Businesses drawn to Moneta, but economy slows developers’ plans

So how is the nation’s bleak economic state affecting development plans on the Bedford County side of Smith Mountain Lake?

In many ways, the area’s momentum, like the rest of the county, has slowed with the economic slump.

“We’re seeing more projects put on hold,” said George Nester, director of community development. “It’s kind of a universal trend right now.”

One major development, though, has managed to stay ahead of anticipated goals since breaking ground a year ago.

Downtown Moneta, which is under way off Virginia 122 north of the Hales Ford Bridge, is roughly 35 percent complete, beating a build-out goal of 25 percent, said developer George Aznavorian.

So far the project has seven tenants ranging from restaurants to ice cream parlors. A medical facility is opening this week, several additional tenants are expected to open by December and the Bank of Fincastle recently closed on a deal to build a facility there, Aznavorian said.

“For this first year, we are very pleased at the reception from the business community,” said Aznavorian.

Also, 36 homes in a residential portion of the project called Mayberry Hills have been built with roughly 80 percent occupancy, he said, and about half of 26 town homes have sold. Many of the buyers didn’t require loans in their purchases since they were cash customers, he said. The single-family homes are priced from $195,000 to $375,000 and town homes are $155,000 to $210,000.

The project could be further along if the housing market was the same as it had been a few years back, but Aznavorian said construction is moving at a steady but manageable pace.

“The projects that have gotten in trouble are those who built too far ahead of themselves,” he said. “That’s everywhere in America — not just this area.”

The real test for development in the county, Nester said, will be if they rebound in early 2009. This year saw far less rezoning for large parcels of land, he said.

Two major projects planned in Moneta near Virginia 122 have stalled this year after winning rezoning approval from county officials in 2007.

Developers of Sunset Cay, a mixed-use community near the lake, said they are holding back on an option to buy hundreds of acres on Hendricks Store Road for an 18-hole golf course and more than 1,000 homes. It was planned as the final phase of an overall three-part project taking shape near the lake, but Jim Fields, one of the development’s managing partners, said the final phase is too much to take on in the current economic climate.

Fields said they are instead concentrating on commercial portions of the project currently under way.

Nearby, on a 56-acre site off Virginia 122, construction has still not moved forward on the Sweetwater Amphitheater, a planned 7,000-seat concert venue. In April 2007, county officials rezoned 40 acres of the property to C-2, which Nester said is a “rigid” form of zoning that allows that kind of outdoor commercial entertainment.

Holly Sweet of Sweetwater Entertainment Group, who along with husband Darrin Snyder planned the project, said in a 2007 interview the initial phase of construction was planned for this year. But when the project still had not gotten off its feet by the summer, they organized a concert series that drew thousands in August at a different location minutes away from the proposed site.

Recent phone messages left for Sweetwater Entertainment Group on the current status of the project have not been returned.

Timmons Group, a Richmond firm that aided the couple during the rezoning process in 2007, is no longer involved in the project.

The developers pitched the projects to officials as a boost to tourism, which according to the county’s comprehensive plan is an important component of the local tax base. The availability of water and sewer was a green light for such developments when Bedford County last year opened a wastewater treatment plant in Moneta.

Brian Key, director of the county’s public service authority, said the county is spending roughly $200,000 more than it is making with the plant. He said revenue loss was expected in its formative years, as it was for water and sewer provision in Forest. It took 15 years for the authority to not lose money in Forest, he said.

“If the growth would pick up, there would be fewer years to break even (in Moneta),” Key said.

Aznavorian said having public water and sewer was crucial to Downtown Moneta’s residential side so homes could be built closer together on smaller lots to in turn save more open land.

Attractions in the project’s commercial portion, such as a planned YMCA facility, could also make an impact on future developments in a model similar to Lynchburg’s Wyndhurst.

Land is secured for the YMCA, Aznavorian said, and more than $1 million has been raised with construction hopeful for 2009.