Tran credited McDonald with saving ITFederal project – but what was saved?

The end of the road: Part One of Phase One of the ITFederal construction plan appears to be nearing completion, as does the Town’s West Main Street connector road project – what’s next? Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

Contacted by phone on April 20, ITFederal principal Truc “Curt” Tran said he was limited in what he could say about his plans for his 30-acre parcel at the Royal Phoenix Business Park in Front Royal.

“On the advice of my attorney, no comment,” Tran said in reply to a question about how being named a defendant in EDA civil litigation filed March 26 might impact his plans as the first commercial tenant recruited to the former Avtex Superfund site.

However Tran did reply briefly when asked if he would continue to attempt to market the nearly completed, one story, 10,000 square-foot Phase One building as a rental space despite reports he no longer plans to re-locate his ITFederal tech company here from Northern Virginia.

“When did I say that?” Tran replied, seeming to focus on the ITFederal aspect of the question. Told it has been a general topic of conversation since both Royal Examiner and the Northern Virginia Daily reported an altered ITFederal plan on March 14, Tran added, “There is so much misquote and rumor.”

And while this paper’s source was protected Daily reporter Josh Gully cited Tran himself as the source of the information in a March 12 phone conversation. Pressed about his current plan for the property Tran returned to his attorney-instructed “no comment”.

But when this reporter and Gully encountered Tran in the EDA parking lot during a December 20, 2018, EDA Board of Directors closed session he was upbeat about the Front Royal project.

During a Dec. 20, 2018 Royal Phoenix/EDA site visit ‘Curt’ Tran spoke with media about the history of his project – now lawyers are advising ‘no comment’ after Tran and ITFederal were cited among nine defendants in EDA civil litigation.

“You know every project on a brown field (environmental remediation site) has issues, okay, so we were very hesitant but here we are. So the building is going up, the road is coming in, business is coming in. And so I just met the governor on Monday (Dec. 16) and I try to tell him about the project out here – local, state, federal we all work together – we sing ‘Gumbaya’ and we make it happen because this is a beautiful piece of land and we try to market it,” Tran said.

“The EDA has been very supportive – we’ve had some glitch, some challenge, like the road issue – that was a mistake,” Trans said of a dispute with the Town over drainage issues tied to construction of the West Main Street connector road through the Royal Phoenix Business Park property.

Front Royal Mayor Hollis Tharpe and Tran discuss development status behind pick up truck during ITFederal principal’s Dec. 20 site visit.

We asked Tran if he was aware that EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald was under closed session board scrutiny for the second time within a week during that day’s EDA meeting. Tran replied, “I heard about this and it’s blowing my mind.”

Told there were suspicions McDonald might be terminated or asked to resign when the meeting re-adjourned to open session, Tran said, “Oh that would be sad. She’s done so much for this area of the county and the town to redevelop, and even me – I was just about to move on and she,” Tran hesitated before adding of the prospect of a turnover at the top of the EDA, “So, so we have to go do this with the next guy’s ideas or something?”

As Tran punctuated his question with a glance southward what he saw was a 30-acre property he acquired for one dollar from the EDA in a stated effort to jump start commercial redevelopment at the former Superfund site that from 1941 to 1989 housed a synthetic fibers manufacturing plant that though three ownerships was this community’s largest employer.

It is a property 3-1/2 years down the road from an October 2015 ribbon cutting with a one-story, 10,000 square-foot building nearing completion out of three buildings promised to total 67,000 s.f. and house hundreds of new jobs. As early as a June 2015 press release, Sixth District Congressman Robert Goodlatte lauded the coming of ITFederal as a $40-million investment in this community that would create 600-plus jobs, primarily high paying tech jobs brought here by ITFederal’s relocation from Northern Virginia.

Happy Day: Tom Sayre and Jennifer McDonald at Oct 26, 2015 ITFederal groundbreaking – a lot has changed since then. Social Media Photo

Recently acquired FOIA material also indicates that it was Goodlatte that pushed the Town of Front Royal and the EDA toward facilitating a $10-million loan to ITFederal eventually accomplished through First Bank and Trust with the 147-acre Royal Phoenix Business Park property used as collateral.

”When we did the EDA to ITFederal closing in mid-September, things got a little confused because of Curt Tran’s changing of things and the added $10,000,000 loan that Congressman Goodlatte asked for,” then EDA and County Attorney Blair Mitchell wrote McDonald and a TLC Settlements staffer named “Lucy” on November 19, 2015.

Mitchell referenced bank questions about how the loan would be secured. “Was the 410 million (apparent typo for $10 million) just unsecured because we expect Curt to repay it from his other investor and financing?” Mitchell’s email concludes.

