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byline: Denice Thibodeau

A rough year

Danville Superintendent Ed Newsome took over July 1, 2013 in a school district that had just closed three elementary schools and a middle school because a declining student population and budget constraints — closures that were unpopular with parents and students. The school board also had closed an alternative middle school program because of reduced funding.

Fighting in one of the middle schools brought the launch of a new alternative school program, but other initiatives Newsome attempted during the year got mixed reviews.

The superintendent wanted to reopen one school to start a performing arts academy, but school board members questioned how such a program could be funded.

Newsome’s vision also included massive restructuring of the school system, including the addition of new administrative staff. His proposed budget drew board disapproval when it included four new executive positions but no pay increases for teachers.

Teachers and principals retired or resigned in unusually high numbers. By the end of the school year, the district had 74 vacant teacher positions. In the previous three years, the normal level was about 50 resignations and retirements a year.

Parents, teachers and community leaders packed school board meetings in rarely-seen numbers — one in June even brought out fire marshals to clear a crowd that spilled out of the meeting room into an adjoining hallway.

While Newsome’s supporters regularly sang his praises at board meetings, his short tenure at Danville Public Schools ended June 30. He tendered his resignation, citing “personal and family reasons.” School Board Chairman Ed Polhamus said the board had approved a $160,000 severance package and announced Kathy Osborne, assistant superintendent for administrative services, had been appointed interim superintendent.

Osborne and Polhamus declined to comment on Newsome’s departure, saying that they want to focus on hiring teachers in time for classes to begin Aug. 11.

Weathering a crisis

A mishap last winter resulted in coal ash spilling into the Dan River at a time when Danville is making the river a focus of its downtown redevelopment initiative.

Six months later, the widely publicized spill appears to have no effect on the city’s water supply, but Danville officials still are assessing whether the event has done any damage to its image.

On Feb. 2, a pipe broke under the primary coal ash basin at Duke Energy’s shuttered Dan River Station plant in Eden, N.C, spewing into the river up to 39,000 tons of coal ash — the waste left when coal is burned — along with up to 27,000 gallons of contaminated water. The ash flowed downstream 20 miles toward Danville, its first stop along its route to Kerr Lake, a drinking water supply for numerous Virginia and North Carolina communities.

Coal ash contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, selenium and mercury.

Danville held its breath — its drinking water supply is drawn from the Dan River — but the city’s water treatment plant was able to filter out toxic chemicals to levels acceptable under federal guidelines, even as the normally muddy-brown river turned a silvery gray.

Overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, efforts to track the coal ash began with constant water quality tests being taken by various agencies and private environmental groups. Duke Energy used a vacuum dredge to clean up a large deposit at the spill site and located two other substantial deposits, one in Danville and one just downstream of Eden.

A vacuum dredge was set up at the Danville site in April, and work at the Eden site began in June, according to a report Davis Montgomery, Duke Energy’s district manager, gave to Danville City Council in June.

City officials are cautiously optimistic. With the drinking water continuing to be safe and no large “fish kills” found, had the fast-moving river managed to dissipate the coal ash to a far less dangerous level than immediately feared? That’s an answer that could take decades to know for certain. In mid-July, the EPA said the river’s water quality had returned to normal, and Duke Energy announced that it had completed its cleanup along the river.

Danville City Council members and the city manager expressed fears of the impact the spill could have on the city’s economic development efforts. The city is in the midst of a major downtown renovation, with the area rebranded as the River District to take advantage of its view of the Dan River.

Traffic has been rerouted to allow the construction of a large plaza at the main downtown intersection, complete with a large landmark fountain, overlooking the river. The city’s Riverwalk Trail is being expanded.

Marketing efforts to attract new businesses tout the river’s scenic beauty.

“I don’t want to minimize what happened,” City Manager Joe King says. “But having learned a little about the TVA coal ash spill [a massive 2008 spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee], once any deposits are removed from the river, there should be no lasting effects.”

While he has not been asked directly about the coal ash spill by economic development prospects, rumors abound that competing jurisdictions have brought it up to prospects, he says.

“What has occurred is hard to put a value on,” King says. “There has been local, regional, national coverage [of the effects of] toxic coal ash when we were putting emphasis on the river and the River District.”
King says that while such coverage is harmful, it is not yet known what the impact will be.

New plaza, fountain
In the meantime, work continues downtown. A new YMCA building — the first building to be built facing the river in more than a century — is nearing completion. In addition, the downtown fire station headquarters will be moving from its cramped quarters on Bridge Street, where modern fire trucks barely fit through its more-than-125-year-old doors, to the almost-finished new fire/emergency services complex on Lynn Street. Both projects replace eyesores: the YMCA at the former Long Mill site, burned in 2008, and the fire department at an also-burned-out former lumber company site.

