Smithfield’s Planning Commission voted 6-1 on June 10 to endorse a revised plan for the Grange at 10Main calling for up to 119 homes to be built on 57 acres at the western edge of the town’s historic district.

Commissioner Darren Cutler, who serves as the commission’s liaison from Smithfield’s Town Council, cast the lone dissenting vote on developer Joseph Luter IV’s request for two special use permits.

One of the permits would grant a waiver of yard requirements. The other would grant a waiver of maximum building height, which is capped at 35 feet, or three stories, under the town’s planned mixed-use development, or PMUD, zoning designation.

Cutler said the requested 10-foot front- and rear-yard setbacks and 5-foot side yard setback are “very different” from the minimum 35-foot front- and rear-yard and 15-foot side yard setbacks required by the town’s zoning ordinance. Land Planning Solutions President Melissa Venable, who’s been working with Luter IV on the project’s permitting, contends they’re in line with existing historic homes in downtown Smithfield that predate the numbers specified in the ordinance.

The latest concept incorporates elements from January and February conceptual plans that called for significantly fewer homes than a plan approved in 2023 by the Town Council. The latest plan proposes 115 residential units, including 33 single-family 60-foot-wide lots, 10 single-family “estate” 80-foot-wide lots, 37 townhouses and 35 cottages. A note on the April 24 plan states that townhouses may replace some cottage lot locations during the final site plan, but the total lot count would not exceed 119 units.

The plan still includes a commercial phase that would house the town’s farmers market, a restaurant, office and retail space, and a hotel.

In January, Luter presented a plan to the Town Council for 93 homes, including 45 townhouses, in lieu of three-story apartment buildings that had been part of the 267-home 2023 concept. In February, in response to council members’ concerns over the affordability of the houses’ then-proposed price points of $600,000 and up, Luter returned with a 122-home alternative featuring 800- to 1,400-square-foot “cottages” that he said would start around $300,000. Venable declined to speculate when asked by the Planning Commission about specific price points for the cottages versus townhouses, citing fluctuations likely to occur in the real estate market by the time those cottages would be for sale.

 

Historic Smithfield endorses revision

The vote followed a public hearing on developer Joseph Luter IV’s request for two special use permits, which drew two speakers.

Smithfield Times Publisher Emeritus John Edwards, who spoke on behalf of Historic Smithfield, said Luter’s revisions had “more than erased” the nonprofit’s concerns regarding the traffic impact of the prior 267-home concept and that Historic Smithfield’s Board of Directors “wishes to wholeheartedly endorse the project as it’s now envisioned.” Historic Smithfield was founded more than 30 years ago to raise funds to match a grant Luter’s father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, offered to beautify Main Street with brick sidewalks and historic-style street lamps.

Farmers Market Manager Sabrina Dooley also spoke in favor of the revision, stating the proposed indoor/outdoor structure would resolve “a multitude of weather obstacles” that vendors currently face at the seasonal weekly market that for more than 20 years has operated out of the Bank of Southside Virginia’s parking lot. Town officials said earlier this year they’d received word from the bank that the parking lot lease will not be renewed for 2026.

“From the beginning we wanted this project to be supported by the majority of people in Smithfield. In November, they spoke with their votes and they wanted to see slower, more contained growth. We heard them,” Tip Brown of Venture Realty Group, who’s been working with Luter IV on the project, read to the Planning Commission on behalf of Luter IV, who was absent from the meeting.

Cutler and Council members Mary Ellen Bebermeyer, Bill Harris and now-Mayor Mike Smith, who each won seats in the 2024 election, campaigned on a platform of controlling growth and said at an October candidate forum that they opposed the prior council’s commitment of up to $1.4 million to move the Smithfield Farmers Market to the Grange.

Luter IV still wants Smithfield to match Isle of Wight County and put up $1.4 million for the construction of an indoor/outdoor structure that would house the town’s farmers market.

Luter III in 2022 offered land and $1 million conditioned on the town and Isle of Wight County each putting up $1.4 million to build a permanent indoor/outdoor market. In 2024, two years after pledging its own $1.4 million, the Board of Supervisors voted to officially transfer its share to the Isle of Wight Economic Development Authority, which has agreed verbally to serve as landlord for a brick structure and outdoor lawn that would accommodate market vendor stalls and a restaurant.

Brown said Luter IV maintains his offer to donate roughly 16 acres he’s no longer proposing to incorporate into the Grange to the town to develop, or not develop, as the Town Council sees fit. Brown estimated the land value at upward of $2.5 million, which he said would “more than offset” the requested taxpayer participation in the market.

Brown, reading from Luter IV’s letter, said the project was “never intended to maximize density and profits” and that “the economics of building market-rate apartments has shifted,” which is why townhouses and cottages are now proposed.

“Higher construction costs and higher borrowing costs have flipped the risk-reward for larger apartment projects,” Brown said.