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Unemployment:
Charlottesville/Albemarle: 2.4%
Virginia: 3.0%
U.S.: 4.6%
--source: May 2006 figures from The
Virginia Employment Commission
804-786-1485
-->>For local taxes, see our
Government
section
Biz groups
Charlottesville
Albemarle County Convention and Visitors
Bureau: Operates two visitor
centers: one downtown and one near Monticello. 977-1783;
877-386-1102
Charlottesville
Regional Chamber of Commerce:
You know what they do. 295-3141
American
Marketing Association: The
Central Virginia chapter holds seminars for professional
marketers. Dave Dolak president, 979-2678
-->>See also
our
Real Estate section
Thomas
Jefferson Partnership for Economic
Development: This is
the bring-biz-here group that Albemarle County hasn't
joined. Advocates of joining say Albemarle needs a seat at
the table with the other major jurisdictions
(Charlottesville, Fluvanna, etc.) to get quality businesses.
Critics of joining ask why Albemarle should pony up the
$12,500 annual dues to get businesses to come here when
businesses seem to be flocking here anyway-- without any
extra encouragement. Director: Robert S. DeMauri,
979-5610
Free
Enterprise Forum:
Formerly known as the Charlottesville Area Legislative
Action Coalition, these power-brokers advocate for bidniz.
817-2380
SCORE
(Service Corps of Retired Executives): These retired biz
execs volunteer their time to help you start your business.
295-6712
AAA
ratings
Both Charlottesville City and Albemarle County have AAA
bond ratings, the highest possible. Charlottesville
supposedly holds the record for the longest-running AAA bond
rating for a city with a population under 50,000. Meanwhile,
Albemarle says, "Oh, yeah? Well, ours is the lowest
population county in the nation with such a designation."
Then, on July 1, 2005, UVA announced that it is one of only
three public universities to score a AAA rating from all
three bond agencies. Bottom line: our real estate values
rock, and our governments don't seem to be doing too bad
themselves.
Go CHO- our airport keeps
growing
Four carriers serve the
Charlottesville
Albemarle Airport (CHO):
United Express, US Airways Express, and Delta/Com Air, and
Northwest. That means service to Atlanta, Cincinnati,
Detroit, New York, Washington, Charlotte and
Philadelphia.
Location: north of town off (you guessed it) Airport
Road. 973-8342
Airport factoid #1:
Although
boardings dipped in 2006, it continues a steep upward trend for CHO, an
increase of 17 percent from 2001 to the present.
2001: 155,000 boardings
2002: 172,000 boardings
2003: 163,000 boardings
2004: 187,500 boardings
2005: 196,242 boardings
2006: 185,182 boardings
--source: CHO
Airport factoid #2: Aircraft
operations: 247/day average
45% transient general aviation
30% commercial
21% local general aviation
4% military
--source: airnav.com
Private
hangar
If you're a high-roller, you'll be pleased to know that
Piedmont-Hawthorne
Aviation celebrated the
opening of its third hangar in May 2005. Good place to stow
your Gulfstream.
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Major industries: Tourism, learning,
medicine?
Manufacturing, agriculture, and textiles once flourished
in the area, and the beauty of the natural environment as
well as our rich history created a thriving tourism
industry. In addition, Mr. Jefferson's university is home of
prestigious law, business, and medical schools, not to
mention a top-rated hospital. As piles of retirement,
investment, and tourism magazines attest, Charlottesville /
Albemarle today is one of the hottest places to live in the
country.
Major employers of the Charlottesville Area 2007
University
of Virginia: 11,962
University of Virginia Health System: 6,136
Albemarle
County: 3,135
Martha Jefferson Hospital: 1,600
City
of Charlottesville: 1,593
State Farm Insurance: 1,400
National
Ground Intelligence Center (US Department of Defense): 1,100
Sperry Marine (Northrop Grumman): 783
GE/Fanuc: 650*
U.S.
Postal Service: 600*
Region Ten Community Services: 559 (includes P/Ts)
Wal-Mart/Sam's Club: ~500
Atlantic Coast Athletic Club: 435 (peak season)
Farmington Country Club: 430 (peak season)
Crutchfield Corporation: 428
Boar's Head Inn: 425 (peak season)
Kroger: 369*
SNL
Financial: 369 (includes P/Ts)
Piedmont Virginia Community College: 335 (includes P/Ts)
PRA
International: 300*
Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge: 255*(includes P/Ts)
Musictoday: 200
Hyosung
America (formerly Uniroyal
Tire): 152
Management
Services: 142
--source: approximate numbers of local employees, June 2007
Hook telephone survey. *2005-2006 ---Special
Answers: GE/Fanuc declined to provide a number of employees this year
due to "security reasons" and both Wal-Mart and Sam's Club declined to
give anything more specific than "more than 250" for each location.
