CBL and Associates Properties, Inc., which owns River Ridge Mall, and mallMerlin, LLC, announced the launch last month of the free mallMerlin Smartphone app which delivers special features and promotions, high-definition video and in-mall navigation to consumers as they shop the mall.

Stacey Keating, Regional Marketing Specialist for CBL and Associates Properties, says the app has been a work in progress for all 88 of their mall properties for some time now—one they are now excited to unveil.

“It’s something that we hope will make the shopping experience a little bit more streamlined for our customers,” Keating said.

Available for download at the iTunes App Store, the app provides a powerful search engine that helps shoppers find the brands and items they seek and rewards shoppers through special deals that are unlocked as they enter the mall. Retailers have ultimate flexibility to tailor their content in real-time and by geography.

“It will allow them to get the discounts that they are looking for at participating retailers. It will allow them to find the stores faster and get into where they are going and out of the mall a little bit quicker and more efficiently,” Keating said.

The number of participating retailers offering deals on mallMerlin is still growing, Keating adds, as stores are seeing that the app is being downloaded more and more. For shoppers, the key to unleashing the app’s “magic” comes down to using the app in the mall, as the only way to unlock each retailer’s specific deals is by being close to the actual location of the store.

“It’s not something that you can see from home, so it kind of drives being at the mall to find out what kind of deals are going on,” Keating said.

While mallMerlin offers deals year-round at River Ridge Mall, Keating says it is especially handy for shoppers during the busy holiday shopping season and particularly during intense sales, like those surrounding Black Friday, when the app acts as a quick guide to ideal deals.

“It will help them find the stores they are looking for faster,” Keating said. “It has a directory option that you can pull up and it will tell you what store you are looking for and where it’s located in the mall so that will make navigating through the crowds a little faster to help you find what you are looking for.”

Once River Ridge shoppers’ bags are full, and the kids and grandkids are eager to see Santa, another new app will help them feel more connected than ever, regardless of how much time they get on Kris Kringle’s lap. Exclusive to CBL and Associates Properties, Inc., the “Santa’s Fun App” is a free download on the Android market and iPhone app store that allows  children and families to write letters to Santa and even read his responses.

“Kids around Lynchburg can write letters to Santa—an email or a text message to Santa—and read what he replies to them, so it is kind of eliminating the pen and paper letter to Santa,” Keating said. “This is a more technologically advanced way to contact Santa at the North Pole.”

Parents can also use the app to get a little more organized by uploading gift lists specific to each person on their list. It also allows everyone to track Santa’s worldwide journey on Christmas Eve, which Keating credits as a fun activity for the whole family.

“We have had [the app] downloaded a ton and everyone is rating it four or five stars, so it’s really a positive thing for the mall,” she said.

Technology, as everyone has now experienced, can enhance our lives and allow us to communicate and work more rapidly than ever before. For CBL and Associates Properties and River Ridge Mall, that was exactly the thought process behind unveiling these two new apps during the holiday season.

“We just want to make the shopping experience faster, more efficient and more enjoyable for everybody,” Keating said.

Free visits with Santa are going on now at River Ridge Mall through Christmas Eve, Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. For photo package prices and more information, visit www.ShopRiverRidgeMall.com. To download the “Santa’s Fun App,” visit http://grtplc.net/SantasFun_Apple.qrcode and scan the QR code to download.   For additional information on mallMerlin, visit www.mallmerlin.com.

“We had an indoor tennis air structure over our clay courts, so what we decided to do was research some different surfaces that would be favorable to joints for our senior players,” Robinson said. “The philosophy was, ‘Can we find something that is reasonably friendly to your joints and senior players?’”

Founded in 1923, BCC’s tennis program has grown to 250 adult players and 125 junior players over the past two decades, and has produced a significant number of state, sectional and nationally-ranked juniors. Prior to the new construction, Robinson says the country club’s eight outdoor clay courts had been on the property since the late 50s, and several more inside an “indoor bubble” were built in the mid-90s. He says that spraying water on those older courts—which was previously necessary several times a day—had become problematic and was another basis for their search for a better technology.

“The idea is that we didn’t want to put clay inside a building because we had had some mildew. Basically, when you have clay courts you have to water them, so when you water them at night, the moisture goes up and you get clay and moisture all over the inside of the building,” he said.

When the time came to build the new center, a well-travelled friend of Robinson’s began researching companies that featured cushioned surfaces for tennis courts. He came across a company in Colorado that offers REFLEX 500, a state-of-the-art cushioned court designed to absorb a player’s body weight, much in the same way as clay courts. Unlike a clay court, however, REFLEX 500 last for decades, thanks to a combination of 100 percent acrylic resins and rubber basemat.

“They come in with a giant machine and put down about a half inch of rubber at the bottom, right above the asphalt level. Then they put paint on top of that—six or seven coats of it—so you have the effect of a hard court in the way it looks and you have the effect of a little better bounce than clay but with a lot more cushion,” Robinson said.

