of the large Building B and pull everything out of the Resource Protection Area zones.

“The first major revision is elimination of the building that was in closest proximity to the Lovers Lane residents,” he said. “I know there’s a few more streets there. I’ll just refer to it as Lovers Lane since that’s what hits Windsor Boulevard.”

The original 170,000-square-foot Building A was eliminated.

“The second change that we made was a substantial reduction to Building C,” he said. “We’ve increased the setback from the property line of that building to 280 feet. And then the third (change) was a smaller reduction in Building B by just over 37,000 square feet.”

He then discussed the barrier between the Lovers Lane/Keaton Avenue neighborhoods and the TLC.

“If you recall, there was a vegetated landscape berm that had the evergreen trees facing the Lovers Lane properties with a sound wall on top of the berm,” he said. “We pushed all of that closer to the buildings, further away from the property line to be right up against the access road where the Dominion signalized intersection is. So (we) pushed the landscape berm away from the property line, which then created open space.”

He noted that in the open space, “We’re proposing a community walking path with a park and trees and benches. There’ll be a parking area there.”

He said, “The point is to really plant a lot of trees in this area to make it more of a park setting. It’s going to be preserved, open space, so non-developable area that we’ll proffer and record easements for public access in the land records. So that would then preserve that open space buffer in addition to the landscape buffer and sound wall. There would be that additional vegetation between the properties and the project.”

A few of the other revisions Boylan highlighted were as follows:

• Additional tree buffer in front of landscaped berm/sound wall;
• Enlarged berm where residential property is in close proximity (60 feet wide, nine feet tall berm); and
• “No Right on Red” signage to prevent acceleration lane issues on Windsor Boulevard.

He said, “One of the things that came out of the working session with the council was a ‘No Right on Red’ stipulation in the plan. There was a lot of discussion about the potential need for an acceleration lane when trucks are exiting the park and heading westbound on (U.S. Route) 460. If they’re turning right on red there into traffic, that could cause some issues with approaching vehicles. If it’s a green light and they’re leaving, it shouldn’t be an issue.” 

Boylan noted that the revised plan features square footage on the County Site that is about half of what it was before.

“We’ve reduced the size by over 360,000 square feet,” he said. “And one of the other important things that occurs when you reduce the size of these buildings is the expected worst-case scenario trip generation for trucks also gets reduced.

“So because of the square footage reduction, running that through the VDOT recommended trip calculation software, it’s about a 44% reduction in expected truck traffic on a daily basis to the project,” he continued. “I think looking at trucks alone in the previous plan for buildings A, B and C, it was about 275 trucks a day. With this plan it’s closer to 120 trucks per day.”

In summary, he said, “So we see these as significant changes to the plan, a much smaller project but a more considerate project, and we hope that you view these changes as positive, but we’d love to hear feedback on any or all of it from you tonight.”

THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER PERIOD

Following are excerpts from the question-and-answer period that formed the majority of the 75-minute public meeting on Sept. 26.

Windsor Town Councilman Marlin W. Sharp was among those present, and he said, “Was there any more consideration to the Hollowell property, the trucks pulling out there? That was the concern I think was raised was that’s a 55 mph zone. Anything that can be done about that?”

Boylan indicated that trucks are going to want to go to the signalized intersection, so very few will be pulling out of the Hollowell Site. He also noted that access in part of the relevant portion of the Hollowell Site was restricted to passenger vehicles.

Boylan was asked how the reduced building sizes will change the way TMG will market the logistics center relative to warehousing versus light industrial manufacturing.

“It won’t really change,” he said. “The project is marketed as both. I think the opportunity to do something larger scale is obviously less, because there’s just less land area that’s developable, but we talk to light manufacturing users frequently that are still interested in this area here. Building B is likely where a light manufacturing user would go.”

A citizen asked Boylan why TMG has chosen Windsor and not Suffolk for this project.

“We actually didn’t choose Windsor, because we’re not in Windsor,” Boylan said. “We’re choosing Isle of Wight. We’re choosing 460 because it’s a logistics corridor that ties to the port, ties to Richmond, it’s a natural channel of traffic.”

A citizen asked Boylan if he had sat in town at 5 p.m. on a Thursday or Friday afternoon, and the citizen said people cannot make a right-hand turn out of the CVS parking lot then due to the traffic.

“I just did at 5 o’clock,” Boylan said.

A citizen noted that traffic is particularly heavy in Windsor in the summer, and the citizen said TMG did not collect traffic data during this time of the year.

Boylan deferred to one of his colleagues present at the meeting who said the effort was made to capture school traffic when collecting traffic counts, as recommended by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Boylan said TMG could look at what the net increase is from school-time traffic to summertime traffic.

A citizen said he knows Boylan’s experts say they are experts, “but we live in Windsor. We’re experts of Windsor, with all due respect.”

