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Nine months after rejecting a denser version of the Tidewater Logistics Center multi-warehouse complex proposed for the outskirts of Windsor, Isle of Wight County supervisors voted 3-2 in two separate votes to approve a revised concept that calls for one less warehouse.

One vote granted Meridian Property Purchaser LLC, a subsidiary of The Meridian Group, a requested  comprehensive plan amendment. The other granted Meridian’s application for industrial rezoning of 154 acres of farmland and forestry fronting the four-lane Route 460.

Vice Chairman Rudolph Jefferson, Renee Rountree and Thomas Distefano voted in favor of both requests over the objection of Board Chairman Don Rosie and Supervisor Joel Acree.

Distefano, who was recently appointed to fill the late William McCarty’s seat on the board, had previously voted in January in his prior capacity on the county’s Planning Commission in support of the project. He said while the initial proposal had been “substantially wrong,” the revised concept alleviated many of his concerns.

Isle of Wight’s Economic Development Authority remains under contract with Meridian to sell an EDA-owned 83-acre parcel for $2.5 million. The 154 acres includes two non-EDA parcels owned by Hollowell Holdings LLC. County supervisors previously voted 4-1 in June to deny Meridian’s original application, which at that time called for five warehouses totaling 1.2 million square feet.

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. 

The votes followed an hour-long public hearing that drew 21 speakers, two-thirds in opposition. 

“At the end of the day, we’re the voice of the people,” said Acree, who likened the controversy to the opposition that had erupted six years ago when Isle of Wight attempted to lure a Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice correctional center to another undeveloped parcel on the outskirts of Windsor. That project was ultimately voted down in 2019.

Supporters say the Tidewater Logistics Center would bring millions in tax revenue and hundreds of jobs without increasing the demand on Isle of Wight’s school system that would come with a residential development. The proposal has divided Windsor’s Town Council, with Mayor George Stubbs saying he supports the project but Town Councilman Marlin Sharp saying he opposes it.

Among its backers is the Port of Virginia. Chris Gullickson, the port’s director of development and transportation policy, said a $1.4 billion underway expansion at the Port is already driving an uptick in freight traffic on Route 460 that will continue regardless of whether the Tidewater Logistics Center is built.

A traffic study estimates the four warehouses would collectively estimated to generate just over 2,000 daily vehicular trips.

A 2023 economic impact 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.

That’s based on the average warehouse and manufacturing properties in Isle of Wight since no specific company or use has been selected to occupy any of the four proposed warehouses, according to Gwaltney’s memo.

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.