Council approves acreage for access to new Sugar Hollow office complex

BRISTOL, Va. – City leaders cleared another obstacle Tuesday in their path to establish a major corporate office near Sugar Hollow Park.

During its regular meeting, the City Council also approved a unique fund transfer to offset state budget cuts that could have meant pay cuts or layoffs in some city offices.

Council members approved subdividing the Sugar Hollow business park plat to formally create a city right-of-way to the future corporate offices of Alpha Natural Resources.

The vote carves out 4.4 of the parcel’s 83 acres to create the right-of-way where Resting Tree Drive will terminate into a cul-de-sac at the property’s southern corner.

Alpha, the nation’s third-largest coal company, recently announced plans to build a $20 million, 100,000-square-foot office on the site just north of Lee Highway.

City leaders previously agreed to give the remaining 79 acres to Alpha as part of the deal to move their headquarters from Abingdon. The entire deal could be finalized next month, Mayor Jim Rector said.

“The attorneys have met to finalize all the details and, my understanding is, the agreement will be completed in early December,” Rector said after the meeting.

The council must give its final approval and the city’s Industrial Development Authority is scheduled to act as the land transferring agent.

“We [council] might have to have a called meeting, or we might vote on this at our Dec. 8 meeting,” Rector said.

The work on Resting Tree Drive – along the park’s western boundary – is scheduled to be done by mid-2010 and Alpha has announced plans to have its office building completed by mid-2011. It is expected to employ about 200 people.

Establishing the right-of-way at this time will make the proposed land transfer “smoother,” City Manager Bill Dennison said.

In other action, the council unanimously approved a request from Commonwealth’s Attorney Jerry Wolfe to accept a transfer that would offset state cuts announced Oct. 1.

Under the plan, Wolfe will pick up the tab for about $100,000 in areas already programmed into the city’s spending plan in exchange for about $71,500 to replace state money recently slashed from the budgets of constitutional officers.

The money will come from a nearly $1 million federal drug settlement the Commonwealth’s Attorney received two years ago.

“There are very strict guidelines for what this money can be used for, but this is a good remedy for the city of Bristol to put into their budget and it allows the constitutional officers to put money back into our offices that was cut,” Wolfe said.

The request has already been approved by the federal Department of Justice, Dennison said.

Under the plan, the federal money will be used to pay for about $40,000 in training for the police and sheriff’s department personnel, the salary of a Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer – $40,300 including all benefits – and about $21,500 in projected overtime by the police and sheriff’s department.

With those costs covered, the city agreed to shift $27,500 to the sheriff’s office, $21,000 to the commonwealth’s attorney, $16,600 to the circuit court clerk and about $6,400 to the city treasurer. The commissioner of revenue didn’t request any money, Wolfe said.

The shift will mean almost 75 city employees in those constitutional offices won’t face pay cuts that could range up to 10 percent.

“We would have been about $21,000 short in my office,” Wolfe said. “The only way was to lose a person or cut salaries about 10 percent. Asking them to take a 10 percent cut was something I wasn’t able to do.”

Wolfe said his office is already two attorneys and one staff person short, based on state staffing standards.

dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532