Construction by Coleman-Adams on the indoor tennis center began in September 2010 and a ribbon cutting was held on the finished building, which boasts four new REFLEX 500 courts, in August 2011. Built with mezzanine-style spectator viewing, championship level indirect lighting and ideal court layout in mind, Robinson says tennis players now have plenty of room to roam.

“One of the good things about this building is we made sure we put maximum square footage in there, so between courts you’re not running into the curtains and you’ve got a lot of room to move,” he said.

At the cost of $2 million to compete, the indoor tennis center is the realization of more than eight years of planning by the staff at BCC, which also includes Peter Pristach of the U.S. Professional Tennis Association.

As part of the renovations, two of the eight outdoor clay courts have also been retrofitted with a sub-irrigation system known as Hydro Grid, with plans to outfit the remaining six courts in the coming months. The system uses water from underneath the courts, eliminating the need for staff members to water them throughout the day.

“So that saves on water cost and makes your courts more playable all day long,” Robinson explained.

Initially, these cutting-edge courts do come at a high price. Each new indoor court cost roughly $200,000 and the sub-irrigation system is also expensive, Robinson concedes, but he says that these courts should now last “forever.”

“I think we are standing alone in technology with the clay courts and I think we are standing alone right now with the indoor courts in terms of this cushion surface,” he said. “We are the only ones with it in this immediate area—the Lynchburg area—so we feel like we’ve gone to a pretty high level with state-of-the-art kind of stuff.”

Technology aside, Robinson says he feels the initial mission of creating tennis courts that players feel comfortable on, both when they are in the middle of a set and after the game is over, has been accomplished.

“The tennis players have had a very positive reaction to the surface and the building,” he said. “They are saying it feels great on their body and you know, my main concern was that I was going to get a good response from the older players, and they all seem to like it a lot.”

“I realize that turning on the television is probably not the first and forefront thing on people’s minds at that time, but if you are turning to us, I want to say that is such an honor—especially at this point with a new newscast—that you are inviting us into your home,” Evans said.

The show, which launched September 12, is part of several large-scale changes that have taken place in the past several months. The ABC-affiliate, based in Lynchburg, also launched its new high definition (HD) programming at the same time as its new 5 p.m. newscast, culminating a year’s worth of behind-the-scenes planning and preparation.

News Director Bill Foy says that the planning for the 5 p.m. show began when the station learned that Oprah’s 18-year tenure in that time slot was coming to an end.

“When [General Manager] Randy Smith and I sat down to talk about it, he said, ‘Well are you ready to do a five o’clock news?’ and my response was ‘Absolutely,’” Foy said. “My thought was and always has been that no news operation is going to be considered truly number one if they did the least amount of news, so this was a great opportunity for us to get on at a time when the other stations were also on to be competitive.”

At the same time that planning began for the 5 p.m. show, Allbritton, WSET’s parent company, made the decision to take all seven of its stations to HD.

“There really were two side-by-side projects for us,” Foy said. “They weren’t necessarily connected, other than when we looked at the calendar we thought, the timeline is starting to make sense that HD and our new newscast will also take place at the same time.”

As the new equipment started arriving at WSET—everything from lights and field and studio cameras to editing suites—a sizeable decision was about to present itself to Evans, hundreds of miles away. Until this summer, she was the main anchor at a station in South Carolina. But, married to a Lynchburg native, and working to juggle motherhood and her job, Evans says that the door opened at the perfect time to return to her former employer, WSET.

“I totally discounted how much it would mean to have family and support and close friends around in raising our child and day-to-day life,” Evan explained. “Being a working mother as well, it’s so nice to have people you can rely on. So, that was a big part of our original thinking of ‘Okay, let’s go back,’ and then this job opened up.”

Coming from a station that had been in HD for several years, helping to launch a WSET’s newscast and systems seemed natural to Evans.

“As soon as that HD flipped, it was all of a sudden, crystal clear video. So, it was a fun metamorphosis to watch happen in a matter of hours really, because we switched that day, on the 12^th,” she said.

While Foy says that “everything is brand new” in terms of HD equipment, the one thing that didn’t change was perhaps the most intentional—the news set.

“I think the one thing that we didn’t want to do is change so much that our viewers would say, ‘Gosh, I don’t even recognize WSET anymore,’” he explained. “Not all change is good change, so we wanted to make certain that we didn’t lose what our viewers already appreciate about the way we look and the way we feel.”

It certainly seems that more and more local viewers are appreciating the way the station delivers its news these days. According to the July Nielsen ratings, WSET’s 6 p.m. newscast was named number one in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market. While this is a proud feat for the staff there, Foy and Evans are quick to admit that several challenges loom ahead.

“We certainly aren’t resting on what happened in July. We understand that there is a tremendous challenge ahead of us in the November ratings period and into next year. We like to think that what we are doing is something that connects with our viewers in ‘Coverage You Can Count On,’” Foy said.

