This text was taken from an email alert sent out on May 15, 2025. Sign up for email alerts →

Dear Supporter,

U.S. Route 29 is the primary gateway into Albemarle County and Charlottesville, a Main Street of sorts that brings in residents and visitors from near and far to everything great the area has to offer. Several new economic development projects are taking place along the roadway between Charlottesville and Ruckersville in Greene County. These development projects have received little public attention, but have the potential for major impacts to the environment, transportation, land use, housing, schools, and the climate.

Economic development is an important tool for a locality, but Albemarle County already has several sectors like tourism, recreation, medical and agriculture that have both a positive economic and quality of life impact for area residents — not to mention the overall impact of the University of Virginia. We urge the County to prioritize supporting and nurturing these existing sectors that already bring great benefit to our community. Visitor spending brought nearly $1 billion to the area last year, nearly matching that of the annual $1.2 billion defense sector, while also serving as an additional motivator to preserve and protect our natural, cultural and historic resources, expand our trail and transportation systems, and increase climate mitigation funding. 

The outdoor recreation economic sector has only continued to grow since the COVID-19 pandemic, as organizations like PEC and others have rallied around initiatives to increase public access to green spaces. The quality of life in our urban and rural areas is a major factor affecting retention and expansion of businesses as well as attracting new businesses. Supporting the agricultural economy also enables our farmers to farm, process, and market locally, where the community sees a return on investment through local job creation and tax revenue. Additionally, the uncertainty at the federal level calls into question why there would be a sole focus on growing the defense intelligence and biotech sectors.

Read on to learn about some of the proposed and approved projects and why they matter.

Economic Development in Albemarle County

As an outgrowth of the 2004 Crozet Master Plan, Albemarle County became more intentional about cultivating an effective economic strategy, restructuring its Economic Development Authority in 2016. Prior to that restructuring, in 2010, the county adopted an Economic Vitality Action Plan to address the need to create quality jobs with a focus on current local and existing businesses and to expand the commercial tax base.

Now, the county is working on a new Economic Development Strategic Plan, and PEC has joined the stakeholders committee. Look out for a future email with more on this initiative soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend you visit the Economic Development Strategic Plan public engagement webpage to learn about how the county is acting on economic development.

Major Projects Within Albemarle’s U.S. Route 29 Corridor

The projects listed below are currently in development in Albemarle County. As we learn more about these projects, we will continue to update you on ways to advocate for smart growth and resource protection. We’ll also remain focused on wider implications for land use, smart growth planning, transportation, infrastructure, natural resources and quality of life in our community. 

In Albemarle County’s process for adopting the fiscal year 2026 budget, the Board of Supervisors and county staff have discussed the importance of expanding revenue from non-residential sources. However, absent from those discussions have been specific details about how much growth will occur by cultivating these new projects, how much that growth will cost and what are the possible impacts we need to plan for are.

Rivanna Futures
Last year, Albemarle County acquired 462 acres of land along the east side of U.S. Route 29 North adjacent to Rivanna Station, the home of three federal defense intelligence agencies, with the goals of retaining those Department of Defense installations and expanding the private sector in the community. The project is called Rivanna Futures. 

An initiative with such goals will most certainly have major land use, transportation, water, energy, and infrastructure implications for the county and its residents, especially for the 8-mile stretch of U.S. Route 29 going up to the southern edge of Greene County.

GO Virginia “Innovation Corridor”
A state-wide economic development initiative called GO Virginia seeks to designate the U.S. Routes 15 and 29 as a Defense and Intelligence Industry Corridor. This would expand defense and intelligence development throughout the area from Fauquier County, down through Culpeper, Orange, and Greene Counties, and culminating in Albemarle County and Charlottesville. 

In April, GO Virginia awarded over $613,000 in funding to the County for infrastructure design of Rivanna Futures. 

A proposed new vision for U.S. Route 29, transforming the area into an economic development-focused “innovation corridor,” has the potential to impact the environment, transportation, land use, housing, schools and the climate. 

This vision is shared by Albemarle County, UVA, the UVA Foundation, and others, with a major focus on growing the defense intelligence and biotech/biomedical economic sectors extending from Charlottesville and UVA along U.S. Route 29 to just north of Ruckersville in Greene County. It is also part of a regional effort to establish an “innovation corridor” along the 60 miles of U.S. Route 29 between Fauquier County to Charlottesville.

Project VITAL: Virginia Innovations and Technology Advancements in Life Sciences
Following the groundbreaking for UVA’s Manning Institute for Biotechnology in 2023, Governor Youngkin announced that a network of research institutions will be established between the University in Charlottesville, Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC in Roanoke, and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medicines for All Institute. Initially branded as Virginia’s Research Triangle, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. was later added to the research network. The announcement emphasized the desire for increased commercialization between the four cities, similar to North Carolina’s Research Triangle. UVA officials have estimated that the Manning Institute will generate hundreds of jobs and potentially thousands indirectly by attracting biotech and pharmaceutical companies to the greater Charlottesville/Albemarle region — focusing on bringing in new talent from outside that region.

Consider, will these projects bring an influx of people and their families to the region? What will this mean for traffic, schools, housing, cost of living, pollution, and climate? The community has had much to say about these topics in recent years as traffic and the cost of living have increased. Where is this deeper analysis happening, and can the county make it public for feedback from its citizenry?

Haven’t heard much about these major projects? Likely others haven’t either. So, send this to a friend and have them join our mailing list to stay informed about what’s going on in Albemarle and Charlottesville and ways you can get involved.

Thank you!

Rob McGinnis, PLA FASLA
Senior Land Use Field Representative
Albemarle & Greene Counties
[email protected]
(434) 962-9110