The new Main Street Plaza and its JTI Fountain — the entire $465,000 price tag was donated by JTI Leaf Services — was officially unveiled in April. The fountain’s seven jets and scuppers represent the seven blocks that make up the Tobacco Warehouse District.

As hoped, the fountain has been a draw for the River District. During prom season, long lines of formally dressed students from area high schools lined up to take photos there; lines also formed during graduation season. An area that once saw almost zero foot traffic now is rarely empty. Four free concerts are scheduled for Thursday nights through the summer, and a recent scavenger hunt, sponsored by the Downtown Danville Association, drew hundreds to the plaza to compete for a $500 cash prize by visiting stores and businesses up and down Main Street.

Main Street Plaza also leads to a new Riverwalk Trail trailhead, one designed to be handicapped-accessible. The final phase of the project, to be done this year, will add public restrooms for Riverwalk Trail users and Main Street Plaza visitors.

The plaza sits at the base of King Memorial Bridge, a main connector for getting traffic across the Dan River. It, too, faces some remodeling this year. Its three northbound lanes will be cut back to two, making way for a pedestrian/bicycle lane, connecting the Riverwalk Trail on the north and south sides of the river.

Four blocks of Main Street saw sidewalks widened and made more attractive with brick, pavers and cobbles; intersections were improved; benches were placed and trees planted over the past year, and another phase of the streetscape project will make similar improvements along Craghead Street this year.

Downtown proponent
One of the biggest proponents of the River District is Karl Stauber, president and CEO of the Danville Regional Foundation. Convinced that downtown Danville could be revived, he took Danville City Council and city department heads to Greenville, S.C., to show them how a former mill-dominated city could turn itself around.

“We wanted to help them see the possible — and they did see the possible,” Stauber says. “They came back seeing the River District as a great asset.”

Consolidating what used to be seen as separate areas — downtown and the Tobacco Warehouse District — into the River District was a key decision, Stauber says, making it a unified place and a source of energy for the region.

The foundation kick-started the development of the River District by giving the Industrial Development Authority $1.2 million to purchase and demolish a long-empty building on an important corner on Main Street — a structure Stauber calls “a symbol of failure.”

“That turned a liability into an asset,” Stauber says.

Buildings identified by planning experts as key to turning the River District around have all been redeveloped or are in the redevelopment process, Stauber notes.

“Three-and-a-half years ago, 400 people were living in the River District, according to the economic development department,” Stauber says. “Now, there are 2,200 people living in the River District … the city and the foundation have spent $25 million upgrading infrastructure and some buildings — the private sector has spent $80 million.”

Work on industrial sites
As Danville continues downtown development, it is also working on some new industrial sites. The first phase of development has begun at a 165-acre site on Gypsum Road, and the Industrial Development Authority has purchased the 82-acre former Dan River Inc. Schoolfield Mill site for development.

There also is a joint city and county effort to develop a 3,500-acre mega park site through the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority, the third industrial park on which the two localities have collaborated on to share costs and profits.

Outside of its RIFA projects, Pittsylvania County has no formal economic development plan in place. In March 2013, the board of supervisors narrowly voted to dissolve its economic development department. Since then, responsibility for economic development efforts have fallen on Greg Sides, the county’s assistant county administrator for planning and development.

That is a situation Jessie Barksdale, elected as the board chair in January, wants to change.

“Greg is doing a wonderful job, but he has a host of duties to do daily,” Barksdale says.

Danville’s new economic development director, Telly D. Tucker,  began work on July 1. He had been assistant economic development director in James City County.

Tucker wants to continue the city’s current push to recruit more foreign investment — there are 10 foreign companies from nine counties currently doing business in the Danville area — while increasing attention to existing businesses.

“I’m impressed with some of the successes Danville has had with international recruitment,” Tucker says, adding that he agrees with the city’s recent decision to slow recruitment of start-ups and focus on larger, established, advanced manufacturing prospects.

Attention to existing companies is also crucial, Tucker says. “We need to get out in the community and see if there are opportunities to help them grow. If we take care of the existing companies, they become the cheerleaders for new ones, because new prospects often ask existing companies how the city responds to them.”

​Danville gets a new look

Mayor Sherman Saunders, a proponent of downtown revitalization, is surrounded by recently completed sidewalk and landscape additions on Main Street.

Mayor Sherman Saunders, a proponent of
downtown revitalization, is surrounded
by recently completed sidewalk and
landscape additions on Main Street.

There’s a new buzz about Danville, centered around its dramatic downtown streetscape renovations. After years of planning, public forums and preparation, the changes now are in full swing.
Sidewalks and streets are torn up, making way for wider sidewalks designed to be more attractive to pedestrians — with benches, landscaping and interesting mixes of brick, cobbles and pavers to break up the concrete. The sidewalks also offer restaurants space for outside tables and shopkeepers room to display some of their wares outside.

