FREDTALK: Did the supervisors make the right decision?
The proposed renovation and expansion of Spotsylvania Mall is dead.
Dead as a rusted-out Studebaker.
Also gone are plans for a connector road between State Route 3 and Harrison Road.
A deadlocked Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors failed early this morning to approve a resolution pledging to reimburse the mall's owner, the Youngstown, Ohio-based Cafaro Co., for its construction costs.
"It's dead, it's that simple," Cafaro Co. Executive Vice President J.J. Cafaro said moments after the 3-3 vote. "You asked what the next step is? I have no next step."
Supervisors Bob Hagan, Hap Connors and Vince Onorato voted to approve as much as $17 million in grants by the county Industrial Development Authority to Cafaro over 20 years.
Supervisors Gary Jackson, Chris Yakabouski and Emmitt Marshall voted against the incentives. Supervisor T.C. Waddy, who is ill, was unable to attend last night's meeting.
Opponents of the plan, describing it as "corporate welfare," complained the proposed deal lacked the detail necessary to justify such a costly business incentive.
"It would please me to see the mall renovated and expanded," Jackson told his colleagues shortly before their 1:30 a.m. vote. "I do not support this resolution and the unmitigated corporate welfare it represents. This resolution is bad public policy. I urge the [IDA] commissioners to reject it."
Hagan tried to sway his colleagues by noting that the county wouldn't pay any incentives until after the nearly $100 million mall expansion was completed.
"We are not, in fact, laying money out in front and placing a bet," he said. "We're only in the position where we would be sharing additional revenues to the county if additional monies are generated over and above the base year."
Hagan was quiet as he prepared to leave after the board's meeting ended just before 2 a.m. today.
"I'm disappointed," he said. "I can't think of anything else I could say that would be constructive."
Connors delivered a veiled rebuke of those who voted no.
"I have more than a dollar-store vision for the county," he said. "It's very disappointing. I hope we haven't lost a great opportunity forever."
As proposed, the grants would have been based on the mall's sales-tax revenue, and were contingent on several factors.
Cafaro would have built a connector road from the southern side of the mall to Harrison Road.
The company would have built an $80 million "lifestyle center" beside the mall including shops, restaurants and a luxury hotel. Another $12 million would have refurbished the existing mall, as well as created a new mall entrance directly aligned with Carl D. Silver Parkway, the main portal to Fredericksburg's Central Park, across State Route 3 from the mall.
Finally, Cafaro would have built a covered stop at the mall for Fredericksburg Regional Transit buses.
Had the company decided merely to renovate the existing mall, it could have qualified for a 10-year grant of up to $3.8 million.
Once the work was complete, the IDA would have issued grants to Cafaro equal to half of the county's slice of the increased sales taxes generated by the refurbished retail complex. Had the mall expansion created an additional $1 million in sales-tax revenue for the county during the year after its completion, Cafaro would have received $500,000.
Supervisor Emmitt Marshall sought unsuccessfully to reduce the size of the grant for a renovation-only deal, complaining that merely refurbishing the existing mall didn't warrant so large an incentive.
With the resolution's defeat, J.J. Cafaro suggested Spotsylvanians shouldn't expect an elaborate sprucing-up of the mall.
"I'm probably going to tell my staff to go out and buy some paint," he said. "We're probably not going to go forward with the level of expansion we had contemplated as a first step toward construction of a lifestyle center."
Hagan and Connors had pitched the project as a way to help ease Route 3 congestion via the proposed connector to Harrison Road. County officials have long desired such a road, which would eventually hook onto the new Southpoint Parkway, thereby linking Route 3 to U.S. 1.
"It is corporate welfare, but I think this is an extraordinary of the county that we need to do something extraordinary for," Onorato said. "If we do it right, maybe it can improve the traffic there. If it wasn't for improving the traffic, I wouldn't be in favor of the project."
But the price for the road was too high for Yakabouski, who reminded his colleagues the connector would create another bottleneck by emptying into two-lane Harrison Road.
"I think we're heading down a path that we're going to regret," he said. "I look at the traffic situation in that area, and something must be done. But I don't want to be blinded by a road just to get a road."
To reach GEORGE WHITEHURST:
540/374-5438
gwhitehurst@freelancestar.com