Nationwide vehicle ‘salvage service’ eyes Isle of Wight industrial park
Published 2:18 pm Thursday, August 25, 2022
Insurance Auto Auctions shared this photo of its St. Louis, Missouri facility as an example of what’s proposed for a 75-acre site in Isle of Wight County’s industrial park along Benn’s Church Boulevard. (submitted photo)
The 2022 site plan for the proposed Isle of Wight County Insurance Auto Auctions facility shows a landscaped buffer to shield the site from view of Benn's Church Boulevard. (Image courtesy of Isle of Wight County)
A nationwide automotive auction business with six branches in Virginia is eyeing the Isle of Wight Industrial Park off Benn’s Church Boulevard for its seventh.
Advanced Construction Development LLC has applied for a zoning amendment to create a “scrap and salvage service” on two parcels totaling 75 acres. The application is on behalf of Insurance Auto Auctions, an internet-based auctioneer of vehicles involved in collisions, floods or repossessions.
According to William Dytrych, manager of real estate development for Insurance Auto Auctions, the company would store roughly 3,500 vehicles on consignment from insurers at the proposed site.
The auctions would be exclusively online, with many bidders originating from outside the United States, Dytrych said.
The site would consist of a single-story metal building, concrete parking lot for employees and customers, and outdoor vehicle storage paved with asphalt millings.
Access from Benn’s Church Boulevard would be via IWIP Road.
IWIP Road averaged 260 vehicles per day, according to a Nov. 16, 2020, traffic impact analysis by Glen Allen-based Randy Kemp Associates for the project. Benn’s Church Boulevard, a four-lane divided highway, averaged 11,000. The analysis estimates the proposed Insurance Auto Auctions site would generate an additional 190 trips in and out of the facility on a typical weekday.
Dytrych anticipates the site would create 15 full-time jobs.
“We like to hire locally,” Dytrych said, noting that the company is also in the practice of contracting with local towing companies to bring vehicles in and out of its sites.
The site would be surrounded by a 6-foot fence and screened from view of Benn’s Church Boulevard by a landscaped buffer. Two stormwater ponds would facilitate drainage.
Rather than owning the land, Insurance Auto Auctions is proposing a 15-year lease.
Isle of Wight’s Planning Commission held an Aug. 23 public hearing on the proposal. It drew no speakers. The commissioners, however, voted to table the matter until September, wanting more information on the site’s fire-prevention efforts. Commissioner Thomas Distefano also proposed requiring a decommissioning plan for the end of the site’s lease, similar to what the county requires for solar farms.