“It’s hard to come in and replace a time slot like Oprah. It’s hard also to do something new for television, especially in news because people are really loyal viewers and I just hope we can make a little bit of a dent,” Evan added.

Despite the inherent hurdles, with newness all around them, optimism is apparent in both Foy and Evans’ voices as they talk about the future at WSET.

“I feel like we have really stepped into HD and what is happening now. It’s a really exciting time,” Evans said.

“People talk about the golden age of television, but I like to think, as far as WSET is concerned, that it’s right now,” Foy said. “We are definitely in our prime.”

Sans Soucy Vineyards in Brookneal, Virginia, was on the receiving end of some of that grant money through its participation in the Southern Virginia Wine Trail (known as the SoVA Wine Trail), a group of 10 wineries in Southern Virginia that received $7,477 from the VTC. Each grant was given triple power through matching funds by three or more local organizations, resulting in more than $2 million to be used by each recipient to promote its specific event or winery.

“The grant is a force multiplier,” Jackie Anctil, San Soucy’s proprietor, said. “Marketing is one of the more difficult aspects of developing and increasing revenues for any business. It requires creativity and financial resources to be effective and on target. By providing matching funds, the grant literally doubles our advertising budget, enabling us to professionally develop first rate marketing materials and design innovative programs to target the demographic groups that actively participate in agri-tourism.”

The fall season makes these grants especially timely, as many wine festivals are held during these months. Sans Soucy’s annual Shrimp and Wine Festival, which was held on September 10, drew guests from Richmond, Roanoke, Northern Virginia, North Carolina, Washington, D.C. and Maryland. Next month, the vineyard will host its monthly Sangria Saturday’s on October 8 which Anctil says will feature live music and “our famous Blackberry Ginger Sangria and great award-winning wines.”

In addition to the VTC grant money, Anctil says that the collaborative efforts of the wineries that comprise the SoVA Wine Trail have made each of the 10 wineries more successful than they would have been without one another.

“We share what works and what doesn’t work. It allows us to allocate precious resources to being innovative instead of worrying about competing for each other’s customers,” Anctil said. “This is one industry that the individual winery benefits from greater unit density. Tourists are more likely to visit our region if they can visit three or four or more wineries in an afternoon.”

These days, there are more wineries than ever in Virginia for visitors to frequent—a growth that has been nothing short of explosive in the past three decades. According to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), Virginia had just six wineries in 1979 and a mere 286 acres devoted to wine grape production. These days, Virginia has nearly 200 wineries—the fifth largest in the nation. In fiscal 2011, 462,112 cases of wine were sold, up 11.4 percent from fiscal 2010, according to an announcement by Govenor Bob McDonnell earlier this month. As a result, the Commonwealth collected almost $1.8 million in wine liter tax revenue, up from about $1.6 million in fiscal 2010.

While not a grape grower itself, Poplar Forest, the retreat home of Thomas Jefferson in Forest, Virginia, is capitalizing on its former owner’s love of wine through the Thomas Jefferson Wine Festival to be held on November 19.

“The November date encourages travel and tourism during a typically slow time and offers Virginia wineries an opportunity to market their wines in time for holiday dinners and parties,” Angela Lynch, Poplar Forest Director of Communications, said.

Now in its third year, the event, which drew 2,100 people last year, features tastings from 12 Virginia wineries along with food purveyors and work by local crafters and artisans. Poplar Forest has been awarded a grant from the VTC for three years straight and this year, it received $10,000 to support the festival’s marketing efforts.

“While the festival is promoted extensively throughout Virginia, the 2011 grant is a tremendous help in attracting our wine-savvy neighbors in North Carolina. The drive to Poplar Forest from North Carolina is quick and easy, yet the distance is just far enough to encourage overnight stays in Virginia,” Lynch explained.

A newer event also promoting tourism through wine is the Brookneal Wine Festival at the Patrick Henry National Memorial, nationally known as Red Hill in Brookneal, Virginia.

“In 2010, Red Hill partnered with the Brookneal Chamber of Commerce to bring the first annual wine festival to Red Hill,” Karen Gorham, Executive Vice President Red Hill–Patrick Henry National Memorial, said. “It was such a success that we again partnered with the local chamber this year and are already in the planning stages of next year’s event.”

With a set date of July 14, 2012 for the event’s second year, the Town of Brookneal is also benefitting from $2,504 in marketing tourism dollars from the VTC to help get the word out.

“This grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation greatly aids our marketing efforts, getting the word out to a much broader audience about this new event at Red Hill,” Gorham said. “The grant provides us with the opportunity to enhance our online advertising at multiple sites, for Web site development and search engine optimization which increases traffic to the event page.”

Additional promotions made possible by the grant will come in the way of increased air time on television and radio, as well as the “Virginia is for Lovers” logo in magazines and newspapers and on visual displays around the region, particularly road signage and brochures where this event is advertised, Gorham explained.

