Danville invests $3 million to prep Coleman site

In July, Danville City Council members OK’d an infusion of funding for 158 acres on Gypsum Road known as the Coleman site, which is being readied for industry.

In July, council members unanimously agreed to move $3 million from the city’s gas fund to its economic development fund to meet grant matching requirements. City officials say the funding will help attract an enterprise with high-volume energy demands that can be served by the city’s utility infrastructure.

“On occasion, the city council has transferred excess funds from utilities to help spark new investment in the city,” says Danville Mayor Alonzo Jones. “In this case, the $3 million will match over $11 million in grant funds.”

Recruiting heavy utility users to the site will increase revenue and stabilize rates for existing customers, according to Jones.

The Coleman site features “very robust” utility access, including electric, water, gas, fiber and sewer, according to Corrie Teague Bobe, the city’s director of economic development and tourism. It’s close to U.S. Route 58 and is the only rail-served site available for development in Danville.

However, the site, acquired in 2011 by the Industrial Development Authority of Danville, is not shovel-ready.

“The Coleman site was difficult to view due to trees and overgrowth to the extent it was hard to see the property’s potential,” says T. Neal Morris, chairman of the city’s industrial development authority. “Some prospects, when they were shown the property, really liked the location but would not walk due to the vegetation.”

Site preparation, which will include grading 80 acres and constructing an access road, carries a total cost of $17.43 million. The work — which will elevate the site to a Tier 5 certification, the highest level in the state’s Virginia Business Ready Sites Program — is slated for completion in the second quarter of 2026.

The graded pad will have the capacity to support a facility of more than 1 million square feet, according to Bobe.

Of the $11.33 million in grant funding going toward the Coleman site, the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program awarded $9 million, and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission awarded $2.33 million.

The Coleman site is among more than 65,000 acres of properties available for development in Danville, Pittsylvania County and the town of Hurt. Most of the available land is co-owned and co-marketed by the three localities, according to Bobe.