When developer Dave McCormack first stepped inside the former Amherst Milling Co., one of Virginia’s last functioning mills until its sale in 2017, he said it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere.
But its attractiveness and potential for future opportunities impressed him, the owner of Petersburg-based Waukeshaw Development, Inc. said to a packed room at Sweet Briar College during the Amherst County Chamber of Commerce’s annual business awards dinner last week.
“When I went there, I felt it was amazing,” said McCormack, the event’s keynote speaker, of the property on Union Hill Road in Amherst his company now owns. “It was so beautiful, and really made sense on some levels.”
McCormack shared his vision for transforming the mill into Amherst County’s newest planned brewery, Camp Trapezium, an outpost of a Petersburg brewery celebrating its second-year anniversary this June. He feels the new Amherst brewery, targeted for opening this summer, will lend itself well to tapping into the Blue Ridge Trail of craft beer and winery attractions on the Virginia 151 corridor in neighboring Nelson County. After purchasing the mill last year, Waukeshaw is working to redevelop the site into a brewery selling “wild beers” and using ingredients from the land to blend into beverages while also featuring brick-oven pizzas. McCormack said the business — the 14th under the Waukeshaw umbrella — is planned to open in late July or early August and will employ as many as 20 workers.
“The mill is my all-time favorite project,” he told gatherers. “It’s just got so much amazing history. It’s so iconic and I’m proud to be the owner … I’m thrilled to be here in Amherst.”
The New Jersey native and Virginia Tech graduate shared his experiences rehabilitating blighted warehouses in other properties in revitalizing Petersburg and other communities, along with the many challenges bringing dilapidated structures into code compliance brings.
Waukeshaw last fall also entered into an agreement with Amherst County to purchase the former school on Phelps Road in Madison Heights. McCormack plans to redevelop the property into market-rate apartments.
He spoke of redeveloping similar former schools in Hopewell and Cape Charles into lofts and investing $2.6 million to turn a former industrial building in the town of Bedford into Beale’s Brewery and Restaurant, which will mark its one-year anniversary in June.
“What I love about small towns … there’s so much flexibility,” he said of working with leaders to get a sense of the locality’s identity and plans for growth.
Though historic properties have issues, he doesn’t shy away from tackling them.
“I like doing projects no one else wants to mess with,” he said.
The mill property has “horrific” structural problems the company is working on, McCormack said. “We’ve almost rebuilt the entire first floor … it’s so termite-eaten and destroyed,” he said.
The facility, once complete, is expected to hold up to 60 patrons with potential for many more outside with a beer garden and other features that can accommodate large crowds, he said. A water wheel on the site also is targeted for a facelift to generate electricity.
McCormack said the goal is to preserve as much of the mill’s character as possible and offer tours of equipment and artifacts of the bygone mill era on upper floors.
“When we got in there, I didn’t want to touch a thing,” he said. “We took out the absolute minimum in there. I want it to be almost like a working museum.”
Chad Mooney, a member of the chamber’s board of directors, said Amherst County is experiencing a “remarkable turnaround” effort currently underway in regard to economic development initiatives. He praised county leadership, specifically Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Claudia Tucker and County Administrator Dean Rodgers, who were in attendance for a portion of the event, for focusing on pro-business efforts.
Mooney cited a tax increase in 2016 that earmarked a portion for economic development uses as an example. Supervisors also recently passed a list of strategic planning goals that outlines economic development and tourism at the forefront of goals and objectives.
“Change does not come about by wishful thinking, but active leadership in our community,” Mooney said. “I can now say Amherst County is pro-business. Let’s shed the old mantra that we’re anti-business.”
The Board of Supervisors has asked the Amherst County Economic Development Authority and Amherst County Planning Commission to examine the county’s reputation for being unfriendly to business and form suggested changes to county ordinances, policies and processes to improve upon. The report is set to go before the board at its June 5 meeting, according to the county.