Robin Jones, owner of Vintages by the Dan on Main Street, is relieved her block is done and thrilled with the outcome. “We came in the other day and there were flowers hanging along the street,” Jones says. “They’re beautiful!”

Jones says the project undoubtedly impacted her bottom line for months — “we’ve had people say they’ve not been here since construction started” — but at least now other businesses undergoing the upheaval could see what the result will be. “While it’s been frustrating short-term, it’s positive long-term,” Jones says.

The changing streetscape is one part of the redevelopment of Danville’s River District, an area that encompasses what most people consider the city’s downtown, as well as the neighboring historic Tobacco Warehouse District and a former mill site across the river where a new YMCA is being built.

During the past five years, the city has invested $25 million in revitalizing the River District’s buildings, infrastructure and streetscapes — with about a third of that money coming from grants, according to Corrie Teague, project manager for the city’s economic development department. It has seen $78 million in private investment in return so far, from the sale of buildings and investor spending on renovations, according to Teague.

After suffering sharp declines in population and jobs because of changes in the tobacco and textiles industries, the city sees The River District as a key element for Danville’s future success. “In the future, the River District will be more important to the city’s economy than ever before,” says Richard Turner, chairman of the city’s Industrial Development Authority (IDA).  “I may not be here to see it, but I believe it will happen.”

End of an eyesore
The first phase of the streetscape project kicked off last September with the demolition of a downtown eyesore. The IDA purchased the long-abandoned1960s-era Downtowner Motor Inn and was determined to erase the building and its outdated “modern” design. The inn was jarringly different from the downtown area’s historic brick buildings and stuck out in the city’s skyline.

The Danville Regional Foundation — a huge proponent of the downtown revitalization — picked up the million-dollar tab for the demolition. Three years ago, the foundation sponsored a trip to Greenville, S.C., for Danville City Council members and city officials to meet with planners who turned that city’s downtown around.

Then the city began a careful, block-by-block approach to the streetscape project. In an effort to keep inconvenience to business owners and customers at a minimum, when work on one block was completed, the next block was torn up. During business hours, the city made sure entrances to businesses were accessible.

Next door to Jones’ Vintages by the Dan, Michele Muso, the assistant manager at the restaurant 316 Cibo, says she, too, is ecstatic that business is back to normal. The restaurant got into the spirit of the project, having “cracked sidewalk specials” and displaying drawings showing what the streetscape would look like when the dust settled. “Now we’re ready to put furniture out front and let people enjoy the beautiful downtown,” Muso says.

To the south of this block, the street project continues, while to the north, a new traffic pattern has been put into play to carry traffic to a bridge across the river. The space that used to be the northbound bridge access in front of a row of businesses is becoming a pedestrian plaza that will have a huge fountain at its center, donated by local business JTI Leaf Services.

This area, considered the key intersection of the downtown area, also will see improved access to the Riverwalk Trail — more than eight miles of walking and bicycling trails along and over the Dan River, past businesses and through city parks.

Homes above the stores
Up and down Main Street, and along the side streets, hammers are at work as developers transform once ramshackle, long-empty buildings into trendy, exposed-brick apartments atop commercial spaces. Business owners also are making renovations as they make their homes in the River District.
One of the biggest investors is the IDA, which has purchased numerous decrepit buildings in an effort to prevent any further deterioration. These buildings, Turner says, are in such rough shape they scare off developers used to dealing with old buildings.

While the IDA sometimes renovates buildings to meet tenants’ needs, it prefers getting the buildings up to code — deal with any asbestos or lead paint abatement, bring in new plumbing and electric, etc. — before selling them to investors to finish the renovations, Turner says.

“We do limited redevelopment, basic things that make the buildings much more attractive to the private sector,” Turner says.

Six years ago, Bridge Street was home to a 120-year-old fire station, a converted building with loft-style condominiums and another building converted to apartments.  Plus, there were a lot of empty buildings left behind when textile and tobacco businesses left the city. Now, almost every building on the street is humming, many with new companies ensconced and others undergoing renovation to become businesses, apartments and restaurants.

The Danville Regional Foundation moved into the former DIMON International (a tobacco distributor) headquarters building, sharing space with Averett University’s new nursing program. A supercomputer shares space in a large building with a “green” battery manufacturer and the U.S. headquarters of a Chinese furniture manufacturer; an allergy medicine manufacturer just announced its relocation to one of the former tobacco warehouses, and Dan River Inc.’s former research building is being renovated.

Along this street is a row of flagpoles, once used to fly the flags of the countries where DIMON did business. Now, alongside the American, state and city flags are flags from nine countries representing 10 companies doing business in the Danville area: Axxor of The Netherlands, CBN Secure Technologies and Intertape Polymer of Canada, EBI of Poland, Essel Propack of India, GOK International of China, JTI Leaf Services of Japan, Nestle of Switzerland, Swedwood of Sweden and Telvista of Mexico.