City of Charlottesville Employment Information at a Glance
Dec
Jan Feb
Mar
Apr May
2006 2007 2007
2007 2007 2007
Civilian Labor Force 103.6 102.7 103.8 104.8 104.5 104.6
Employment
101.4 100
101.2 102.2 102
102.3
Unemployent
2.2 2.7
2.6 2.6 2.4
2.3
Unemployment
Rate 2.1 2.6
2.5 2.4
2.3 2.2
--source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
No jumbo layoffs recently
The big busts seem to be a thing of the past (at least
for now). Phew. But who can forget Technicolor
heading south of the border back in 2002, taking 750 local
jobs with it? And how 'bout Value America's sudden
demise in the winter of '99-'00? Now that was some ride in a
handbasket for the 500 employees who found themselves out of
work. Fortunately, the last few years have been kinder, with
the exception of State Farm Insurance (the area's
biggest private for-profit employer), which moved 151 jobs
out of state in 2003 but then announced it would be hiring
several hundred more.
CHARLOTTESVILLE
Size: 10.3 square miles
2006 Population Estimate: 40,315
Density: 4505 people per square mile
ALBEMARLE
Size: 726 square miles
2006 Population Estimate: 92,035
Density: 110 people per square mile
Growth Since 2000
Fluvanna: 20%
Greene: 13.9%
Louisa: 17.9%
Nelson: 4.7
Virginia: 7.4%
Albemarle: 13.9%
Charlottesville: -10.5%
--yep, that Charlottesville # is negative; from
the much-disputed
U.S. Census Bureau
Bedroom-athon vexes Greene
What do the above figures mean? For starters, they mean that the
outlying counties are bearing the brunt of the growth. That bums them
out because while Albemarle and Charlottesville get gobs of college
student housing complexes and shopping centers (read: tax revenue),
neighboring counties get gobs of students to educate in their public
schools (read: tax expenditures). Fact: In 2003, Greene County raised
its real estate tax from 74 cents to 79 cents per $100 of value.
However, the effect of the Charlottesville exodus may be leveling out,
as the current Greene real estate tax rate has gone back down to 72
cents per $100.
Agriculture
Albemarle has farmettes and horse farms galore, but for a
rural county, we're fairly small potatoes in the Old
MacDonald world of real agriculture. According to a recent
agriculture
census, Albemarle ranks 26th
among Virginia's counties with $21.45 million in annual
revenue from farm sales. Nearby Augusta, by contrast, ranks
#2 with $138.7 million in annual sales. Albemarle didn't
even chart for cotton, peanuts, soybeans, tobacco, and
barley, but here are a few measurements:
Hay: 22,400 acres
Apples: 10.5 million pounds
Corn: 22,100 tons, harvested from 1,700 acres
Cattle: 22,000 head (down 8,000 from four years ago)
Sheep: 1,400
--from U.S.
Department of Agriculture 2006 estimates
Make mine local wine
The above statistics fail to count the wine
industry, which is booming
and growing-- even if the numbers are not officially
measured just yet. Two bigwigs to join the biz in recent years have been
Patricia
Kluge and Dave
Matthews. But the lady most oft associated with the
local wine trade is Felicia Rogan.
--> See our wine section in Food Finder for more.
Welfare for the rich?
Farmette owners are notorious for taking advantage of
something called "Land
Use Taxation," which means
that a mogul with an 8,900-square-foot palace can pay just
$976 in taxes on his 50 acres-- about as much as the owner
of a one-acre lot in Forest Lakes pays. Defenders of the
program point out that the discount fosters agriculture-- or
at least open spaces.
--> See our real
estate section for
more.
The
Virginia Lottery Economists
call this a "voluntary tax." School administrators call it a
godsend. It was created by voters in 1987, many of whom
wrongly assumed the proceeds were going directly to schools.
That misperception was corrected in 2000 when over 80
percent of voters in a state constitutional referendum voted
to make it official to send the proceeds to public
education. Fiscal 2004 was a record year with sales over
$1.25 billion and profits of $408.1 million.
Director: Sheila Hill-Christian
Trash
Much to the consternation of environmentalists,
Virginia is the #2 trash-importing state with 5.4
million tons of out-of-state refuse arriving in 2002.
(Pennsylvania is #1, so to speak, with 11.7 million tons,
but the AP notes that our volume is climbing as
Pennsylvania's falls.) Think that's bad? The former
Buckingham County Landfill (aka Love's Container Service
Landfill), is an EPA Superfund site that was capped in 1998.
Albemarle's landfill, now dubbed the "Materials
Utilization Center," became a
small-scale transfer-only point in 2001. Closest massive
transfer point belongs to Browning
Ferris Industries (BFI) at
Zion Crossroads in Fluvanna County.
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