Promontory commercial phase too ‘modern’ for Smithfield, planners say
Published 3:31 pm Thursday, February 13, 2025
An illustration shows the proposed architectural style for a bank that would occupy one of the five commercial parcels proposed as a first phase of the 262-home Promontory development off Benns Church Boulevard. (Images courtesy of Cite Design)
An illustration shows the architectural style of one of the proposed sit-down restaurants.
An illustration shows the style of a proposed fast food restaurant with drive-thru service planned for The Promontory.
An illustration shows the architectural style of another sit-down restaurant proposed for The Promontory.
An illustration shows the proposed car wash.
The Promontory’s commercial component would be built before its residential phases, representatives of Charlottesville-based Greenwood Homes told Smithfield’s Planning Commission on Feb. 11 after the body’s first official look at the 262-home mixed-use development proposed for land at the edge of town along Benns Church Boulevard.
Several commissioners objected to illustrations of the five commercial parcels they say clash with the town’s existing architecture.
“The buildings look very modern, and one of the things that we push is a very colonial style,” said Commissioner James Yoko.
It’s an issue the 1752-founded town has faced before. In 2023, when the developer of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ Smithfield office on South Church Street proposed modeling the building off one in Virginia Beach, the Planning Commission rejected the design in favor of one showing brick and faux gables.
The illustrations, known as “elevations” within the planning and zoning industry, show The Promontory’s commercial phase with a drive-thru bank, fast-food restaurant, car wash and two sit-down restaurants.
“Retailers now, especially the food people, are really going for a clean, neat, modern look, and so I would hope that when you all review it, when the final people get here, just realize that they have stores all over the United States of America and they’ll do their best to make it look like Smithfield, but in some cases they can’t, and we don’t want them to go away because of the elevation,” said Bob Thornton, a commercial real estate broker with Virginia Beach-based Thalhimer, a brokerage that’s working with Greenwood to market the commercial sites to prospective tenants.
“And we wouldn’t want them to go away, but I know that I was here on the commission when Wendy’s was going up and they came to us with their … regular Wendy’s, but they worked with us,” said Commissioner GiGi Smith, “and if you go to Williamsburg … McDonald’s did not look like McDonald’s, but it still had the golden arches, so it can be done. I don’t think that we’re going to be that hard to work with.”
Thornton said he already has “a national restaurant chain that’s committed.” Though he wouldn’t disclose the business by name, he said it’s one not already in Smithfield.
Kent Henry, director of real estate development for Greenwood, said if the rezoning and related special use permits are approved, construction would begin in 2026 and continue through 2033, bringing an estimated $245,000 annual cash flow to the town and $1.2 million per year to Isle of Wight County.
The first special use permits would allow drive-thru facilities. The second would waive yard requirements to allow a reduction from the minimum 40-foot front yard setback from the street to 15 feet. The third would waive the town’s eight-unit-per-acre maximum density to allow 14.36 units per acre for the attached residential phase, though the detached dwellings would have a density of 4.68 units per acre for an overall density of 5.36 units per acre. There would be five residential phases.
Greenwood has also requested a Planning Commission waiver to reduce a 50-foot landscaped buffer requirement to 10 feet.
The residential phases would consist of 88 townhouses, 154 single-family homes and 20 “villa” duplex and triplex units. The attached homes would be priced from the high $300,000s to low $400,000s, while the detached homes would sell for between $500,000 and $600,000, Henry said.
The townhouses would be three stories with rear-facing garage doors. Proposed amenities include several small parks and kayak access to the 12-foot-deep manmade lake that occupies 33 acres.
The latest conceptual plan shows the same layout as was proposed in 2023 when Greenwood first submitted its rezoning application, with access to the development’s residential phase via a planned extension of Cypress Run Drive.
That access road to the Kroger and Cypress Run Plaza shopping centers is currently under private ownership but would be acquired by Greenwood and turned over to the town as a public road once expanded, Henry said.
Access to the commercial phase would be via Benns Church Boulevard with secondary access via a proposed single-lane roundabout to be built on Turner Drive by 2029.
Greenwood’s draft proffer statement pledges a $1 million commitment toward the estimated $7.6 million cost of the roundabout and related turn lanes. The town of Smithfield pledged its own $900,000, or 11.8%, commitment in December under a cost-sharing agreement to fund the $4.5 million remainder not covered by just over $3 million in state funding the Virginia Department of Transportation awarded the county for the project last year.
Greenwood has further pledged to pay $62,519 per classroom seat, or a maximum of $750,228, in cash “if the project results in a lack of capacity at Smithfield Middle School, which is already at 82% of its 683-student “program capacity” and is expected to reach 106% when all in-progress and approved but unbuilt developments slated for the county’s northern end are completed, according to Isle of Wight County Schools’ data from last fall. Program capacity refers to constraints due to state class size standards rather than building or fire prevention codes. The Promontory alone is projected to add 85 students, 13 at SMS.
Commissioners Thomas Pope and Darren Cutler, who was recently appointed as the Town Council’s new liaison to the Planning Commission, questioned whether Greenwood would actually make the payment if it completed construction of all phases ahead of other, larger developments like the 812-home Mallory Pointe subdivision the town approved in 2021 that expects to start building its first 135-home phase this year. County supervisors also approved the 615-home Sweetgrass development opposite The Promontory on the county side of the town limits last year, though it hasn’t broken ground yet. State law changed in 2016 to prohibit localities from requesting or accepting “unreasonable” proffers, defining the term as any condition not “specifically and uniquely attributable” to a specific rezoning request.
“They’re saying right now the schools can absorb his development irrespective of all the others, and that’s been the problem all along,” Pope said.
Cutler, who campaigned for his council seat last year on a platform of reining in growth and development, also objected to the density waiver.
“The citizens of Smithfield aren’t really fans of that level of density,” Cutler said.
The Planning Commission took no action on Greenwood’s rezoning application. It must hold a public hearing before it can vote on a recommendation to the Town Council, which must then hold its own hearing before a final vote on whether to approve the rezoning and related permits.
