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Laura Hetzel looks over mums at the C&T Produce stand at the Fredericksburg Farmers Market. JumpStart, a new initiative of the city's Economic Development Authority, helped fund construction of the brick benches and steps at the market, which operates at the corner of Prince Edward and George streets. |
By EMILY BATTLE
REDERICKSBURG'S Economic Development Authority is dusting off the dozen or so studies the city has commissioned over the past few decades in search of good ideas for the city's future.
In the process, the EDA hopes to turn lofty recommendations into concrete concepts for redeveloping the city that are both palatable to the public and economically realistic.
The eight-member JumpStart committee has been working on the task since early this year.
The group has targeted 12 areas of the city--including the rundown stretch of Princess Anne Street that leads into the city from the U.S. 1 Bypass, along with Lafayette Boulevard and the city's riverfront--where it wants to create graphic representations of what redevelopment should look like.
JumpStart intends to get the public to critique these ideas, and, by next spring, hopes to have a finished product that it can start talking to developers and property owners about implementing.
At times, the group seems to bend over backward to get people to believe that it's not just another study committee.
"This is not a study. The last word we even want to say in this room is 'study,'" JumpStart Chairman Rick Pullen said at the group's first meeting with its citizen steering committee last week.
After the presentation, one city resident asked what makes JumpStart different from past efforts at envisioning Fredericksburg's future. After all, it does have a lot of the characteristics of past studies--enthusiasm at the outset, paid consultants, citizen committees.
Pullen answered by pointing out that JumpStart is combining its research phase with action.
The research part is being done by two consultants JumpStart hired for $170,000, with a $17,000 contingency for more detailed analysis of projects that arise as the committee's work proceeds.
Those funds, along with $19,500 the group has spent so far in seed money for two downtown redevelopment projects, come from the annual fees the EDA collects on the low-interest bonds it allows businesses to access.
"I don't know of any EDA that's done this, but it's certainly within our purview," Pullen said.
State law allows economic development authorities to make loans or grants of their revenues to any business, association or other entity to promote economic development.
In JumpStart's case, the work the group is doing is seen as a new role for the EDA, which closed on its sale of the last available piece of property in the city's industrial park earlier this month.
"We recognize that we are a small city; we don't have an industrial base," Pullen said.
He noted that Fredericksburg's economic base is focused more on retail, offices and tourism, and said the most valuable thing the EDA can do now is to help those sectors grow so the city becomes more attractive to higher-paying, white-collar employers.
"What Fredericksburg needs to do to stay unique is to develop a really great quality of life," he said.
JumpStart has hired Basile, Baumann, Prost and Associates of Annapolis, Md., and Rhodeside and Harwell of Alexandria. The consultant team has been conducting interviews, studying market data and reviewing past studies the city has done to determine what's realistic.
It also has started drawing up a series of graphic representations of what redevelopment could look like in the 12 areas of the city that JumpStart is focusing on.
Meanwhile, JumpStart has pumped money into two projects.
The group supported the Rotary Club's work at Hurkamp Park. With EDA approval, JumpStart gave $10,000 toward that effort, which included building brick benches and steps on the Prince Edward Street side of the park.
The EDA also has approved spending up to $500 for a plaque that would highlight all the sponsors of the project.
In addition, JumpStart kicked in $9,000 to help replace the concrete sidewalks that line the corner of Princess Anne and Hanover streets with brick, part of Fredericksburg United Methodist Church's efforts to turn that corner into a meditation garden.
Pullen said he hopes the group can provide seed money for lots of small projects like those all over town. He envisions everything from a river walk to a trails system to an outdoor theater downtown.
He said there are no set criteria, and "there are no bad ideas," but it's up to the EDA to determine that a project meets its goals. Those goals include City Council's vision for the city, and those set forth in Fredericksburg's comprehensive plan for land use.
"The comprehensive plan has a vision. JumpStart would be what implements that vision," Pullen said. "We're just not going to hand out money willy-nilly, but at the same time, every project is different."
David Holder, the city's director of economic development and tourism, said that for JumpStart to be successful, it has to involve city residents and developers from the beginning to avoid the impression that it's a solitary group trying to tell landowners what to do with their property.
The committee is planning a meeting to brief the general public later this fall.
Last Monday, the committee sat down with Hunter Greenlaw, a partner with G.L.M.G. General Contractors, and Chris Waller of Garrett Development Corp. in what it hopes will be a model for future interactions with developers.
Greenlaw and Garrett are working together to develop Cobblestone Square, which involves tearing down the old jail off Lafayette Boulevard to build condominiums and offices.
Greenlaw said they'd like to continue what he calls "the improvement of the gateway from Lafayette into the city" with a mixed-use development on 42 acres that are currently industrial land at Lafayette's intersection with the Blue and Gray Parkway.
Plans are still rough, but Waller said they want to lure a "high-end" grocery store--he mentioned Harris Teeter, Wegmans or Trader Joe's--to the project.
They also want to incorporate residential and office space, along with trails that could connect the project to the nearby battlefield park and the other side of the parkway. There's even talk of building a pedestrian bridge over the busy road.
JumpStart and EDA board member Tom Crimmins acknowledged that ideally the committee would like to have a concept ready from the outset to present to developers for specific pieces of land.
"We would picture well-developed ideas in a corridor, then seek out developers," he said. "Hopefully, it creates some foundation for them to have a community-acceptable idea in that area."
But with that final product still several months away, Waller and Greenlaw were able to talk with the group's consultants about what kind of market data they might be able to share to help them figure out how feasible it would be to bring a high-quality grocer to town, or what kind of incentives a developer might need to provide in order to lure one.
Holder said that in the end, success won't be having a set of drawings of what corridors could look like, but generating private and public investment to make those ideas happen.
"If this becomes another project that ends up on a shelf somewhere," he said, "it will be a failure."
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