From the Daily Progress on 5 June 2008 –

Albemarle County and Charlottesville officials and representatives will make a trip to Northern Virginia to hold a town hall meeting for the 650 to 800 employees who will move to the county-based National Ground Intelligence Center.

The NGIC facility, located at the Albemarle-Greene County line off of U.S. 29, is set to expand by 2011.

Local government, business, real estate and schools representatives will make the trip Sept. 9 “to provide an introduction and overview [of the Charlottesville area] to people who are considering relocation,” county spokeswoman Lee Catlin said in an e-mail.

The meeting will be held at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington that morning and another meeting has been scheduled for the Defense Intelligence Agency building in Herndon that afternoon.

Neither I nor my company will not be one of those going on this trip to court the future residents of Central Virginia, but that doesn’t mean that our Buyer Agency services offered won’t be available to these employees; we just won’t have the initial one-on-one opportunity to introduce ourselves. It will be up to me to do as the big companies are doing, but on respectively smaller scales.

This is one of the very few posts I ever have written or ever will write that is targeted specifically for a specific reason and segment of the market. As I’m not part of one of the larger companies, my advantage is this blog, my transparency and my candor.*

For those who are finding this page via Google, you may find the Market Statistics category useful as well as this post – Posts with Enduring Interest – Take Two – Just for Buyers.

Hopefully those choosing to buy homes will have the opportunity to choose their own buyer representation – they are after all the ones who will be paying their mortgages. Will they know that there are more than three real estate companies in the Charlottesville region? Let’s hope so.

The main NGIC facility is in orange.

The NGIC move will be huge for our region:

“The jobs that are coming here are high-demand, well-paid jobs,” said Moffatt. “The Charlottesville area has a lot going for it [compared to the Capital region]. As long as they can find, in their minds, suitable housing, which I believe is available, a good portion, easily 70 to 80 percent, would want to come down here.”

Another NGIC expansion might be just around the corner, possibly as soon as 2013. Plans are in the preliminary stages to expand the existing 260,000-square-foot NGIC building. However, Moffatt said that the money isn’t in place yet.

Still, with the 1,000 employees, their spouses, and the contractor tail, that’s a whole lot of new folks on their way to greater Charlottesville.

A question asked by locals is – Why not hire locally? It’s the Clearances.

An important note – the Charlottesville/Albemarle/Greene (otherwise known as “Central Virginia) region does not have reliable public transit (yet) – although local government officials are doing their respective best to extract whatever they can – (bolding mine)

Supervisor David Slutzky (Rio) asked how many people might be in that “contractor tail” in addition to the 1,000 personnel being relocated. Moffatt said he was unsure and didn’t have any confidence in the estimates he has been provided previously, but that he would get back to the Board with a more accurate number within 30 days.

The Board’s discussion with Colonel Moffatt concluded with Supervisor Sally Thomas (Samuel Miller) and Slutzky encouraging traffic management accommodations, and financial contributions, for public transit to the base.

“In general in this community we are hoping to get much more public transit, and I think the price of gas is going make that more and more desirable,” said Thomas. “Right now, for example, the way things are organized [at NGIC], it is difficult for a bus even to go in and deliver the few employees who come by bus…” She asked that transit accommodations be taken very seriously as they plan the base. Moffatt agreed that it would be important to establish the viability of public transit from the very beginning of an employee’s tenure at the base, otherwise, he thought they would get too accustomed to driving their single occupancy vehicle.

Slutzky didn’t let Moffatt leave without making a pitch for political and financial assistance for the City-County Regional Transit Authority. “It wouldn’t be an unwelcome thought…to [have you] look at potentially contributing, or planning to contribute, to the cost of extending a [bus] route out to the NGIC facility…”

Moffatt pointed out that while 1,000 people would be coming, only 625 new parking spaces were being built. Moffatt has to meet the federal government’s goal in new construction of only providing parking for 60% of the employees. Slutzky said he was glad to hear about that requirement. “It forces all of us to have to address it and that’s how we get transit results.”

For now, driving is the only option for most, and this will impact buying decisions.

Related Reading:

Housing and tech in Charlottesville

Another sign of a less transient market in Charlottesville

Loudoun and Charlottesville

* I’m not keyword-slamming, but I am cognizant of the fact that Google recognizes certain keywords as being valuable and relevant.

Do these buyers know about the tactics of some relocation companies? (none of the brokerages alluded to in this story are relo companies)