A drawing submitted to James City County shows The Village at Candle Station, which is planned for construction near the Croaker and Richmond Road intersection.
The Village at Candle Station neighborhood groundbreaking is anticipated to take place mid-February, but the government agencies reviewing the project have yet to approve the final construction plan.
The original application for the Village at Candle Station was submitted in 2007. Though the Board of supervisors approved the project in 2011, several iterations of the plans have not been accepted by various state and county agencies. The agencies have been actively reviewing the plans over the past year and sending comments to AES about pieces of the plan that need to be tweaked or corrected.
Jason Grimes, AES senior project manager, said he expected the project to be fully approved already. Based on a conversation Grimes had with James City County staff this week, he is hopeful the next set of plans he submits will meet expectations, which will allow the project to move ahead with construction.
“We intended to have construction started last fall and now we’re almost six months later where we’re looking like it’s really going to happen,” Grimes said. “The last year-plus has been spent in overcoming regulatory hurdles. It hasn’t been developer-delayed, it has been just working through the process.”
The neighborhood, which will be built near the Food Lion at the intersection of Croaker and Richmond roads has gone through several stages of review but has not yet garnered all approvals necessary to move ahead with construction.
The Village at Candle Station development includes 142 attached townhomes, 33 single family homes, a 90,000-square-foot assisted living facility and about 30,000 square feet of office space, but the only portion currently in plans for development is the residential piece. No plans have yet been submitted for the assisted living facility or office space.
Since the board approved the development, it has gone before the county’s Development Review Committee twice to check changes against the originally approved plan. The first changes were made to the layout of some of the townhomes and parking. The second set of changes altered the garages on the single-family homes, moving some rear-loading garages with driveways behind the homes to front-loading and side-loading garages. The DRC approved both sets of changes.
Now, nine agencies are responsible for reviewing construction plans for the two residential pieces of the project: the county’s parks and recreation department, police department, fire department, proffer administrator, landscape planner, planning, engineering and resource protection, the James City Service Authority and the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Each agency looks at a different piece of the project to ensure it complies with county regulations and the board-approved plan, which is done each time a construction project is planned in the county.
“It’s just a matter of coming up with answers and solutions to some of their questions and sometimes that’s easier said than done,” Grimes said.
Sometimes when one agency suggests a certain problem fix, the solution triggers other agencies to suggest fixes for new problems, Grimes said. Until all details are sorted out and the agencies give approval, the project cannot move forward with construction.
When the board approved the overall Village at Candle Station plan in 2011, it made some home construction hinge on the assisted living facility. No more than 87 homes can be built in the development until the assisted living facility is built and has an occupancy certificate, which allows residents to move in.
Once completed, the assisted living facility will include a community area, commercial kitchen and dining hall with hallways connecting to six smaller living areas. In total, the facility will include 96 units divided across the smaller areas, which will have a kitchen, nursing station, common living area, dining room, lounge and up to 16 bedrooms.
As planned, the assisted living property — listed for $960,000 — would cover almost 12 acres next to CrossWalk Community Church.
Single-family homes are planned to be built next to the assisted living community, and the townhomes will be across the street.
The entire residential piece of the project, including the assisted living building, includes almost $1.95 million in proffers, which are cash payments required by the county and other agencies to mitigate costs to provide services, such as water, sewer and public school access.
As approved, affordable housing is a piece of the project: 19 homes must be sold at or below $160,000; 19 must be sold at or below $190,000; and 20 must be sold at or below $225,000.
Once complete, the Village at Candle Station will also have a recreational area including a 3.65-acre park, a 2,500-square-foot playground, a 625-square-foot picnic shelter, a multi-use path along the entrance road, walking trails, a paved multi-use court and two multi-purpose fields.
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