Boylan said, “And whether we like it or not, VDOT is expert at their roads as well…”

A citizen said that is debatable, and Boylan said, “Yeah, everything’s debatable.”

Another citizen wanted to know if TMG has another warehouse or industrial project it has developed that is next to an established residential neighborhood.

“We do not have another industrial project that’s in this close proximity,” Boylan said.
Then he was asked if there are some warehouse projects TMG has already done that citizens could see to evaluate examples of what TMG provides, and Boylan referred to a 1-million-square-foot logistics center being built in Winchester.

“That’s all we’ve been able to find financing for,” Boylan said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, it’s a pretty tough interest rate environment to do projects. My job isn’t easy.”

Boylan was asked what assurances citizens have that the proposed open space in the latest plan revisions will not later be developed.

“It would be recorded in the land records as a public access easement,” Boylan said.

A citizen noted that this arrangement could be changed, and Boylan said, “With a vote from the county, yes, of course.” The citizen stated that such a vote is not very hard to get nowadays, and Boylan said, “We can only do what we can control.”

Another citizen asked if TMG would consider asking to zone the open space as “permanent conservation.”

Boylan said, “As long as that doesn’t trip us up for area density, area calculations based on the square footage, we’d be happy to do that. Yeah, I can look into that.”

In response to a question about intended operating hours for the TLC, Boylan said, “24/7, you should assume.”

He was asked if limiting the operations of the site to something like 6 a.m.-9 p.m. would be a deal breaker for TMG.

“Limiting the marketability of the site would mean that no one comes here,” Boylan said.

He was then asked why he is making changes to the project after previously saying to the Isle of Wight County Planning Commission that he could not make changes like moving buildings further away from the Lovers Lane/Keaton Avenue neighborhoods.

“I don’t want to make any changes,” Boylan said. “These changes hurt big-time. This is bending as much as possible, and I don’t want to make any more. I didn’t want to make these, to be completely honest with you.”

A citizen interjected, saying, “It hurts you once. It hurts this town for the entire life of the people that live here.”

Continuing his response to the original person posing the question, Boylan explained that he could not have agreed to changes in the midst of the Planning Commission meeting because he first would have had to have consulted with engineers. He indicated that if he immediately agreed to a change in a meeting before consultation, he might find out later that his agreement actually made the project unfeasible.

But he emphasized that TMG has ultimately made changes and that it has “taken us several months to make these, and we had to renegotiate with the sellers because of the massive changes, so that’s a lot of extra time and effort to get to where we are today.”

Another citizen contended that Boylan had created trust issues when he said it was not feasible for him to make changes to the project but then seemed to have a backup plan ready with regard to wetlands when the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors was getting ready to vote against the rezoning application.

Boylan countered that the revised plan with regard to the wetlands was a completely different kind of change than the kinds of change he had said were unfeasible.

“It’s a completely different context,” he said.

The citizen said, “You just need to understand where the deep lack of trust comes from having watched this, and everybody in here is very attuned to it…”

“You say ‘deep’ untrust?” Boylan said. “It’s deep? Is it really deep?”

“Yes, it really is deep,” the citizen said.

“OK,” Boylan said. “That’s good to know. I’m sorry for deeply lying to you. I don’t ever claim to lie. You’re saying that you don’t trust what I say deeply. I’ve made many, many insults? Or have I not said something truthful? I don’t understand what the deep trust issue is here. I’m here today to ask you what your feedback is on the plan, not to tell me that you don’t trust me.”

The citizen said, “I am telling you what the sense in the room is.”

“This is your sense,” Boylan said. “I’m not sure if other people don’t trust me.”

The citizen said, “You probably don’t want to take a vote.”

Some laughter broke out in the room.

“Good, I won’t,” Boylan said. “Any questions?”

Many more followed as the meeting continued for more than a half hour, and the tenor of the meeting returned to one that was less testy and more moderate.

A citizen recalled that back in June, the county’s Board of Supervisors made a comment that the logistics center was not a good fit for the selected location. The citizen asked Boylan if the revised version of the project was what he considered to be a good fit.

“I think it’s a great fit, yes,” Boylan said.

A citizen noted that the loading docks for Building B are now facing the residents.

“When we had the big Building B, we had them face the other way,” Boylan said, but when asked if the now-smaller Building B could be turned to move the loading docks away, he said, “No, we can’t without making (the building) too thin and unmarketable.”

He noted that one of his engineers who was not present for the meeting had the technical reason for why putting the loading docks on a different side of the building was not achievable to keep the same building size.

A citizen asked Boylan if he was still optimistic or very optimistic about the Tidewater Logistics Center project in light of Keurig Dr. Pepper’s announcement that it was leaving the area and in light of the overall state of the economy.

“Very optimistic,” Boylan said. “It’s a cycle.”

He confirmed that TMG has prospective tenants for the center.