Realty firm buys 57 acres at Waterford Office Park
By Greg Pearson STAFF WRITER

TGM Realty Investors The Waterford Business Center will be developed as "flex space" with at least 10 percent dedicated to office space.

TGM Realty Investors has acquired 57 acres in Waterford Office Park from Idlewood Properties for about $4 million, or $70,200 per acre. The property is called the Waterford Business Center and will be developed as "flex space" - light industrial with office space representing at least 10 percent with the remainder for warehouse/distribution.

TGM will sell the land or lease space in buildings that it builds. The development will be similar to TGM's Crescent Business Center in Hanover County.

"The center is designed for service companies who want access to the region," said Mark Slusher of TGM.

The company already has a commitment for five acres from Virginia Air Distributors, which will move its headquarters from the Southport Business Park, located off Midlothian Turnpike.

Twelve acres zoned C-2 that front on the Powhite Parkway is set aside for retail though access will be off Tredegar Lake Drive.

"What they are proposing conforms to the existing zoning," said Planning Director Kirk Turner.

Though the Waterford development has been marketed for over 10 years, attracting new business has been slow - thought to be impacted by being at the end of a toll road. Completing Route 288 increased the marketability of the area.

Chesterfield has set up a Transportation Service District to finance an interchange with the Powhite Parkway and Charter Colony Parkway. New property owners in the immediate vicinity are paying a higher property tax rate to build the interchange, but no timetable for construction has been set. That could be hastened if the county was able to interest a road-building company in extending the Powhite Parkway as a toll road about seven miles west to Route 360 near Grange Hall Elementary School. The county's transportation department says the extension is one of its high priorities to resolve traffic problems in the Route 360 corridor.