Isle of Wight County supervisors expect to vote Nov. 21 on whether to formally accept a $2.2 million Virginia Department of Transportation grant that would partially fund a roundabout on Turner Drive.

The supervisors voted Oct. 17 to conditionally approve a cost-sharing agreement that would fund the $4.5 million remainder of the estimated $7.6 million project by committing taxpayer dollars and passing a proportionate share of the cost onto developers who build within a half-mile radius of Benns Church Boulevard’s intersection with Turner over the next five years. That vote was conditioned on the town of Smithfield agreeing to foot up to $2.3 million of the cost to account for expected intersection traffic tied to approved and proposed developments on Smithfield’s side of the town-county line.

Smithfield’s Town Council deferred voting Oct. 28 on the agreement, contending its proposed $2.3 million, or 51%, share of the cost not covered by VDOT is disproportionately high. 

Smithfield Mayor Steve Bowman, on Nov. 6, directed Town Manager Michael Stalllings and Town Attorney Bill Riddick to work with county staff on an alternative cost-sharing plan.

The proposal that called for the town to bear up to $2.3 million of the cost is Isle of Wight’s third draft of the agreement since August.

On Nov. 7, the supervisors entered a 26-minute closed-session meeting to discuss “investment of public funds” for a “public-private transportation improvement project where if made public initially the financial interests of the county would be adversely affected.” The provision, taken nearly verbatim from state law, is one of 55 allowed exceptions in Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act that outlines when governing bodies can enter closed sessions.

“We’re continuing to have conversations with (Smithfield) about possibilities of a cost-share agreement,” county Transportation Coordinator Jamie Oliver said after the supervisors’ return to open session. “We anticipate having an additional update for the board to consider executing the VDOT agreement for this project at their regular meeting upcoming.”

“A final number has not been agreed to,” Smithfield Town Manager Michael Stallings told The Smithfield Times on Nov. 14. “We are still in negotiations with Isle of Wight regarding our contribution.”

To accept and appropriate the VDOT money in the county’s budget, the supervisors must vote to authorize county staff to sign what VDOT has termed “Appendix A,” which would formally commit the county to pay the full $4.5 million remainder. The county and town could then each negotiate separate agreements with participating developers to recoup each development’s agreed-upon share of that cost.

Under the likely-to-change third draft of the cost-sharing plan to which the Town Council objected, Smithfield’s $2.3 million share would include $902,654 tied to traffic from developments not within a half-mile radius of the Benns Church and Turner intersection, such as the 2023-approved, 267-home Grange at 10Main development slated for Route 10 and Main Street, and the 2021-approved 812-home Mallory Pointe development under construction off Battery Park Road. The remaining  $1.4 million is tied to the residential and commercial phases of “The Promontory,” which proposes 262 homes and five commercial parcels at the southwest quadrant of the intersection on the town’s side of Turner Drive.

The county would bear its own share of just over $1 million to account for traffic from new developments outside both the town and the half-mile radius of the intersection, and the impact of a new school that’s proposed to be built within the next few years on land directly opposite Turner Drive from the current shared Smithfield High School and Smithfield Middle School campus.

Isle of Wight has already received written commitments from Miami-based Frontier Development, which is proposing to build a Wawa gas station and convenience store at the southeast quadrant of the intersection, a 17 1/2-acre commercial development by Hampton-based Harrison and Lear slated for a farm adjacent to The Oaks Veterinary Clinic, and from Ryan Homes parent NVR, the developer of the 615-home Sweetgrass development county supervisors approved earlier this year for the northeast quadrant.

Under the October version of the cost-sharing agreement, Sweetgrass would bear a $541,592, or 12%, share of the cost, and the Wawa and Harrison and Lear developments would collectively be on the hook for just under $500,000, or 11%.