Just as we saw with Wal-Mart, the immediate sale of properties on Lucy Lane, and shortly after that, with the arrivals of Home Depot and Lowe's and Cracker Barrel, we saw that rapidly come along. |
The intent of the board is to certainly stay in the city of Waynesboro with our retail presence. We always hope to be in Waynesboro. |
The plan is to return the site to raw land and start over again. |
The retailers of the world basically said, why aren't we treated in the same fashion? State governments are getting sales tax. Local governments are getting sales tax. Local governments are getting meals and lodging taxes. And all of that is a derivative of our investment in their community. |
The state provides incentives because they were going to get income-tax revenue. Local governments provided incentives because they were going to get machinery-and-tools revenue. |
This is a relatively new phenomenon. |
We have always welcomed opportunities to partner with other jurisdictions and other organizations to have a presence in other parts of the Commonwealth. We would never turn down the opportunity to talk about how we can partner with somebody to have a presence in any jurisdiction from Southwest all the way to Northern Virginia. |
When Gov. Warner announced his Virginia Works initiative last spring, we actively advocated with the governor and the secretary of commerce and trade that the Artisans Center be the lead organization for that initiative. We weren't successful with that, even though we did get the secretary and the Department of Housing and Community Development to remember that there is an Artisans Center of Virginia that should be an integral part of anything that they do related to the works of artisans anywhere in Virginia. |