COMMENTARY: Our Magic Crystal Ball’s 5 Most Unreliable Local Predictions for 2025
Williamsburg suffers in school negotiations, CW craves high density development, “Sports Town” woes grow, more W&M dorms planned, local news independence achieved
Happy New Year! In no particular order, here are my 5 most unreliable predictions for 2025. No one should expect these predictions to come true (but remember where you heard them if they do). I hope you enjoy reading the list as much as I did divining it.
Prediction #1: Williamsburg suffers in school negotiations due to City Council school breakup blunder.
You likely know the story by now … Williamsburg City Council stepped in a big pile of trouble when they voted last year to explore breaking up the joint school system with James City County — without bothering to give their school partners any heads up in advance. That didn’t go over very well in James City County, and in an epic reversal, the Board of Supervisors quickly decided to make the decision on Williamsburg’s behalf by preemptively voting to terminate the joint agreement at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Realizing the issue was going nowhere for them, the Williamsburg City Council eventually announced (in October) their commitment to staying in the joint system.
Now, the City finds itself in a horrible position to negotiate a new agreement with JCC, unable to demand any more than what the County feels like offering. Here’s to hoping the BOV of JCC shows more class in negotiations than the Williamsburg City Council did while instigating the situation.
Prediction #2: Colonial Williamsburg/HTRFA double down on high density and commercial developments.
It seems as though Colonial Williamsburg’s mission of historic preservation and education doesn’t pay enough, so its leadership has decided to focus on being land developers. After all, the cash must keep coming to pay all those expensive executive salaries.
CW clearly thinks bigger is better when it comes to building on the property they want to sell and develop. This makes sense because they rarely get anything but encouragement from the folks at City Hall on the matter. In fact, in response to so many of their plans being stymied last year, City Council ultimately voted to change zoning regulations for “museum” property as well as extend the power to develop CW land to the Historic Triangle Recreation Facilities Authority. This is the same regional government entity responsible for building and running the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Entertainment Center on CW land. Now, the development-focused leadership of CW & HTRFA don’t need any permission to build just about anything they choose across hundreds and hundreds of acres in the City. I’m not sure most people in Williamsburg realize yet the potential impact of Council’s abdication of oversight responsibility on this issue. But I think we’re about to find out.
Though very little of what the partnership of Colonial Williamsburg and HTRFA intends to build will seem affordable to most people, the people pushing more development will certainly use the housing shortage as a way to justify paving over more land and building high density developments, while making tons of cash in the process. The combined forces of City Hall, CW and the HTRFA all seem to want as much land developed as densely as they can force through the process. Whether the people of Williamsburg will go along or will continue to get in their way remains to be seen.
Prediction #3: Sports and Entertainment Center will be behind schedule, over budget and under-booked by year end.
Keeping with the theme of HTRFA, I wonder if you’ve ever seen the TV sitcom Parks and Recreation? In it, one of the characters is haunted by the choice to build a misguided and expensive entertainment venue called “Ice Town,” which failed spectacularly and bankrupted a fictitious town. I don’t expect that the Williamsburg Sports Town, er, I mean the Greater Williamsburg Sports and Entertainment Center will bankrupt the City — there’s a large, dedicated stream of money backing it in the form of an extra special 1% sales tax we all pay locally. But I expect that the wave of economic benefit to the community promised by supporters will be merely a ripple. And remember, the millions in tax money that Williamsburg has committed to the project could have gone elsewhere, but is now almost exclusively committed to building Sports Town.
It also remains to be seen how accurate the construction timelines, cost and revenue estimates turn out to be in light of local leadership’s hard push for this project. I expect that projections – as vague as they are – turn out to be rosy all around.
Prediction #4: College of William & Mary reverses course, announces plans to build more dorms and guarantee student housing.
I don’t buy the argument from administrators at the College of William and Mary that they are not responsible for off-campus student housing conditions. In fact, the school’s unwillingness or inability to guarantee students a place to live ultimately shifts the responsibility and challenges to the City and local neighborhoods, which doesn’t seem appropriate.
As it stands, the College’s current construction plan will not deliver any additional beds for students, meaning the near-campus housing crunch could continue indefinitely. In response, I expect the school’s leadership to reverse course and announce new plans to build additional dorms with a goal to make the College self-sufficient in terms of student housing.
Prediction #5: Williamsburg Independent emerges as the City's leading source for news and commentary.
Hey, one can dream. But there’s little doubt that news organizations around here leave a lot to be desired. Take for example the frequent practice of one local “daily” outlet which publishes government press releases verbatim under a generic “staff” byline. Publishing content such as this without doing any actual reporting or adding any other value to the information is lazy, if not outright deceptive. This practice proves that well-known local media is most interested in giving you bland, unoriginal content that won’t upset fragile sensibilities. As you can probably tell by now, that’s not my strength.
To all the folks who read this far, stay Independent! Thanks and see you in 2025 …
George Arbogust is Founder and Editor of the Williamsburg Independent. You can contribute too! Send stories and ideas to contact@williamsburgindependent.com.