“We are particularly excited about having this wine festival at Red Hill because we are currently launching Red Hill wines! Each of the four varieties offered is made from grapes grown in Virginia, and one in particular, our Traminette, is made from grapes grown right here in Charlotte County,” Gorham added.

The new grape growth at Red Hill is further proof that Virginia’s share in the U.S. wine industry is continually growing. In 2008, Virginia ranked ninth nationally in commercial grape with 3.7 million liters produced (15 percent of the overall total nationwide), according to Consumer Goods, a division of the Office of Health and Consumer Goods. Couple this with the fact that in 2007, the state’s 2,400 wine-producing acres rung up cash receipts of $7.56 million, and there’s no question that grapes and tourism mix.

For local growers like Anctil, this recipe for success means that more customers are visiting Sans Soucy from further away. She says that empirical data collected over the last few years indicated that well over 50 percent of their customer base drives more than two hours to visit our winery, and more than 36 percent of that base came from North Carolina.

“They not only buy our wine products, but most likely they also will buy gas, get something to eat, visit a historical site and maybe even spend the evening in a local hotel or B&B,” she said. “That is what I call tourism dollars!”

Twelve years old this year, the original site of the church, on English Tavern Road in Lynchburg, is now accompanied by a second “satellite” version of Brentwood, hosted at Jefferson Forest High School (JF) in Forest. Jon Dupin, lead pastor at Brentwood, says the decision to expand to include a second site was born out of a desire to affordably reach more people.

“We were going to different service times, we were adjusting our space, running out of parking, running out of optimum seating times and so we knew that we had to do something,” Dupin said. “[Going multi-site] was a way that we could basically expand our reach and our vision for a fraction of the cost.”

The two sites, now referred to as “Brentwood Forest” and “Brentwood ETR” by the pastoral staff, are located 25 minutes apart, allowing them to reach two distinctly different sections of the local community. Each week at each site, a live band takes the stage, full children’s programming is offered, hundreds of volunteers keep things running like clockwork and Dupin hosts thousands of worshippers either in person or on a massive screen.

“Basically, what we do is, there is a recording that is done early Sunday morning to a select audience at 6 o’clock in the morning. And that recording is the message for that day. One site will view the recording as the message, with everything else being live, but the proclamation for that particular day will be on screen,” Dupin explained. “Simultaneously, the other campus will have live communication, but it will be the same message. So the technology allows us to have the same communicator on the same day, giving the exact same message.”

Brentwood has also appointed two “site pastors” to reside at each location. Because Dupin switches back and forth between both campuses to speak in person, he says having the same real, live pastor at each site every week is crucial to connecting with worshippers at each location.

“We want, from entry to exit, for people to feel absolutely welcomed by our church,” Dupin said. “You may walk in and not even believe what we believe but you know that we care and we went out of our way to let you know that we are glad that you are here. And we want you to be here.”

Brian Lambert, Site Pastor at Brentwood Forest, and Dupin recall the journey to get to the point of opening the Forest location on April 17, one that involved a push to the congregation to raise $300,000 in 60 days. Brentwood members stepped up to the challenge, raising $350,000. For a church comprised largely of 20- and 30-somethings, this was no small leap of faith.

“On the deadline day, I think we ended up with up with $301,000 on that day,” Dupin said with a laugh. “And then the other $49,000 came through in the weeks following.”

“This was the first time, at least in my history at Brentwood, that it felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, everybody wants to see this.’ It was just this really cool feeling. The only way I can describe it is that God got behind a group of people in their 20s and 30s and helped them decide that they were ready to step outside of their shell,” Lambert said.

The raised funds were spent almost entirely on buying new equipment and upgrading Brentwood ETR’s existing technology to prepare for the launch of the Forest site. The stages in the auditoriums at both sites were retrofitted with three high-definition screens. Two 65-inch panels sit on each side of a huge, 9×16-foot center screen that ensures a clear line of sight for every audience member on Sundays that “virtual Jon” is speaking. Four 24-foot trailers, weighing roughly 10,000 pounds each, house the equipment. Each Sunday morning, starting at 5:30, a team of volunteers spend two hours setting up inside JF’s 750-seat auditorium, transforming it into Brentwood Forest. Two services and hundreds of attendees later, they do it all over again, tearing down in about an hour.

“You ought to see these people work—they are crazy!” Lambert said. “It’s unbelievable because most of the time, when they are leaving on Sunday, they are drenched in sweat because they worked an hour and 45 minutes straight. They’ve been great. I don’t think they would stop if I asked them to!”

At Brentwood ETR, a new lighting system and digital sound board was also installed, and an HD camera bought to tape each week’s message. While Lambert admits that it was an adjustment for some church members to watch a video instead of a live speaker every other week, but others, it’s been an added bonus.

