Closed-door body briefed on Rivanna Futures, water and sewer upgrade in northern Albemarle

What are the latest details on Albemarle County’s ongoing work to develop their Rivanna Futures project to accommodate an AstraZeneca manufacturing plant as well as future businesses?

What about the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority’s forthcoming plans to increase capacity in an area projected to add thousands of homes as well as a new industrial park with at least 600 employees?

Best I can do for you is to describe a couple of presentations given to the Land Use and Environmental Planning Committee from their April 17, 2026 meeting. (download the Rivanna Futures one)

LUEPC is a closed-door body not subject to Virginia’s open meeting laws, unlike a predecessor entity called the Planning and Coordination Committee which consists of two City Councilors, two Albemarle Supervisors, and top leadership at the University of Virginia. Both elected bodies opted to discontinue PACC in late 2019.

Materials are posted after the fact. Charlottesville Planning Commissioner Hosea Mitchell is a member of the LUEPC group and has this brief report from that body’s May 12 meeting.

“A couple of presentations, but at the end of the day they all revolved around 29 North and what’s happening with the intelligence facility out that way and what will be happening with AstraZeneca when AstraZeneca arrives,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said $4.5 billion will be invested in the property and minimum salaries are expected to be around $125,000. He did not have anything to say about the second presentation but I’ll have more on that in a moment.

Albemarle County’s presentation contains much more information such as a slide with information including history dating back to studies by Virginia’s Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs in 2014 and 2018 that sought to improve the base. One slide indicates that a 2024 S2A Action Priority is to “pursue NGAD fighter missions.”

Albemarle Supervisors agreed on May 25, 2023 to authorize County Executive Jeffrey Richardson to purchase the 462 acres around Rivanna Station for what at the time was billed as a potential campus for intelligence and national security firms. At the time the purchase price was listed at $58 million. Earlier, the Defense Affairs Committee of the Greater Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce released a study demonstrating a $1.2 billion impact from the defense industry.

Albemarle County Supervisors agreed to rezone about 172 acres to light-industrial and a project to prepare the site construction is expected to get underway this summer. Bidding for contractors is currently underway with a notice to proceed expected in mid-June.

Albemarle County now has a devoted program manager to coordinate the many aspects of developing the site. That includes contracting Kimley-Horn to oversee design and procurement for the Boulders Road extension.

Albemarle has been successful in securing $600,000 from GO Virginia for site design, $9.7 million from the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program to get the site shovel-ready within 12 months, $700,000 to design an extension of Boulders Road to Austin Drive. The Commonwealth Transportation Board is contributing $20 million to the $42 million project as I have reported.

AstraZeneca will take up 82 acres for their two production facilities. A construction schedule is still being determined but site work may get underway in the first quarter of 2027. The first building is expected to open in late 2029 with 100 employees followed by a second building in 2030 with 500 employees. Manufacturing will take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What questions were asked? Did LUEPC members contribute anything to the conversation? We won’t know as this was a closed-door meeting as will be the next on Friday at noon at a location not revealed to the public.

The RWSA presentation described the water and wastewater system for northern Albemarle. Take a look at that report here.

A master plan for this area was conducted in 2024 before the AstraZeneca announcement and showed an average demand that year of .05 million gallons a day (MGD) forecast and a maximum of 0.78 MGD. That had been expected to increase to an average of 1.22 MGD in 2045 and 1.89 maximum MGD.

This presentation also included the results of a new growth analysis conducted this year to reflect the effects of AstraZeneca and as-yet-unannounced businesses. Other recent changes include an expanded Hollymead Town Center, more homes at both North Pointe and the UVA Foundation’s North Fork Discovery Park.

With all that growth factored in, the average daily demand is expected to be at 1.9 average MFD with a maximum of 4.1 MGD. Certainly this will be something to review going forward. Who will pay for any rate increases to cover the infrastructure needed?

This latter topic has come up twice at meetings of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority’s Board of Directors but those recordings are on a long list of items for me to report. Would it were there were other journalists interested in knowing the details?

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