Culpeper committee backs forwarding $100,000 county match request for Carver Food Enterprise Center expansion

The Culpeper County Buildings and Grounds Committee voted to forward a recommendation that the full board approve moving $100,000 from the county's CIP match fund to support completion of the Carver Food Enterprise Center expansion.

Gretchen Laddmore, executive director of the George Washington Carver Agriculture Research Center, told the committee the nonprofit “received those grants, got the MOU in March for $1,200,000 to complete this expansion.” She said the expansion will increase the facility to roughly 6,200 square feet, quadruple cold-storage and cooking capacity and enable co‑packing services for local farms.

Laddmore presented impact figures she said reflect the program’s local reach: 42 businesses currently use the kitchen, 34 of them are new businesses attributed to the incubator, 128 new products have reached market and about 121 jobs have been created. She said a private funder has pledged to cover the remaining gap if Culpeper County provides the requested $100,000 match and that the project must be completed by the end of December to meet grant conditions.

County staff told the committee a grant-match CIP line currently holds $239,000 and recommended the $100,000 use as “an exceptional value” given the scale of improvements to a county‑owned facility. Following discussion, a committee member moved to forward the request to the full board and the motion passed unanimously.

The committee’s recommendation does not itself authorize spending; the full board will decide whether to appropriate the $100,000 from the CIP match fund.