Henrico's $10M purchase of Wilton Farm 'a game-changer'

Beneath two massive magnolia trees and a blue sky dotted with endless rows of clouds, Henrico County officials Thursday staked claim to one of the county's most historic sites – and dreamed out loud about what it could become.

Henrico County has agreed to purchase Wilton Farm, a 1,184-acre site that borders the James River in Varina, from developer HHHunt for $10 million in a deal expected to close late next month. Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson, the chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors, made the announcement during a press conference at the site Thursday morning.

HHHunt had purchased the farm for about $19 million in 2005 and planned a 3,200-home mixed-use community there, but it never materialized.

Henrico officials, sensing recently that HHHunt was looking to sell, initiated conversations several months ago, and the deal materialized. The purchase price is slightly less than the property's assessed value of $10.62 million.

Once approved by the Board of Supervisors next month, the move will solidify the county's future in a number of critically important ways, County Manager John Vithoulkas told the Citizen.

"It's a game-changer. It's a 50-year play," he said. "This isn't about tomorrow or next week or next year. What you're talking about is history, recreation, open space, the potential improvement of the viability of 895 [the Pocahontas Parkway, which bisects the site]."

Vithoulkas, Nelson and other county officials envision a number of potential uses for the land, including:

• location of a long-discussed Henrico history museum that would tell the story of the county, which arguably is the true birthplace of the United States, as Vithoulkas noted;

• the creation of public access to the farm's 2.8 miles of frontage on the James River and its two lakes (one 94 acres and the other 26 acres in size);

• location of one or more schools, if needed;

• the creation of a business corridor adjacent to the Pocahtonas Parkway, from which plans for new interchanges to access the property were approved more than a decade ago;

• a variety of park and trail uses;

• other tourist attractions.

"Most, if not all, of the open space in the county is in Varina, and we want to preserve some of it," Nelson told the Citizen. "This is our way of showing our residents that we do care about quality of life and not just about building out the whole county.

Officials expect at some point to establish a committee of citizens and county staffers to, as Nelson termed it, "re-imagine" uses for the site as part of a master-plan process. Nelson is hopeful that once that process is complete, the county will begin funding projects on the site through its next bond referendum – beginning with a history museum that some citizens lobbied unsuccessfully to have included as part of the last bond referendum in 2016.

"But the most exciting part is we don't have to do it tomorrow, and we don't have to do it next month," Nelson told the Citizen. "We can take our time, and we can get to a point where everybody's comfortable with where we're going."

The Henrico Economic Development Authority will take out a loan to purchase the site, Vithoulkas said, which the county intends to pay off quickly. Henrico expects to see a revenue surplus from the 2018-19 fiscal year of about $65 million, he said – an excess that helps make a project like this one possible.

About half of the site – 550 acres – is undevelopable. The county tentatively plans to reserve a portion of the remaining land for future school use (near Osborne Turnpike) and another portion for potential commercial or residential development (along the Pocahontas Parkway, which bisects the property).

English colonists once referred to the site as "World's End" – but today, the presence of the parkway makes a commute to downtown Richmond possible in just a matter of minutes.

That has the county's Economic Development Authority leaders pondering the creation of an "Innsbrook East" type business development along the highway, carefully located so that it would not interfere with the rest of the site.

"If you can have [commercial] development that won't impact residential – which it won't here – it's almost too good to be true," Vithoulkas said.

The potential also exists for the site to tell the story of a difficult portion of its history. Several hundred slaves worked and lived at Wilton Farm, which was a tobacco plantation in the 1740s. Some may be buried there, as well.

"Much of this property remains as these individuals would have experienced it centuries ago," Nelson said. "Clearly, there's a story to be told here and a tremendous natural resource to be preserved and enjoyed."

Vithoulkas termed the acquisition of the site one of the top one or two accomplishments he'd taken part in during his 24-year tenure with the county.

"We see a tremendous value for Henrico taxpayers for generations to come," he said. "When you're able to leave something for generations behind, that's what we're talking about.

"With enough time and study, with enough input from everyone, we're going to do something spectacular here."