Two years after pledging $1.4 million toward moving the Smithfield Farmers Market to the Grange at 10Main, Isle of Wight County supervisors voted unanimously on Nov. 21 to officially transfer the money to the county’s Economic Development Authority.

The transfer comes a month after the EDA board agreed verbally to serve as landlord for a brick structure and outdoor “village green” that per the latest plans would include 48 covered market vendor stalls, a two-story 6,500-square-foot restaurant, public bathrooms, a market manager’s office and up to six rental retail spaces totaling 3,882 square feet. 

The size and configuration of the building has changed multiple times since Grange developer Joseph Luter IV and his father, former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III, offered land and $1 million in 2022, conditioned on the town and county each putting up $1.4 million, to build a permanent home for the market at the 267-home development slated for the western edge of the town’s historic district.

Smithfield’s Town Council made its own $1.4 million pledge in 2022, and in 2023 approved mixed-use zoning for the 57-acre Grange, but to date hasn’t voted on its own appropriations resolution that would transfer the town’s share to the EDA.

Isle of Wight Economic Development Director Kristi Sutphin told the EDA in October that the public money would be deposited into its own “enterprise fund” much like the separate accounts Isle of Wight County maintains for public utilities and the EDA. The EDA would manage retail leases and convey the sale of any condominium-style elements, such as the restaurant, to buyers.

The restaurant and retail lessees would pay common area maintenance, or CAM, fees. Management of the market would remain under Smithfield’s and Isle of Wight’s shared Tourism Department.

A final construction cost and groundbreaking date hasn’t been announced. A 2022 fiscal impact study submitted with Luter IV’s rezoning application had estimated the cost of an earlier iteration of the market building at $7.8 million, not counting the value of the land that Luter III has proposed to donate. Tourism Director Judy Winslow said she is pursuing grant funding to cover the remaining cost.

“We’re definitely starting to head in that direction as this becomes more real,” Winslow said.

Supervisor Renee Rountree, who made the motion to approve the transfer of funds, said that based on updated estimates by Isle of Wight Commissioner of the Revenue Gerald Gwaltney that the Grange will generate just under $800,000 per year in real estate tax revenue at full buildout, Isle of Wight’s investment would pay for itself in “less than two years” once the market, the single-family and apartment homes and a proposed three-story hotel are built and occupied. Gwaltney’s estimates show the town receiving just over $173,000 per year at full buildout.

During public comments prior to the supervisors’ vote, six vendors who participate in the currently seasonal market that operates weekly on Saturdays at the Bank of Southside Virginia parking lot on Main Street, and Market Manager Sabrina Dooley, urged moving forward with funding a more permanent space.

Farmers market vendors Ed and Jane Schweiger, who are partners in G&S Apiary and use a portion of the honey they extract for their other home-based business, Breezy Hill Meadworks, said they’ve seen a drop in patronage at the current site that they attribute to a lack of on-street parking along Main Street – something the couple says could be remedied by moving the market to the Grange.

Rountree, who also serves on the Farmers Market Advisory Board, said there would be 235 parking spaces at the Grange to support the market, 54 of which would have shared use with Main Street Baptist Church for church events.

Judy Eure, a vendor from Suffolk, said the current site is also limited by its lack of on-site public bathrooms and the fact that the Bank of Southside Virginia, not the town or county, owns the parking lot, which restricts the hours the market can operate.

“The market is perpetually at risk of losing our location,” Dooley said.

According to County Attorney Bobby Jones, it took from April to September for the county to negotiate with the Bank of Southside Virginia to negotiate the one-year extension of the lease that will keep the market operating at the current site through 2025.

“If the Grange doesn’t happen, there’s no guarantee that the farmers market will be where it’s located now,” Jones said.

Smithfield may or may not follow suit in officially transferring its two-year-old $1.4 million pledge to the EDA. Only three of the seven members on the council in 2022 – Vice Mayor Valerie Butler and Councilmen Mike Smith and Randy Pack – are still in office. Pack, who abstained from voting on the matter in 2022 on grounds of his negotiations with the Luters to potentially run the proposed restaurant, will step down from the council by Dec. 31. Smith, who was reelected Nov. 5, said during an Oct. 10 candidates forum that he now favors keeping the market at its current location in the heart of downtown. Mary Ellen Bebermeyer, Darren Cutler and Bill Harris, who won the other three available seats in this year’s Town Council election, answered “no” when asked at the Oct. 10 forum if they’d support moving forward with the previous council’s 2022 commitment.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 7:41 p.m. on Nov. 22 to correct that three of Smithfield’s 2022 council members are still in office, though Randy Pack abstained from voting in 2022 on the town’s monetary contribution to the Grange market.