Since the late 1990s, the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore has reached out to the community from its Norfolk headquarters in a converted former tire warehouse.
Staff and volunteers take in truckloads of donations and purchased food; sort and store it; and work to get it to organizations that feed nearby communities and those as far off as Sussex and Accomack counties. More than 200 partners order deeply discounted food or “shop” for free products in an area that resembles a grocery.
The Norfolk site is the hub of a big wheel, but it’s straining – not enough storage, only two functioning loading docks, plus a need for three times the cooler space. The Foodbank wants to address those problems by building a new headquarters in Virginia Beach.
“We plan to grow, and the only thing holding us back from growth is a new facility,” Christopher Tan, president and CEO of the Foodbank, said Wednesday during a Virginia Beach Planning Commission meeting.
The Foodbank wants to build a campus including a 103,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center on nearly 24 acres along Dam Neck Road in Virginia Beach. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the Foodbank’s rezoning request. The City Council will make the final decision at a future meeting.
Approval means a new center could open within the next few years, Tan said during an interview Wednesday. The Foodbank is raising money toward that goal through a $25 million capital campaign called “Setting the Table.”
“We’re working at maximum capacity,” said Mallory Reckling, the Foodbank’s director of development and marketing, at the Norfolk site Tuesday. “We’ve also grown significantly, and we’ve outgrown the space.”
The Virginia Beach facility would include more loading docks, warehouse space, offices and room to work with partners. There will be walking paths for workers and the community, as well as raised garden beds and a farming area for produce.
“It symbolizes the Foodbank’s movement to healthy food,” Tan said. “It’s an opportunity to share with the community.”
During the meeting, commissioners discussed concerns of three speakers who live nearby about the size of a stormwater pond and the fate of trees. Tan said they would work with the neighbors.
Eddie Bourdon, an attorney representing the Foodbank, said they’ll address a buffer near homes, reconfigure the pond and preserve existing trees between the development and residences.
“There’s no one else who is going to provide the amount of food that we’re going to provide for the community other than the Foodbank,” Tan said during the meeting.
He said the organization is now providing twice as much food in Virginia Beach as it was three years ago.
“I think long and hard before voting in favor of moving Virginia Beach property from agricultural to light industrial,” Planning Commissioner Kathryn Byler said.
She said there is limited potential for other uses of the site.
“This happens to be one of the few things that it seems well suited for,” Byler said. “And we all, of course, applaud the efforts of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia.”
Tan said a new headquarters will help the Foodbank grow its services. It’s a time of uncertainty for some organizations amid budget cuts, including a federal funding reduction that hit the Foodbank earlier this year.
Tan said he didn’t think cuts hurt the capital campaign, but that may speed up the need for the new facility in order to handle more donations and for the Foodbank to use its purchasing power more effectively.