Shared arrangement
Most of these companies are not in Danville’s River District. In fact, many are not in Danville but in neighboring Pittsylvania County. They are located in industrial parks co-owned and maintained by the city and county through their Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA). The arrangement, which leaves each government entity free to do its own business recruiting or industrial park building, is an unusual partnership in an environment that often sees cities and counties in pitched battles to woo the same companies.

Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders, two other members of Danville City Council and three members of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, sit on the RIFA board. Saunders is a strong proponent of regional cooperation as a way to avoid the hard feelings engendered when one entity “wins” and the other “loses.”

“It’s a win-win situation,” Saunders says.  “We’re much stronger with regional cooperation.”

Helping to attract companies to the area’s industrial parks is a new workforce development program at Danville Community College, called the Southern Virginia Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing. Using a $3.7 million appropriation in the state budget, the college plans to renovate and expand the Charles Hawkins Engineering and Industrial Technology building and construct a new building to house its welding, printing and building trades programs.

Debate over site
Despite this momentum, one planned city-owned industrial park has hit major snags. The property, referred to as the Coleman site, has ruins of mid-1700s building foundations on it and a graveyard with unmarked graves, which the economic development department hoped to move to one of Danville’s cemeteries.

For more than two years, the project has been tied up while archaeologists inspected graves (no bones or relics, such as shroud pins or buttons, have been found), researched the history of the property and did various assessments to determine whether it is a historically significant site. While their report to the state Department of Historic Resources concluded the site was not significant, Sonja Ingram, a local representative for a private group, Preservation Virginia, does not agree.

Ingram wants to see the building and burial sites preserved because of their connection to Thomas Fearn, one of the founders of Danville. She wants plans for the industrial park changed so these two sections — at almost opposite ends of the site — are untouched and available for history buffs to visit.

“It’s just the right thing to do,” Ingram says. “I’ve worked on this type of site before [as an archeologist]; changes can be made.”

Jeremy Stratton, the city’s economic development director, has offered to move the graves to another part of the site, put up a historical marker and include a path to the site in the plans. He says changing the plans completely would not be cost effective, since there are also U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ecological restrictions in place that limit where buildings can be placed. Currently, the permit requests for the site remain in the hands of the state for review.

The IDA also is eyeing another large site for development, and through a partnership between the city, Pittsylvania County and Eden, N.C., a megapark continues to take shape.

The mayor says these steps are part of a comprehensive plan that has included replacing a major bridge, improving the city’s parks and walking and biking trails, as well as taking huge steps to transform its downtown.

“It’s all a comprehensive approach to attract diverse businesses that bring different kinds of jobs throughout the city,” Saunders says. “The fact that we’ve seen $78 million in return investment in the River District alone speaks volumes, especially in a down economy. We are making progress.”

 

 

Danville region at a glance

Population (2010)…………………………………………………106,561
Change since 2000……………………………………………..-3.26%
Unemployment (May)…………………………………………….8%
Average weekly wages (2012)………………………………$642
% of adults with bachelor’s degree or higher………..13%

 

 

​Fewer students, fewer classrooms

Danville’s downtown renaissance already was under way when the 2010 Census results came out. The numbers highlighted the importance of the city’s focus on rebuilding its business base and attracting new residents.

The Census showed the city’s population had dropped by more than 11 percent in 10 years, to a total of just more than 43,000 residents. A population drop had been expected — declining numbers of home purchases and rising numbers of abandoned, deteriorating houses were easy to see — but the number shocked city officials.

“Where did 5,000 people go?” Mayor Sherman Saunders wondered — and immediately he began figuring out ways to bring them back.
As the city’s population declined, enrollment at Danville Public Schools decreased dramatically as well.

Last year, one of the city’s nine elementary schools closed, and three more followed this year. When school resumes in August, Danville will have two middle schools instead of three.

Parents did their best to fight the closings, petitioning the School Board to keep their community’s schools open. When that effort failed, Danville City Council members were implored to increase funding so that no school would have to close.

But the final decision came down to budget numbers. The state bases its funding on a per-student basis, and the city already gives the schools almost twice what the state requires. Continuing to keep school buildings open at reduced capacity was simply no longer an option, former Danville Public Schools Superintendent Sue Davis says.

Davis, who retired June 30, says she fully understood parents’ concerns. She assures them that the school closings will not result in fewer teachers (cuts in faculty already have been made over the years as enrollment dropped) or more students per classroom. There simply will be fewer empty classrooms.
Though she accepted the responsibility for the decisions, Davis says, like the parents, she felt her heart fight the inevitable. “But that’s a heart thing,” Davis says. “This had to be a head decision.”