When the first group of horses bolted out of their gates on Aug. 8 for the resumption of live thoroughbred racing at Colonial Downs after a five-year absence, the big winner was New Kent County.
That’s where the races are held, and that’s where the big money is flowing, thanks to revenue not just from the racetrack, but from machines allowing wagering on historical horse races at sites throughout the commonwealth.
“It has put us in the spotlight,” County Administrator Rodney Hathaway says of the resumption of racing and the new tax revenue, which already exceeded $2.7 million during the first six months of operation.
Sandwiched between two big metro areas — Richmond and Hampton Roads — it has been easy for New Kent to be overlooked.
“We’re a small, rural bedroom community,” Hathaway says.
But that description belies the churning growth that has been occurring in New Kent, making the return of racing one more exclamation point.
The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia has identified New Kent County as the second-fastest-growing locality in Virginia between 2010 and 2018, with a 21.9% population growth rate, second only to Loudoun County, the glowing megastar in Northern Virginia. The U.S. Census put New Kent’s 2018 population at an estimated 22,391, and the Cooper Center projects it will rise to more than 28,000 by 2030.
“We’ve seen more economic development growth in the past two to three years than we’ve ever seen before,” driven by the county’s rising population, says Matthew J. Smolnik, New Kent’s director of economic development.
When Smolnik and his family moved to New Kent seven years ago — a few years prior to his employment with the county — he says it was the quality of life that attracted them. “A wonderful public school system, quality master-planned communities, plus rural large acreage lots, three [soon to be four] wineries, four golf courses, three rivers, a thoroughbred horse track and 15 minutes to downtown Richmond in one direction and 15 minutes to Colonial Williamsburg in the other. … What’s not to love about living in New Kent County?”
The surge in population has meant increased demand for services such as schools, public safety and health care. It has also brought newcomers who take an active interest in how the county is run, sometimes putting them at odds with county leaders and longtime residents. At the center of this friction is Texas industrialist John Poindexter, who has acquired thousands of acres in New Kent in recent years.
Communities such as Patriots Landing are attracting new residents to the county. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Between Urban Centers
Hathaway, 45, has been employed by the county since 2004, rising from planning manager to economic development director to assistant county administrator and then to the top administrative post in 2012.
But his roots in the county go back much further. He was born in New Kent, and his family has been active there for many generations. In a county where the population is 80% white, Hathaway’s rise through the administrative ranks represents a kind of breakthrough.
“I really see it as an honor to be the first African American to serve as county administrator of New Kent County,” he says. “It’s something I’m proud of.”
Since he left home for college in 1992, Hathaway says, the biggest change he’s seen has been business and residential growth. He holds a bachelor’s in urban studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s in public administration from Old Dominion University.
Moreover, the growth of the rural county of 212 square miles — formed in 1654 — has been nothing short of meteoric for decades. Between 1990 and 2009, the county’s population soared by 78.9% — driven by the addition of new residents from larger urban areas, according to population data compiled in 2010.
When Hathaway took a job with the county in 2004, there was only one fire and rescue station manned around the clock, he says. “We were a volunteer staff supported by about six career firefighters. Today, we have five stations that are manned 24/7, and we have 38 career personnel, and we’re hiring for about 12 more right now. So we’ve sort of swapped as far as being a volunteer service supported by a few career professionals. Now we’re a career staff supported by a few volunteers.”
The county high school relocated to a new building in the 2008-2009 school year, and New Kent hopes to break ground next spring for a new elementary school to keep up with the growth.
Brian Nichols, New Kent’s superintendent of schools, says the county has 3,300 students, an increase of 500 since 2012. “That population is predicted to increase by more than another 500 students by 2024,” he says.
The surge in additional students will require the school system to investigate the adequacy of current middle school facilities, while continuing to revitalize existing schools, Nichols adds.
The VCU Health Emergency Center at New Kent is scheduled to open this spring. (Image courtesy VCU Health)
Also expected to open this spring will be the new $16 million VCU Health Emergency Center at New Kent. It will provide round-the-clock emergency medicine physicians, emergency-trained registered nurses and laboratory services. Plans include 12 treatment rooms and a helipad. County officials say the emergency center will mean that New Kent residents will no longer have to be rushed by ambulance to hospitals in Richmond or Hampton Roads for emergency medical treatment, and response times will also be shorter.
The VCU center will be situated near Exit 205 off Interstate 64 at Bottoms Bridge, an area New Kent has designated for development.
“In 2004, the county had just made a commitment to invest in utilities along Bottoms Bridge, and we’re seeing that pay off with the VCU health center,” Hathaway says, in addition to a Tractor Supply Co. rural lifestyle store and other businesses.
Bottoms Bridge is just one of the areas targeted for business and residential development, Smolnik says.
