Most members of Smithfield’s Town Council say they’re more amenable to developer Joseph Luter IV’s January version of the Grange at 10Main than an alternative concept he presented at the council’s Feb. 24 committee meetings for the 57-acre subdivision slated for the western edge of the town’s historic district.

Last month, Luter presented plans calling for 93 homes, 45 of which would be townhouses, in lieu of three-story apartment buildings that had been part of the 267-home concept a prior Town Council voted 3-2 to approve in 2023 for mixed-use zoning. A revision dated Feb. 17 called for 122 homes, consisting of 65 townhouses, 35 single-family homes, 10 “estate lots” and 12 800- to 1,400-square-foot “cottages.” It also would have a slightly larger hotel, at 75,000 square feet, up from 66,000, and a smaller restaurant at 4,500 square feet rather than 7,350.

Luter said the cottages were an effort to address affordability concerns the council raised in January. He estimated last month that the units in the 93-home concept would sell for between $600,000 and $1 million. The cottages, he said, would start around $300,000.

Councilwoman Mary Ellen Bebermeyer, who campaigned for her seat last year alongside now-Mayor Mike Smith and Councilmen Darren Cutler and Bill Harris on a platform of reining in growth, said she was “pleasantly surprised” in January at the 65% density reduction, and was “disappointed” to see more houses in the February plan. 

Councilman Steve Bowman, Harris and Smith each said they’d heard feedback from residents who were opposed to the 2023 version of the Grange but liked the 93-home January version. Cutler too said he felt the January version was more appealing than the February plan.

Bebermeyer, however, said she would prefer cottages over townhouses.

“I think it’s a better fit for downtown, not only price-wise,” Bebermeyer said.

Councilwoman Valerie Butler, among the council members to raise the affordability issue in January, said she too prefers the cottages.

One holdover from the February plan that will likely still be included in the version Luter submits to town planning staff later this year is the configuration of the farmers market that Luter has since day one envisioned as anchoring the development’s commercial phase. 

Luter’s January plan, which had been presented to the Town Council before being shown to Smithfield’s and Isle of Wight County’s shared Tourism Department, showed the market in two perpendicular wings of of an L-shaped building separated by the restaurant, a design that Tourism Director Judy Winslow said “would not work.” To accommodate the tourism agency, which runs the weekly farmers market, the restaurant is shown in the February plans at one end of one wing rather than between them.

The February plans say the market building would consist of 24 100-square-foot covered vendor stalls in “climate-controlled open space with heaters and fans.” Luter said up to 20 additional exterior covered stalls could be built on land outside the market.

There would also be outdoor space for additional vendors to set up tents the same as they’ve done in past years at the current market in the parking lot of the Bank of Southside Virginia.

Winslow, in written responses to questions the Town Council had posed to her, Luter and town staff in January, said the current $75 per year market vendors pay for a 100-square-foot space isn’t expected to increase as a result of moving the farmers market from the bank parking lot to the Grange, though by the time the building is constructed several years from now, the fee may increase on its own due to inflation.

Luter said the January and February Grange concepts are each still contingent on the town putting up $1.4 million for construction of the farmers market building, something Bebermeyer, Cutler, Harris and Smith each said during last year’s campaign that they opposed.

Luter’s father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, in 2022 offered land and $1 million conditioned on the town and Isle of Wight County each putting up $1.4 million for the market. Each governing body voted in 2022 to commit the money, though only Isle of Wight to date has made good on its pledge by voting to officially transfer the funds to the county’s Economic Development Authority, which agreed last year to serve as landlord for the brick structure that would house the market and restaurant.

Cutler said he still wasn’t sold on the idea of committing the town’s share.

“I think it’s going to be challenging to support it with taxpayer dollars,” Cutler said.

Luter confirmed he would not seek any additional financial contribution from the town beyond the $1.4 million. He’d previously remarked during the 2023 rezoning process that he, at that time, would potentially have sought “reimbursement” for certain “public” components, such as the cost of extending utilities, but Luter now says he won’t ask the town this time around.

Luter’s January plan had called for deeding 20 to 25 acres formerly earmarked for houses to the town to be developed, or not developed, as the council sees fit. Luter said the February plan calls for roughly 16.6 acres to be deeded to the town.

Luter said in January that the 93-home concept would equate to a 41% reduction in vehicular traffic compared to the 2023-approved concept, which the Virginia Department of Transportation had expected as of that year to add roughly 4,700 daily vehicular trips spread across the sites’ four access points from Cary Street, Grace Street, Main Street and a right-turn-only ingress from Route 10.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:59 a.m. on Feb. 25 to correct that the $75 fee market vendors pay is per year, not per week.