“We get stories where they say they actually prefer watching Jon on the screen. And the rationale is that when you go to a sporting event, you end up watching it on the big screen because you can see in greater detail what’s going on,” he said.

In the future, Dupin says they hope to add even more Brentwood sites, with each splitting its message time between a live and taped communicator. But for now, four months into their first experience with being one church with two sites, both Lambert and Dupin agree—the results have been inspiring.

“ At this point, I get probably two emails a week of people who are saying, ‘We haven’t been to church in 15 years and we decided to walk in Forest and when we did, it just felt like home immediately.’ … And, man, even if we never get another story like that, the money and effort and momentum that we spent to get here was worth just that story alone,” Lambert said.

“We took a risk for us,” Dupin said. “And, we are thrilled at what God is doing through this church as we’ve gone multi-site. “

THOMAS ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH CONTINUES TO PLANT CHURCHES

Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC), Lynchburg’s largest single church congregation, also continues to go multi-site under different names around the area. TRBC is now preparing to launch its second multi-site campus, just off Interstate 581 in Roanoke. This site is in addition to DanRiverChurch in Danville, which TRBC launched as a satellite campus in October 2009.

“More than 50 Thomas Road members traveled weekly to Danville to help the new church start,” Mike Tilley, Chief Marketing Officer for Thomas Road Ministries, said. “Today, the church has hundreds of members and is active in the Danville community.”

Like Brentwood, DanRiverChurch has a full-time campus pastor and offers small groups, children’s programming and live worship music. The weekly sermon, given by Jonathan Falwell, is projected on a large screen in the worship center during Sunday morning’s primary service.

Tilley says that the Danville and Roanoke sites are in addition to the thousands of stand-along churches that Thomas Road has planted over the past 55 years in the U.S. and around the world.

TRBC’s latest church plant in Roanoke is set to open in less than two months. Its name has not been released.

Dimmi.com is a social networking site creating by Consolidated Shoe Company, based in Lynchburg. With a slogan of “Feel Better,” Amy Gallagher, Director of Marketing at Consolidated, describes Dimmi as “a form of social networking that is designed for anyone who is going through any personal grief or crisis or disease, or is just passionate about a cause.”

Translated as “tell me” in Italian, Dimmi is designed to be a place where people of all walks of life can link up and talk about a disease or a cause they themselves or someone close to them is currently fighting through or has overcome.

“The unique thing about Dimmi that sets us apart from other social media sites is that we’re really there for everyone who’s involved in the process,” Gallagher explained. “We understand the importance of sharing information and sharing stories and being able to connect with people who share in your passion or your fight or your cause, because there is such an important part of the healing process that comes through talking.”

Born out of a personal loss, Gallagher says Dimmi and its message hits close to home for the team at Consolidated Shoe Company. The organization has been working to create Dimmi for the past two years, spurred on by the legacy of Dick Carrington, a member of their team and brother of Consolidated’s CEO, who passed away from A.L.S. (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 1997.

“He left behind a wife and beautiful children, and a whole company that was inspired by his fight. His whole family has worked very hard to raise awareness about A.L.S. and this is just something that our company can do now because of the way we are set up and how technology minded we are. We are merging the personal, family relationship that we have with the technology platform to create this social networking site,” Gallagher said.

Currently, Dimmi is fully functional but Gallagher says it has a big challenge to overcome—gathering enough users to get the site out of its current state in Beta, and officially launching it on a larger scale.

“If you think of [Dimmi] as a pool of people, the more people you have in the pool, the more chance that you’ll be able to have a good, viable connection—a truly, from-the-heart, helpful connection,” she said. “The goal really is to have as many stories and as many inspiring, helpful, ‘Feel Better’ resources and mentalities as possible.”

In order to attain these vital connections on Dimmi, Gallagher says she has set a goal of gathering 10,000 independent users to the site.

“That’s a big goal. Once you get to that number of users, the site really kicks into high gear and the true purpose of the site—which is to allow people to share their story and then connect with other people that have similar stories and can be empowered by your story—starts to work when you get your users up,” Gallagher said.

In order to attain their goal, Consolidated is turning to those they know best—their own local community—for help to reach the 10,000 users mark.

“Because it is so personal to us, we trust it with our community first,” Gallagher said. “We are working with local business and business leaders and trusted members of our community to help us build our user base up.”

In the past several months, the Consolidated team has been busy at work to see their vision for Dimmi through. Gallagher has met with representatives at some of the largest organizations in the region, including Centra, Liberty University, AREVA, Genworth and Randolph College, to garner support and rally new users for Dimmi from each company. So far, she says the response has been very encouraging.

“Everyone is trying to find a way to help us spread the message, either personally or through their professional network or business,” Gallagher said. “That’s the cool thing about being a business in Lynchburg, is that power and ability to do some pretty amazing things at a grassroots level before you take things to a national or global level.”

