In February, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation awarded the City of Buena Vista a $78,000 grant to create a new public gathering place on the corner of 21st Street and Magnolia Avenue. Together the City and the ActionBV Committee (comprised of local citizens) plans to transform the site into a community Town Square, providing seating, bike racks, and outdoor recreation information. To promote the use of the Town Square site, ActionBV aided in the installation of a mural and hosted a public movie night in May.

The ActionBV Committee has also recently been accepted into the Citizens Institute on Rural Design’s (CIRD) cohort to begin redesigning and enhancing the entrance to Buena Vista’s River Walk. CIRD is a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts that empowers local citizens to use their unique artistic and cultural resources to guide local development.

Both projects support the revitalization of downtown and will create a more welcoming City for residents and visitors to enjoy. Community enhancement grant opportunities such as these are made available on the CSPDC Grant Resource Guide.

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine stopped in the Town of Broadway on May 6 during his recent tour of the Shenandoah Valley. He met members of the Shenandoah Rail Trail Exploratory Partnership to learn about their work to build a 50-mile rail trail from Broadway to Front Royal along an out-of-service Norfolk Southern rail line. The Partnership hopes that Senator Kaine’s support will help to move the Partnership and the region closer to building the State’s newest rail trail, which would pass through two Planning Districts, three counties, and connect nine towns in the northern Shenandoah Valley.

CSPDC is a member of Shenandoah Rail Trail Partnership, which just launched a public input survey to assess support for the Rail Trail. We encourage everyone to participate in the survey.

The first bus that will be used in the Afton Express transit service connecting Staunton, Fishersville and Waynesboro to Charlottesville has arrived to the BRITE Transit Facility. Two additional buses will be delivered and branded with the distinctive Afton Express logo prior to initiation of service on September 1, 2021. Marketing and promotional planning is underway and includes an advertising campaign to begin in July.

The completed Agricultural Enterprise Center Feasibility Study was presented to 56 stakeholders and local government representatives on May 18. A recording of the presentation, an Executive Summary, and the final report can be viewed on the project website.

Since the study began in July, 2020 the CSPDC in partnership with a ten-member study team and consultants New Venture Advisors (NVA), set out to determine the feasibility of a shared-use agriculturally-focused facility that if brought to fruition would support business diversification and growth in the Shenandoah Valley through value-added products and the delivery of agricultural goods and products to new markets. The conducted research resulted in a recommended “Shenandoah Specialty Meat & Produce Hub” operating model that includes a commercial kitchen and meat and produce storage, processing and aggregation facilities. The project’s recommended next steps include conducting an operator and anchor tenant search, strengthening third-party partnerships, performing site search and selection, beginning facility design, refining the business plan, and commencing fundraising. The Study has been funded by a USDA Local Food Promotion Program grant and a GO Virginia Enhanced Capacity Building grant.

Central Shenandoah Health District (CSHD) will be offering mobile COVID-19 vaccine clinics in the community in an effort to increase access to COVID-19 vaccines. If your organization is interested in a COVID-19 vaccine clinic, fill out a request form. Mobile clinics can be walk-up with no registration needed and can be flexible in date and time of clinics. Clinics can serve anywhere from 20-200 people. Ideal locations include festivals, events, block parties, farmers markets, churches, community centers, businesses, and homeless shelters.

The CSPDC is hosting a Broadband Workshop on June 15 to discuss broadband project development and state funding resources, including the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) program. The workshop will feature presentations by Kyle Rosner, Deputy Broadband Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, and Tamarah Holmes, Director of Virginia’s Office of Broadband.

The virtual Broadband Workshop is the third of an ongoing series of recovery-related Rural Attraction Roundtables, supported by the CSPDC’s EDA CARES Act funding. The most recently completed roundtable focused on telework and featured the results of VEDP’s Virginia Remote Worker Survey.

The Town of Bridgewater in Rockingham County recently completed construction on Phase I of its Riverwalk trail system. The Riverwalk is envisioned to connect all of the Town’s parks along the North River. Phase I built a trail between Seven Bridges and Edgebriar Parks, going under the Main Street (VA 42) bridge, a significant safety improvement for trail users. The CSPDC assisted the Town in making application, and the Town used a CSPDC On-Call Consultant, AMT, for the engineering and design. VDOT awarded the Town a Bike and Pedestrian Highway Safety grant in 2016 to fund the project.