West Broad Village, the west ends new mixed use project has hit another snag.  This time it is over a misunderstanding in how much the water and sewer tap fees will be.  An article, which appeared in the Henrico Citizen outlined the saga between Unicorp, the developer, and the Henrico County Board of Supervisors.  According to the article, Unicorp’s position is that the mixed-use buildings should fall under the County’s “other buildings” classification for fee calculations.  The County, however, looked at each individual use within each building to calculate the fees.  While the difference may seem semantic, the resulting fee difference is not.

Unicorp calculated their total obligation to be $589,000.  The County calculates that same obligation to be $3,500,000.  The difference is huge and Unicorp claims it is enough to shut the project down.  They just don’t have the money in their budget to pay the higher fees.  While the discrepancy is making news now, Henrico County officials notified Unicorp and their engineer, Timmons Group, about the fee via three letters between March 26 and July 3, 2007.  Unicorp claims that they never received the notification because Timmons never notified them and the letters that the County sent to Unicorp were addressed to a marketing person, not a project manager.  

I suspect that Unicorp will have an uphill battle in getting the County to reduce the fees.  Henrico’s position is consistent with how other projects have been treated and they followed the proper protocol to notify the developer.  While I am sure it is a shock to Unicporp, county fees are a part of every development project and are one of those things you need to understand upfront and early.  It’s just one fo those “boxes” you have to check.

This latest issue surrounding West Broad Village just adds to the projects difficulties.  Obviously, the retail market (and the market in general) has completely gone out from under them, with retailers more likely to file for bankruptcy than sign a new leases.  In addition, late last year nine mechanics liens, totalling approximately $3.7 million were filed against the property for failure to pay contractors and brokers.  At the time, Unicorp cited difficulties in lining up their financing as the reason for the delays.  There has also been at least one failed acquisition of the property as Unicorp tried to unload its position in the property.  There are rumors that another group has the project under contract and is doing their due diligence.  It may have been through those due diligence efforts that the tap fee discrepancy was discovered.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported today that Tyson Foods, Inc. will be adding 180 jobs for a new processing line at its Hanover County plant.  Almost a year ago, Tyson announced the layoff of 190 employees.  The Company said it is pleased to be able to hire back most of the affected workers.  50 of the 180 workers have already been hired and the balance will be added over the coming months.  The plant currently has approximately 625 employees.

While I don’t have any inside knowledge of the Tyson Foods operation, I think this story may portend to what we will see more of in the US.  It appears that, prior to the new hires, Tyson found a way to operate its plant with fewer employees.  Basically, they increased their productivity and became more efficient.  It was only when they added a new production line that their hiring needs increased.  I believe that in the lean times, many more companies will find ways to be more efficient with their workforce – whether through technology or other means.  When the recovery comes, we may not need as many workers to accomplish the same level of production.  That speaks well for our national productivity, but would mean a longer more protracted job recovery.