Now, Gallagher is asking that any local business or individual who wants to take part in growing Dimmi get in touch with her to get started. With a long-term vision of helping millions of people, she says that Dimmi has the potential to do a great amount of good, both here in Lynchburg, and far beyond it. But, she also contends that the power to bring it to life starts right here in this area.

“How rare is it to have an opportunity to have involvement in a project like this that you can have a tie back to?” she asked. “I think a lot of people in Lynchburg know Consolidated Shoe Company and know the Carringtons and had a personal connection with Dick, so I think that people will be passionate and excited about it. Right now, it’s just a matter of getting this network in front of people who really need it and letting them use it and help spread the word on a really grassroots level to make sure that the message is an important one.”

Visit Dimmi.com to learn more. For information about how to get involved in growing Dimmi, contact Amy Gallagher at amy.gallagher@consolidatedshoe.com.

“It’s practically finished,” Bob Bailey, CAER Executive Director, said. “We did receive our certification of occupancy—our temporary certificate on May 19^th. So we are in the process of dotting ‘i’s’ and crossing ‘t’s’. Essentially, with that certificate, that means it is certified to use immediately.”

The 30,505 square foot building at the New London site, just off U.S. 460, is a state-of-the-art structure, complete with AREVA’s mock nuclear power plant control room and a soaring tower where the Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) will install a prototype of its new modular nuclear power reactor, called mPower.

“[B&W’s] schedule has that test loop being commissioned in early September. They’re essentially on the site now, and will be running the program by then. They are working on installation now,” Bailey said.

The result of a $5 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, Bailey says the addition of B&W’s integrated system test facility into CAER’s space now comprises 10 to 15 percent of the facility—space not accounted for in the original blueprints.

“Probably the biggest issue [during construction] was the fact that we redesigned the building to incorporate B&W’s mPower after we had broken ground. So, we were redesigning as we went along … that was a challenge!” Bailey said.

But, it was a welcome challenge as Bailey knows B&W’s presence will only amplify CAER’s  objective of bringing research, technology and nuclear development to the forefront in this area.

“The predominant strategy in economic development today, across the country, is in creating what are called ‘innovation ecosystems’ and that is creating an environment and a culture where new knowledge, new technology, new innovation can not only be created, but can be followed all the way through the commercialization process into the marketplace. And one of the key engines for an innovation ecosystem is a place that supports that kind of work,” Bailey said. “Most regions have a research university. Since we don’t have a research university, this is our strategy for developing that environment. And that’s why it’s so important. Without something like this, we are stuck at square one.”

This fall, CAER will offer a Project Management Professional Certification Course on-site. Lab space will also be made available to students of the center’s university partners, as well as labs to help develop wireless technologies. Future classes, symposiums and professional development initiatives are also in the works. While those initiatives are complimentary to CAER’s goals, Bailey says they are “secondary to the primary mission of the facility, which is research and product development.”

“We have developed these [university] partnerships around research and we are trying to leverage these same partnerships to drive technical symposiums and technical seminars around areas of interests. We are working with UVA on a corrosion seminar in the fall, working with George Mason on project management for engineers, Virginia Tech and thermal fluids—those types of things,” he explained.

Ultimately, Bailey says the success of CAER will be determined by what is produced there, and how that creation stimulates the local economy.

“The idea is that jobs are created by innovation; someone coming up with a product that can increase a company’s marketplace,” he said. “If you just drive costs down, all you are really doing is driving your profits down, so its innovation and development of new products that drives economic growth.”

For now, a joint grand opening of CAER with B&W is being tentatively planned for August. In the meantime, Bailey says the finishing touches are being completed; readying the center to welcome what he believes will be a new era in Region 2000’s history.

“We are excited to get it open. It has been a long process,” he said. “Here we are, finally at the finish line. We are really excited to get the construction phase behind us and get the utilization phase underway.”

For more information about CAER, visit www.region2000.org/the-caer.html.

Jack Gary, Director of Archaeology and Landscapes at Poplar Forest says the virtual landscape, which is available both onsite and online, was created to give visitors an interactive view of what his team is working to recreate through a multi-phase project.

“The reason we decided to do [virtual landscapes] is because landscape restoration and particularly Poplar Forest restoration is very time-consuming and meticulous, but it will be a very accurate restoration. However, that will take a long time, and we wanted to speed that process up and let people see it long before it’s restored,” Gary said.

The educational animations, made possible through support by Verizon, are also available at a new touch-screen computer kiosk in the Poplar Forest Museum Shop. These short videos introduce visitors to the home’s landscape as if they are walking through it or flying over it.

“People are surprised at how realistic it is and in awe of what Jefferson was doing. There is sort of a ‘wow factor,’” Gary said.

Currently on a three-year timeline, Poplar Forest is in the first stage of the landscape restoration. With no firm end date in sight, Gary says this virtual landscape is critical in allowing guests to see what they are working towards.

“It can be hard if you’re not a visual person, or even if you are, to imagine that this [landscape] is what Jefferson was going for. With virtual landscape, it kinds of clicks,” he explained.

