Northern Albemarle County is getting at least 1,000 new jobs in the coming years—and probably a lot more. Army Colonel Mark Moffatt gave the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors an update June 4 about the expansion at the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), almost doubling the number of employees who work at the facility on Boulders Road off Route 29 North.
“This particular facility will be able to reach back to our nation’s capital,” said Moffatt. “It will provide the up-to-the minute analysis that they need to have to answer certain questions. Charlottesville, and the greater Charlottesville area, is playing an important part for our national security, and we are happy about that and proud about that.”
Moffatt discussed the $58.5 million building planned for the NGIC site. But one detail he couldn’t provide is the size of the “contractor tail”—the private sector jobs that will relocate to the Charlottesville area to serve the new NGIC and Defense Intelligence Agency employees. Moffatt promised to get an estimate on the contractor tail in the next 30 days.
Supervisors wondered how many of the 1,000 new employees will be relocating from Northern Virginia and how many could be hired locally. Moffatt said that he didn’t know, but that a human resources survey was underway that would give a better sense.
“The jobs that are coming here are high-demand, well-paid jobs,” said Moffatt. “The Charlottesville area has a lot going for it [compared to the Capital region]. As long as they can find, in their minds, suitable housing, which I believe is available, a good portion, easily 70 to 80 percent, would want to come down here.”
Another NGIC expansion might be just around the corner, possibly as soon as 2013. Plans are in the preliminary stages to expand the existing 260,000-square-foot NGIC building. However, Moffatt said that the money isn’t in place yet.
Still, with the 1,000 employees, their spouses, and the contractor tail, that’s a whole lot of new folks on their way to greater Charlottesville.
Several developers have already laid the ground work to house those incoming residents. With its 2006 rezoning, Chuck Rotgin’s Great Eastern Management Company joins the mix with North Pointe, a megadevelopment with swaths of retail space and almost 900 housing units. Often, the retail part of a project comes first, as was the case with the Hollymead Town Center where Target and other shops came before the housing. But North Pointe plans to develop the housing first, in order to meet NGIC needs. Meanwhile, Ryan Homes continues building out townhomes as part of the Hollymead development.
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