The Jefferson Scholars Foundation is seeking approval for a $21 million loan to fund the construction of its new headquarters.
Although the Jefferson Scholars Foundation applied for and received an $18 million loan in June of this year, it recently announced its intention to apply for an additional amount of up to $3 million, making the loan total $21 million. The $3 million request is pending as of now, but a decision will be made after Sept. 11, when a public hearing on the project will be held at the Albemarle County office.
The office will be on Maury Avenue and Clark Court in Charlottesville.
Although the Jefferson Scholars Foundation is probably best-known for its merit-based scholarships to undergraduate students at the University, it also began offering about 10 graduate fellowships per year in 2001. These fellowships are one of the reasons the foundation is looking for a new building.
"Those fellows need a place where they can come and do research and share research with other people, and where we could host lectures," said James Wright, president of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation.
To this end, the new office building will house, among other things, a new graduate fellowship center.
The money itself will be routed in the form of municipal bonds from the Albemarle County Industrial Development Authority.
The IDA, created by state law, "allows a borrower to borrow money tax-free" in the name of the county, IDA Chair John Lowry said. There is, however, "no credit risk to the county, because the county does not back up the cost," Lowry added.
In the case of this new office building, for instance, the borrower will be the foundation, and although the bonds will be in the name of Albemarle County, the lender will actually be a bank.
Even after the loan is approved, the IDA will continue to have some involvement in the project.
"Once the loan is approved, all that's required of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation is an annual report of how they're doing until the loan is paid off," Lowry said. "But it's only because we monitor the project, not because we are at any risk."
Wright, meanwhile, said the organization might be able to occupy the new offices in as few as two years, "if everything goes [as] well as it could"
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