The technology also benefits Gary and his team by allowing them to do a “test run” of sorts on elements they are currently excavating, while also opening a visual world to guests that they would not otherwise experience.

“We can see it before we plant it and see it as it may actually look before we put the trees in the ground,” Gary said. “As we built onto the platform that was created, we can show visitors things that we will never be able to recreate, like the plantation landscape, slave quarters and barns. This will allow us to recreate a landscape we can never restore.”

Gary says that he is thrilled with how the technology turned out and looks forward to the next phase of it, which will be even more interactive, allowing users to take part in landscaping Poplar Forest’s grounds.

“In Phase Two, we want to develop a module of the digital landscape so visitors can see the information we use and act like us by deciding where the trees will go and move them around to see if they can get it right,” Gary said.

Another interactive tool recently introduced at Poplar Forest are GPS-guided handheld audio/video units. Through video and audio clips, these units allow guests to tour the octagonal house and grounds while learning more about the ornamental grounds, the farm and the plantation community that lived and worked at Poplar Forest.

“One reason we developed this GPS system is that there are so many stories about Poplar Forest that just cannot be delivered in a 40-minute tour,” Gary said. “[The GPS units] allow us to deliver stories of the plantation that we couldn’t necessarily tell on the tour of the home of Thomas Jefferson. The people who lived there—their stories and their lives are just as important and this technology allows us to get that out to visitors.”

Gary says that Poplar Forest is also very conscious about putting added elements, like signage, on the grounds, because they can be seen as an intrusion on the historic landscape. The GPS units eliminate the need for extra signs and markers while allowing the stories of each location to be told through the electronic devices.

“It’s kind of a neat way to get stories out there,” he explained. “It’s kind of a twist or an improvement to classic audio tours you might see in museums, but this a more modern version of that.”

As for the use of modern technology to convey history to Poplar Forest’s guests, Gary laughs at how fitting it is, considering the home’s former owner.

“I think it’s appropriate actually, especially for a Jefferson property,” he said. “He was a man that would really have just dug this sort of stuff. He was a person who was always working to improve upon things, so I think it’s entirely appropriate.”

To experience Poplar Forest’s virtual landscape online, visit www.poplarforest.org/retreat/landrest/virtual.

“I don’t recall how I got to the site, but when I found it, I felt like I had walked into church. It was a revelation!” Peters said. “It has all the business information you could need as a small business owner in Virginia.” 

Offering direct access to the registration information from six state agencies that commonly serve businesses in Virginia, among other things, the new Web site, www.bos.virginia.gov, is designed to support those considering starting a small business or ready to start one, as well as those already running a small business and those looking to expand. BOS also exists as a “first look” for companies outside of the state that want to learn more about the advantages of doing business in Virginia.  

Peter Su, Director of the Virginia Department of Business Assistance, says BOS is the direct result of a campaign promise by Governor Bob McDonnell to help support small business growth within the state. 

“Governor McDonnell has been a strong proponent of a multifunctional one stop [Web site] and this campaign promise was fulfilled,” Su said. 

Phase two of the Virginia Business One Stop (BOS) launched on December 27, 2010, and since that time, Su says 1,342 new BOS accounts have been created. 

“[This is] indicating that Virginians have used Business One Stop to start a new legal entity in the Commonwealth,” Su said. “The number of Web site visits has increased significantly as businesses are looking to receive more information.” 

BOS is designed to support economic development and job creation by giving quick and easy access to both state and federal resources. This includes commonly needed information and forms from the Department of Taxation, Department of General Services, Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, the Virginia Employment Commission, the Department of Business Assistance and the Department of Minority Business Enterprise.  

Peters says the site’s name lives up to the expectation it creates, saying he directly experienced the benefits of finding everything he needed in one place.  

“I am a big fan! I needed info about forming a corporation, about ‘Doing Business As’ and needed to know where I could find assistance, conference spaces, employees if I needed them and temporary spaces at workforce development centers. What a great idea!” he said. 

Su says that new features were also added prior to the site’s official launch. 

“Prior to the launch in December, the site was very limited in both content and integration. Added features include integration of the instant FEIN (federal tax identification number) assignment module and the state’s business tax registration system (iReg),” he said. “Additionally, more useful information has been added to address the full life cycle of businesses.” 

With this in mind, BOS now includes local, state and federal information and resources, and Su says they are working to “integrate the business licensing requirements for localities.” With the site’s registered users growing quickly, feedback from real business owners is also reaching McDonnell’s office—and the vast majority of it has been positive so far, according to Su. 

One example, from Wendy Smith from Louisa, said, “I just wanted to relate how much I appreciated the Business One Stop. I am starting my own business and this on-line tool made it so easy to do so. Please relay my thanks to those responsible for this program and many thanks that Virginia makes life a bit easier for the people, especially those of us who tend to be a bit technology challenged.”  