Due to delays in achieving the bank loan the Town of Front Royal gave ITFederal a $10-million “bridge” loan through the EDA to facilitate the project until the bank loan was agreed upon.

File photo of a Bob Goodlatte visit to Warren County – Goodlatte was center stage in presenting ITFederal as the impetus for Royal Phoenix/Avtex site economic redevelopment.

Despite Goodlatte’s promotion of ITFederal as an economic development opportunity for this community and his involvement in securing a $10-million loan now being sought for recovery as part of the $17.6-million EDA civil suit, on December 20 Tran downplayed Goodlatte’s involvement in bringing him to Front Royal and Warren County.

“And so initially it’s not Congressman Goodlatte – a lot of people think Congressman Goodlatte got me out here – in fact it was Frank Wolf,” Tran said of the former 10^th District Congressman. Warren County was redistricted out of Wolf’s 10^th and into Goodlatte’s 6^th District in a 2012 Republican-led redrawing of the commonwealth’s legislative map.

“So I was talking to their (Wolf’s) office and they say, ‘Hey Curt, come out here and help because Warren County is a rural area and they need kind of investment support.’ I went out here and the next thing I know they were redistricted, and that’s why Congressman Wolf’s office hand me over to Goodlatte.

“Front Royal, Warren County – they need help developing, so that’s why we start looking at this place. And then there was all kind of challenge with the federal government running the program – that this is not rural (designation)… they have a separate one and the housing; so it’s really messy.

“So then they told me it was rural and is why I went out here… and then it’s NOT… so that was another crazy challenge,” Tran said of discrepancies in how the federal government classified Warren County regarding economic and demographic variables qualifying his project for access to federal program funding sources.

“So we were about to move out of Warren County because it’s hard to get federal grants and support for programs. So then fortunately enough it wound up Jennifer (McDonald) was around to help bridge it and then I think the congressman (Goodlatte).”

That “bridge” appears to have been the $10-million bridge loan from the Town of Front Royal to help the EDA secure the $10-million First Bank and Trust loan. And from information being circulated about the ITFederal project as late as 2017 a $10-million Town “bridge” – since repaid – to a $40-million investment producing 600, largely high-paying jobs doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

As explained to Royal Examiner by former EDA Executive Director McDonald in a January 2017 interview (See Related Story), Tran’s originally-presented plan for his 30-acre ITFederal site was multi-phased, three-building project including a total of 67,000 square feet of construction in three structures, one of which would include 20,000 s.f. of rental space, 10,000 s.f. on each of two floors; 37,000 s.f. for an ITFederal office building and another 10,000 s.f. for an ITFederal cloud data center.

Artist’s renderings of the planned three-building ITFederal complex: above, the ITFederal office and cloud data center slated for the western side of the property toward the Old Virginia Plant; below the two-story retail center, one story of which is nearing completion.

“As for job creation you can see from the table below what the anticipated ITF jobs will be salary wise and a total of jobs for the entire ITF operation,” McDonald told Royal Examiner in early 2017, noting that delays in the start of the project would result in year one numbers “a little lower” but adding that the below chart were “strictly ITF jobs and not related to the retail component” of the project.

However 27 months later, year one of the ITFederal plan has yet to begin.

As for the current status of ITFederal’s promised jump start of economic redevelopment at the former federal Superfund site, it seems there can only be unanswered questions amidst a flurry of attorney-instructed “no comments” from all sides – so much for “Gumbaya” and timely movement on that $40-million, job-creating economic investment in this community with a 2020 deadline for completion.

Was it all a pipe dream from the start, as former Councilwoman Bébhinn Egger warned in 2016-17 from her research into ITFederal, its contract history and possible reliance on EB-5 Visa Program money – a reliance later verified by FOIA’ed communications between Tran and McDonald dated October 24, 2014*.

Somewhere over the rainbow – there is a rainbow out there, isn’t there?…

Or could it be something worse, or more promisingly a project like its site’s name that might rise like a phoenix from the ashes of current civil litigation, criminal investigations, public finger-pointing and municipal scurrying for explanations?

Stay tuned for the next chapter of “As the EDA forensic audit turns.”

*Footnote: In Tran’s October 24, 2014 email to McDonald stating acceptance of an IDA/EDA offer on “Lot 6 of the Royal Phoenix Park” Tran writes, “Once ACRC (Tran’s American Commonwealth Regional Center) has received final approval from USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), it can immediately start raising the EB-5 investments to provide loan financing to ITFederal to development (sic) the property and to perform work on the $140 million NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) contract.”