“It is no secret that New Kent County is growing, and I don’t foresee it slowing down anytime soon,” he says. “We have public water and sewer at our four [Interstate 64] exchanges, along with property that is already zoned for commercial and industrial development.”
New Kent’s location between the Richmond and Hampton Roads metropolitan areas allows the county to draw on two urban workforce populations and gives residents access to amenities in both regions, Smolnik adds.
Competing Visions
Managing New Kent’s rapid growth effectively is one of the county’s biggest challenges, officials say.
“The goal is to maintain our rural character. That’s extremely important to us,” Hathaway says. “We believe we can do it through smart growth — by strategically identifying those areas of the county where we want to allow the more dense styles of development, with the hope that it will relieve the demand for growth in other areas of the county that we want to keep as rural.”
Franny Powell of East West Communities, which includes Patriots Landing among its developments, says the upscale neighborhood of more than 360 single-family homes owned by the Patriots Landing Management Co. has prospered in New Kent.
She says a lot of Richmond-area residents have moved into the community near Bottoms Bridge since home sales began in 2006. “The buyers who tend to like Patriots Landing have been families — young families and a lot of empty nesters — and that surprised us. I would say about 35% young families, about 30% empty nesters. The rest are either singles or couples, and I put the retirees in with the empty nesters,” she says.
Powell adds that county officials have kept true to their promise of preserving the county’s rural character by clustering development near the Interstate 64 exits.
“They know where they want to go, and they have a clear vision of what the future destiny of the county should be,” Powell says.
Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however. In recent months, a political divide has emerged about New Kent’s direction, with the formation of a group calling itself Partnership for New Kent 2030 (PNK 2030, for short).
A dispute about a proposed combat and tactical training range near Barhamsville — the proposal was eventually withdrawn — was one of the issues that led to the partnership’s formation, but the partnership’s aims subsequently took on other dimensions.
John Poindexter, a Texas-based industrialist, has purchased about 3,500 acres in New Kent since 2013. (Photo by Jay Paul)
John Poindexter, a Texas-based industrialist and a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, has been a leader in the partnership, and he’s one of its chief spokesmen. He has purchased about 3,500 acres in the county since 2013, and he has been severe in his criticism of New Kent’s leadership, in one instance calling the county “rudderless.” He says PNK 2030 has only the best interests of New Kent at heart.
“We are apolitical, unaffiliated with any party — a bunch of amateur citizens who desire to see improvements over the years in New Kent,” Poindexter says of the partnership during a telephone interview from his headquarters in Houston. “My goal is to ensure that development in the county does not proceed helter-skelter, as I believe it has so far, for the most part.”
Although the partnership formed a political action committee, Poindexter says the group made no contributions to candidates in November’s local elections.
“The candidates preferred to run without any implication of funding from other than the voters in their districts and no institutional money of that sort,” he says.
Poindexter says his ancestors settled in New Kent in the 1600s, and his property acquisitions have been focused on reacquiring land — and eventually the family homestead — that his ancestors once held. Three old residences, one dating to the 1670s, have been restored to their original appearances and furnished with period pieces. Near the center of his properties, but not purchased by Poindexter at this date, is Criss Cross Plantation, developed in the 1680s by George Poingdestre (a previous spelling of the family name).
Morgan Olson LLC, a delivery van maker that is owned by Poindexter’s company, recently announced plans to relocate to a former IKEA plant in the Danville area and possibly hire as many as 700 workers. Poindexter says that the plant initially was slated for James City County, near the New Kent line.
“It would not have been as large, about half the size, but it would have been a very big deal,” Poindexter says, adding that the deal eventually stalled because of several factors, including the time frame for availability of the building being sought.
In any event, Poindexter says he believes that New Kent’s future does not lie in the kind of heavy manufacturing that his company specializes in, but rather in tourism, residential development and entertainment.
“Development will be intelligent, landscaped … out of sight as much as possible,” he says, describing his vision of the future.
Poindexter says he cares deeply about the county and wants to have a lasting impact there.
“All my assets, including all my assets in New Kent County, will go into a foundation for public benefit,” he says. “Among the objectives of the foundation is the maintenance of the properties in New Kent with a goal of being an historical attraction — the houses, the property, future houses, would be operated as a public benefit.
“I have no heirs and do not propose to leave assets to relatives,” he says.
PNK 2030 endorsed several candidates for local races in the recent November election.
“We looked good on paper, but there were a few key races where our candidate did not win,” Poindexter says in describing the election results.
In the critical Board of Supervisors races, “PNK endorsed in three of the supervisors’ races [after rescinding one]. One was running unopposed. Their candidate lost the other two races,” says Heather Moon, a researcher and writer in New Kent who has been closely following PNK 2030’s progress.
Thomas W. Evelyn, an incumbent supervisor who won his fourth term in the November elections, takes a dim view of PNK’s efforts in New Kent.
