A tenant is joining The Alexander Company’s and the Danville Industrial Development Authority’s White Mill project.
Officials have a letter of intent from a tenant who officials will not identify to develop the eastern thirds of the top two floors of the former Dan River Inc. building.
Danville City Manager Ken Larking would not name the tenant or reveal what type of development the tenant would bring.
“We’re not ready to announce exactly what it is,” Larking said Thursday.
The Alexander Company, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is already slated to fill the White Mill’s western third and center sections of the top three floors with apartments.
IDA Chairman Neal Morris said of the tenant’s plans, “It’s going to help us move along and get it [the White Mill project] finalized and up and running.”
Also, Danville City Council will consider at its meeting Tuesday night whether to rescind a moral obligation agreement with American National Bank for a $26.5 million loan to White Mill Shell & Commercial, LLC, for the $85 million White Mill project.
If council rescinds the agreement, it will be replaced with a moral obligation with American National for a $21 million loan for the project.
The change in the loan’s amount would be made because the IDA is no longer responsible for financing the portion of the building that will be leased to the new tenant, Larking said.
The new loan would finance rehabilitation and redevelopment of unit one of the three-unit project. Unit one includes 147,105 square feet of commercial and retail space and 84,773 square feet of interior parking space on the first and ground floors.
White Mill Shell & Commercial, LLC is an affiliate of the IDA and The Alexander Company.
Under a joint venture between the IDA and The Alexander Company, the latter would convert the western two-thirds of floors two through four into 150 residential units and the IDA would redevelop the first floor and the eastern one-thirds of the second floor into commercial space available to lease — all occurring in the project’s first phase. The IDA would turn the lower level into parking.
The Alexander Company and the IDA signed a memorandum of understanding during a ceremony in May 2021 at the Danville Family YMCA across the Dan River from the White Mill.
Entering into the partnership under 424 Memorial Drive LLC — instead of having the Alexander Company buy the property outright — allows the use of historic tax credits for the project.
The IDA owns the White Mill property, but the authority agreed to admit the Alexander Company into the ownership structure as part of the memorandum of understanding.
Construction on the project is expected to start in late November or December and be complete in the final quarter of 2024.