Tucked between the Williamsburg Crossing Shopping Center, Route 199 and a small residential neighborhood in James City County is a nearly 25-acre tract of land where a developer is hoping to build 190 condominiums.
The proposed development, The Promenade at John Tyler, would abut the shopping center by Food Lion. Virginia Beach-based Franciscus Homes wants to build 190 households on an undeveloped plot of tall grass and woodlands.
Much of the surrounding area has already been developed as James City County has expanded in recent years, with a more than 100,000-square-foot Riverside building and the condominium neighborhood La Fontaine — also built by Franciscus Homes — joining the area around the shopping center after its construction in 1989.
Should the development be approved, it would consist of 11 multi-unit buildings, each with 10 condominiums averaging 1,581 square feet per unit. There would also be 40 duplexes averaging 1,425 square feet per unit, according to a fiscal impact analysis of the development prepared by Ted Figura Consulting.
The style of housing proposed for the development is appealing to young professionals without children and empty nesters who are looking to downsize, according to the analysis.
“Well planned, well executed neighborhoods that are attractively priced are underserved today,” said Gary Werner, president of Franciscus Homes. Along with La Fontaine, his company is behind Bristol Commons and Claiborne Condos in Williamsburg and Fairway Villas in James City County.
Werner said the proposed Promenade is “very similar” to a development the company is working on in Norfolk called Pointe East at Harbor Walk, which he said is the best-selling community by a single builder in Hampton Roads in 2013 and so far this year.
“I’m very familiar with that market and that location,” Werner said of the site for the proposed Promenade. “I think geographically it’s a great spot.”
He praised the walking-distance access to shopping at Williamsburg Crossing, noting the increase in residential rooftops near the shopping center — the Promenade would begin where the shopping center’s parking lot ends — should help business there.
Williamsburg Crossing is not the shopping center it once was. Prior to the expansion of Route 199 and the blossoming of the Monticello Avenue corridor, it was one of the largest shopping destinations in James City County.
“It was a great shopping center,” said Mark Welch, who operated Comic Cubicle out of Williamsburg Crossing for 14 years. “It ran its course. The merchants moved out.”
Welch moved out in 2006, joining other retailers that left Williamsburg Crossing for New Town, including Corner Pocket, Twiddy Realty, Authentic Guitars and Laney’s Diamonds & Jewelry.
“It was a pretty steady exodus,” Welch said of the time he left Williamsburg Crossing. “A lot of merchants were either leaving or planning to leave.”
“When you look at the big picture, I don’t know that the exodus from Williamsburg Crossing is any different than it is from other shopping centers,” he said. “There is only so much retail, and especially during that time period there was so much new construction.”
Among the new construction is Monticello Marketplace, New Town, Courthouse Commons, Settler’s Market, Windsormeade Marketplace and Marketplace Shoppes — all along the James City County portion of Monticello Avenue. Those shopping centers form the largest cluster of retail development in James City County.
Cutting right through the middle of that cluster is the expanded Route 199. That expansion came at a cost to Williamsburg Crossing, whose main entrance was cut off from westbound travelers on Route 5 when a median was built on the road as part of the Route 199 expansion project. The entrance was pushed farther down to the back of the shopping center, away from the anchoring Food Lion and main row of stores.
Some of the other businesses that once anchored Williamsburg Crossing closed without relocating, like Video Update and Carmike Cinemas. Longtime tenants still in place at the shopping center include Subway, Papa John’s Pizza, Food Lion — which became a Bloom for a few years before switching back to a Food Lion — Victoria’s Restaurant and Taco Bell.
Other shopping centers on Monticello Avenue soaked up merchants from Williamsburg Crossing, too. Burger King used to operate out of a building on an outparcel at Williamsburg Crossing, but now the restaurant is at Monticello Marketplace. School Crossing, which spent 11 years at Williamsburg Crossing, also relocated to Monticello Marketplace after that shopping center opened.
“It felt like a better location,” said Sherry Phipps, the owner of School Crossing. “With the change in 199, it made it a little bit difficult to get in and out of the shopping center. Before, Route 5 was the main thoroughfare, and with Route 199 that changed.”
Katherine Woodruff, a real estate agent for Mid-Atlantic Commercial who is involved in marketing some of the outparcels at Williamsburg Crossing, echoed Phipps’ remarks about the expansion of Route 199, saying the expansion of the road and the subsequent altering of the main entrance to the shopping center has “changed drastically how that shopping center has performed.”
But some of that lost traffic could come back with the Promenade, which Werner, the president of Franciscus Homes, said would increase the number of people in the area.
“I think the addition of these day-to-day shoppers will help revitalize that center,” he said.
Though the Promenade would bring more people to the area, it would also require public services like water and sewer, as well as schools for the children in the neighborhood to attend.
The fiscal impact analysis by Ted Figura Consulting shows the developer estimating 17 new students produced by the development: eight at Clara Byrd Baker, four at Berkeley Middle School and five at Lafayette High School. The county’s methodology for determining students shows slightly higher numbers, with 15 at Clara Byrd Baker, seven at Berkeley and 10 at Lafayette.
Though the analysis mentions Clara Byrd Baker, the parcels are located in territory belonging to Rawls Byrd Elementary School, according to the county’s parcel viewer. The two elementary schools and the high school are each able to absorb the projected enrollment from both the developer and the county, according to figures in the fiscal year 2014-15 budget for Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools.
Berkeley Middle School, however, is already more than 70 students over capacity, and that number is projected to grow to almost 200 by the 2018 school year, according to the budget. Talks have been underway in the City of Williamsburg and James City County for months about how to handle the middle school situation — both Toano and Hornsby middle schools are also projected to be over capacity by 2018 — though a solution to the issue has yet to be determined.
To compensate for the services the Promenade would need from the county, the current owner of the 24.5-acre tract, University Square Associates, has submitted a series of obligations to the county contingent upon a rezoning of the land from business to mixed-use. Franciscus Homes has entered a contract to purchase the property, though it will not be finalized until the rezoning is approved by the James City County Board of Supervisors.
If the rezoning is approved, the obligations made by University Square Associates are shifted to Franciscus Homes. These include one-time cash payouts to the county to help pay for the cost of the added strain on the school system, the library system, emergency services, the water system and the county’s parks.
The fiscal impact analysis also cites a projected financial benefit to the county of $2,841,500 in revenue over a 10-year period after the projected increase in expense the Promenade would create is taken into account.
Before any development can come to fruition, several boxes must be checked. Along with the county agencies like the James City Service Authority, the planners and the building safety/permits division, state agencies like the Virginia Department of Transportation must be consulted. Then the matter must go before the James City County Planning Commission, which will issue a recommendation for the rezoning to the supervisors, who will then consider the matter and make a formal decision as to whether the land will be rezoned.
If the land is rezoned, the project must then be engineered, a process Werner said would take about six months. He said he wants to get the rezoning application before the planning commission in October, which would set the development up for groundbreaking next summer.
Construction on the tract would represent by far the largest development in Williamsburg Crossing and the developments linked to its road system in more than a decade. The only other new buildings constructed in the area since the early 2000s are MEGA Auto Spa and Zaxby’s, built in 2012 and 2010, respectively.