“I think they came in here and pretty much wanted to run the county at the end of the day. That’s not going to happen now,” Evelyn says of the election’s results. “The citizens of the county, I think, are smarter than that, and they elected the officials that they feel like have done a pretty good job with growth and managing the county and been very fiscally responsible, and I think that showed on Election Day.”
Joe Dombroski of the family-owned New Kent Winery at Dombroski Vineyards moved to the county in 2014 from western Henrico County and helped form the partnership in 2018 along with his wife, Jo Anna. They have since left the organization, citing differences about its hiring of a political consultant.
But Dombroski, a former supervisory special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, says he still shares many of the group’s views, emphasizing that the county desperately needs a land use and smart-growth plan.
A lifelong New Kent resident, Patricia Paige defeated challenger Joe Dombroski to win a second term on the Board of Supervisors. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Dombroski, who recently lost his bid for a seat on the Board of Supervisors, wants the county to keep its rural character, while still providing amenities and services that newcomers to the county are especially keen on having.
Given current growth trends, he says, “In the next 10 years … there will be more people who came here than were born and raised here. It’s going to change.”
He says newcomers and longtime residents all along the political and generational divide need to find a way to work together if New Kent is have a bright future.
Patricia Paige, the first African American woman to win a seat on the Board of Supervisors, defeated Dombroski to win her second term. A 63-year-old New Kent native, she lives on the same road where she grew up.
She agrees that dialogue is essential. “If we treat each with dignity and respect and truth, I believe that New Kent will grow and it will be the county all of us want it to be,” Paige says, “whether you were born and raised here or you moved here.”
Jackpot Winner
Horse racing and related wagering have brought New Kent millions in tax dollars
More than 1,400 historical horse racing machines were operating in Virginia as of September. (Photo courtesy Rosie's)
While more people are calling New Kent home, much of the county’s revenue comes from visitors. Tourism is by far the county’s largest single industry — propelled by wineries, golf courses and horse racing.
“The revival of Colonial Downs is an exciting and important complement to New Kent’s already outstanding tourism assets,” says Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corp. McClenny notes that that visitors spent $36 million in New Kent in 2018, a 6% increase from the previous year, and that was before Colonial Downs reopened.
The golden goose for New Kent County has been the introduction of historical horse racing (HHR) machines, which were approved by the Virginia General Assembly in 2018 after years of opposition to gambling. The machines allow bettors to make wagers on horse races that already have been run, establishing a stream of revenue for the localities where the machines are based.
An economic impact study by Chmura Economics & Analytics of Richmond has projected that if all goes well, including an expansion of race days at Colonial Downs and the spread of historical horse racing machines throughout the state, New Kent and other localities could, by 2022, receive tax revenue totaling about $15.2 million annually.
New Kent would be the primary beneficiary, and the county also would benefit from meals tax revenue and the sales of goods and services to visitors and to Colonial Downs, where one of the network of Rosie’s betting parlors is located.
In early November, the Colonial Downs group announced the six-month total for its operations, beginning April 18, 2019, in New Kent County. As expected, New Kent was the beneficiary of a windfall — $2,730,165 in tax revenue. Richmond didn’t do badly either, with $738,369 in tax revenue for the city. The state took the biggest share, $5.9 million. And that didn’t include revenues produced by a new Rosie’s Gaming Emporium in Hampton, with 700 historical horse racing machines. Recently, voters in Danville indicated in a referendum that they favored historical horse racing machines in their area.
“The majority of the tax … we’re receiving is from the historical horse racing machines — half of 1% of the machines at Colonial Downs and a fourth of 1%” from machines in other areas, County Administrator Rodney Hathaway says, adding. “Because we’re the host community, we’re entitled to those revenues, those taxes.”
In September, more than 1,400 historical horse racing machines were operating in the state, but under current regulations, the number could be expanded to 3,000 machines if all requirements are met and localities are agreeable. Every additional betting machine means more income for New Kent.
“That revenue is going to go a long way in funding infrastructure costs here in the county,” Hathaway says. “Our total budget is $69 million. That amount of money from one entity — that’s huge for us, huge.”
The county manager declined to forecast what New Kent ultimately might harvest from the gaming machines. One uncertainty is what action the General Assembly might take in 2020 regarding casino gambling. Construction of casinos in New Kent or elsewhere could divert revenue from parimutuel wagering, as bettors turn their attention from horse racing to gambling tables and slot machines.
The Pamunkey Indian tribe, which has signaled its desire to build a casino and resort in Virginia, has acquired 600 acres in New Kent near the Bottoms Bridge-Quinton exit, but it has not yet specified what its plans are for the property.
In September, the Norfolk City Council approved an agreement that supports the Pamunkey tribe’s using 14 acres of waterfront adjacent to the Harbor Park baseball stadium for a resort and casino, but there are still many steps ahead before that could become a reality.
Meanwhile, Hathaway says, “there has been no new talk of a casino here.”
