Supporters and opponents of the Tidewater Logistics Center multi-warehouse complex proposed for the outskirts of Windsor will have a final opportunity on March 20 to weigh in on a revised concept that calls for one less warehouse.

That’s the date Isle of Wight County supervisors have scheduled a public hearing on the matter, according to public notices published in the Times’ March 5 and March 12 print editions.

Isle of Wight’s Economic Development Authority remains under contract with Meridian Property Purchaser LLC, a subsidiary of The Meridian Group, to sell an EDA-owned 83-acre parcel fronting the four-lane Route 460. County supervisors previously voted 4-1 in June to deny Meridian’s application for industrial rezoning, which at that time called for five warehouses totaling 1.2 million square feet spread over 154 acres of farmland and forestry. The acreage includes the EDA-owned land and two non-EDA parcels owned by Hollowell Holdings LLC.

Meridian submitted revised conceptual plans in July showing four warehouses totaling 726,000 square feet instead of five, and formally submitted a new rezoning application the first week of December. Under state law, if a rezoning application is denied, the project developer is ordinarily required to wait at least a year before submitting another application seeking the same rezoning for the same land, unless the county determines the revised proposal is sufficiently different to warrant a waiver. Isle of Wight Community Development Director Amy Ring said her office granted that waiver based on the site layout changes and reduction in density.

The revised plan shows a 14.9-acre public park with walking trails where the fifth warehouse would have been, and proposes increasing from 6 feet to 9 the height of a 60-foot-wide landscape berm that would buffer the site from the adjacent Keaton Avenue and Lovers Lane neighborhoods. There would be a 10-foot-tall sound wall on top of the berm.

Isle of Wight County’s Planning Commission voted 4-3 in January to recommend approval of the revised concept. 

Proponents of the original five-warehouse concept had argued last year that it would bring millions in tax dollars and over 1,000 new jobs to the county. Opponents argued it would also bring constant noise and traffic.

A 2023 study by Minneapolis-based Hickey and Associates prepared for Meridian estimated the five-warehouse complex would have generated $9.5 million annually in property taxes without specifying whether this referred to real estate, personal property or machinery and tools taxes – or some combination of the three. 

The Hickey study had estimated the five-warehouse concept would also generate $21.1 million in state and local sales tax revenue, $111.5 million in state income tax revenue and 5,198 temporary and permanent jobs for a $146 million direct and $2.7 billion indirect 10-year economic impact.

A more conservative fiscal impact analysis by the Hampton Roads Alliance, a regional economic development organization, had estimated $8.7 million to $9.5 million over 10 years from the three local tax sources based on Meridian’s original concept.

Meridian’s four-warehouse concept is now expected to generate between 250 and 500 new jobs, down from the 1,200 permanent full- and part-time positions the Hickey study had estimated.

Despite the county having raised its real estate tax rate to 73 cents per $100 last year, a Jan. 22 memorandum from Isle of Wight County Commissioner of the Revenue Gerald Gwaltney to Economic Development Director Kristi Sutphin estimates Meridian’s revised four-warehouse concept will produce a 10-year total of $7.7 million through 2035 from a combination of the three local tax sources.

“Since no specific entity has been selected to be built at the location, this revenue estimate is based on the average warehouse and manufacturing properties in Isle of Wight County,” Gwaltney’s memo states.

That’s a half-million more than the $7.2 million the Alliance estimated based on the current proposal. The Alliance estimates its revised figure breaks down to $3.8 million in real estate tax revenue, $754,000 in personal property or car taxes, and $2.6 million in machinery and tools taxes, or $840,000 annually from all three sources.