As for his experience, Peters says BOS has nothing but rave reviews. 

“To save a lot of time and energy with potentially confusing info, it’s better that the Better Business Bureau and the Small Business Administration,” he said. “It has all the information you need and all the information you didn’t know you needed!”

“Our enrollment had dropped at such a rate that we could no longer sustain the school from donations alone,” Turner Perrow, VSA’s Board President, said. “VSA has always survived through a combination of donations and tuition. As generous as our community has been over the years, the need financially has just become too great at this time to sustain keeping the school open.”

With 15 students currently enrolled and seven set to graduate in May, Leslie Kozera, VSA’s Director of Operations, Admissions and Student Life, says the decision to shut down the school is angering to her.

“I will be honest, I was not part of the decision to close the doors, because they knew I would fight against it,” Kozera said.

As a Director for the school, Kozera sits on the board for VSA, but does not have voting rights. Because of this, she says that she was forced out of the decision to close by a board she claims didn’t make enough effort to raise the money needed to save it.

“The board, like on any board of any nonprofit, it is their job to raise funds and they decided that [the funds needed] should come strictly from tuition,” she said. “With a nonprofit, you have to constantly be out there with your hand out. And they just weren’t.”

Perrow, however, says that was not the case. With only 15 students currently enrolled, even with a $22,000 annual tuition, Perrow says the numbers didn’t add up—and hadn’t been adding up for quite some time prior to the board’s decision. He says that there have been multiple attempts to raise more funds and sell off assets—including the sale of the 37,000-square-foot facility at 2244 Rivermont Avenue for $500,000 last summer for one-third of its city assessed worth of $1.57 million—but Perrow says that money went to pay down debt and cover operating costs.

Even the remaining few weeks of classes at VSA are in financial jeopardy, with $175,000 still needed to cover operating costs through May. But Perrow says the board’s commitment to making sure the current graduating students are taken care of trumps all other needs right now.

“We really have two tasks before us: First, we want our students to be completely unaffected by closing the school and we want them to receive an excellent education for the remainder of the year,” Perrow said. “We also want to help graduating students to transition to the next phase of their dance career and non-graduating students to transition into other dance programs.”

But Kozera says that other schools like VSA are “double the tuition,” and that her remaining students—many of whom call her “mom”—are heartbroken over the board’s decision to close after graduation.

“I’ve got kids whose parents are holding out for the possibility that we can pull through, because they don’t want to leave Lynchburg,” she said. They love what they are doing and now they have to start over somewhere else. And it’s nauseating.”

Kozera says her frustration over the board’s decision is based on her claims that its members shirked their responsibility to rally the necessary donors and the community at large to help keep the doors open.

“If they had gone public first, and if it doesn’t work, then okay. But now that they’ve announced it is closing, why would people give money? [The board] didn’t give the community the opportunity to reach out and help. I have people calling me and asking, ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were in trouble?’ Now it’s too late,” she said.

Acknowledging the negative reaction from VSA’s former staff and supporters, Perrow says that efforts were made to solicit donations, and says the board delayed the closure as long as possible.

“Quite simply, the Lynchburg community is not going to give a half-million dollars in operation costs per year. They are very supportive and are wonderful about making $10,000 and even $20,000 donations, but this community can only support so many of those donations at that level, and it’s certainly not enough to cover our operating costs,” he said. “We could continue to keep the school open and run it into the ground and into bankruptcy, but we are choosing to do the responsible thing and close now, before it gets to that point.”

For now, the long-term hopes for VSA appear to be tied up in its remaining assets. Marty Donovan, a current VSA board member and agent for Blickenstaff and Company Realtors, is listing VSA’s remaining school building on Rivermont Avenue for $425,000. Coupled with a small endowment and the opportunity to sell a WiMAX (4G) license the school owns, which Perrow estimates to be worth about $500,000, the board hopes to utilize these assets for future support of the local Arts.

“Those funds could possibly do a couple of things; they could be scholarships for students, they could sponsor professional dance/ballet performances in the area,” Perrow said. “We may also use it—especially if we generate enough through assets—to work with a MAGNET school or a similar program if there is an appetite to do that. That’s been successful in other areas and that could be the future of VSA.”

With sadness and differing viewpoints on both sides of the school’s closure, both Perrow and Kozera do agree that for these last few weeks in VSA’s history, the main focus must now be on its remaining students.

“Our number one priority is the well-being and welfare of the students,” Perrow said.

“I love them and I wish there was something I could do,” Kozera concluded. “Graduation this year is going to be brutal for all of us.”

An Opportunity to Help

The Virginia School of the Arts is holding its final fundraiser, called “An Evening of Elegance,” on Memorial Day weekend, May 27 & 28 at 7 p.m., at the Academy of Fine Arts Warehouse Theater in Lynchburg. Tickets are $20. Group rates for more than five people are available. Limited seating. All proceeds benefit the school. To reserve tickets, call (434) 847-8688.