Only a few years ago in Danville, Virginia, the historic White Mill was a white elephant. In its heyday, it was part of a sprawling industrial complex. But after the mill shut down in 1996, the building spent years as a vacant shell; it was, as the mayor lamented, “a site that was left behind.”
In January 2023, the mill’s fortunes changed, as developers from the Alexander Company and officials from the city of Danville held a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the rehabilitation of the building into a massive community hub of housing, commercial space and retail–a transformation made possible by the historic tax credit (HTC). The project represented one of the largest active HTC redevelopments in Virginia at the time, but for the Alexander Company, it was merely the latest in a long line of 90-plus HTC developments in the company’s 40-year history. Indeed, as the HTC program approaches its 50th anniversary next year, the success of the incentive depends on people like the leaders of the Alexander Company: the developers who keep coming back.
