Pandit Books and others change town's factory image
While Buena Vista continues to live up to its reputation as a factory city, the influx of new businesses is dramatically changing the city’s “typical” economy.
“We’re very proud of our industry and the blue-collar reputation and heritage that we have,” said Director of Economic Development Tim Reamer. But Reamer says the businesses that have recently located to Buena Vista are not manufacturing plants, typical of the old Buena Vista economy.
Eight new businesses opened in Buena Vista in the last fiscal year, about three times as many as for the previous year. Reamer said that by the end of the second quarter, in January, four more new businesses will have opened, for a total of 12. All of them are classified as small businesses.
Pandit Books, which opened in October, is a blend of distribution and retail, what Reamer calls a good combination of the manufacturing and retail that make up Buena Vista’s economy.
The new bookstore opened in the old 32,000-square-foot Food Lion building in Green Forest Plaza. It is one of three retail stores in Virginia that sell discounted used books. But unlike the other two stores, located in Lexington and Louisa County, the Buena Vista business not only sells used books, but also operates as a wholesale book distributor to online booksellers. The building currently holds more than one million books.
One of Pandit Books’ retail stores opened in Nov. 15 in Stonewall Square, just outside the Lexington city limits.
Its prices range from $2.50 for a hardback book to $1.75 for paperback and kids’ books.
Owners Jimmy and Elizabeth Blankenship hope that by selling books, they are changing lives. The idea for the bookstore stemmed from Jimmy Blankenship’s work with Kairos, an international Christian prison ministry.
Kairos began in 1976 as a way for men and women to volunteer to bring Christ’s love and forgiveness to prisoners and their families. Blankenship has been a part of Kairos since 1990, through his church in another part of Virginia.
Blankenship used to bring books to inmates in prisons as part of the ministry, but after Sept. 11, 2001, he was barred from doing so by additional security. In fact, the only way to give books to prisoners was through an accredited bookseller, such as Barnes and Noble, which could ship books to the prison. After three years of researching the idea, Blankenship decided to start his own business as a way to serve prisoners.
“It’s his way of giving back,” said Elizabeth, Jimmy’s wife. “There are a lot of people out there who are very intelligent and want to read. They want to better themselves, and here all of a sudden everything was cut off.”
Pandit Books ships to prisons all over the country, to states as far as Washington and Florida. It not only supplies inmates with books, but also provides educational books to support the GED high-school equivalency program at prisons and supplies books for prison libraries.
Blankenship believes that the store name, Pandit, which comes from the Hindi word for “teacher” or “professor,” captures the bookstore’s motto: Open a book, unlock your mind.
Blankenship said that Reamer and Ruth Ann Parsons of the Rockbridge Area Occupational Center recruited the couple to move their warehouse from Hadensville to Buena Vista.
“Buena Vista came to us,” said Blankenship. “They’ve welcomed us with open arms.”
Reamer said that Pandit Books is just one example of how Buena Vista is “taking a combination of heritage and a little bit of [its] future and putting them together to open some new businesses for the community.”
He credits the success of the economy to the combined efforts of a three-year strategic plan he implemented when he began working as economic developer 16 months ago, and community and business support.
“The quarterback gets way too much credit for winning and so much of the blame for losing, and that just can’t be the case,” said Reamer. “It’s a joint effort.”
The strategic plan has provided low-interest loans to help new businesses like Pandit Books start up. The plan also included a new advertising and marketing campaign for the city, which was designed during a branding “charrette” on Oct. 10-12.
While Reamer still considers Buena Vista a factory city, he thinks a limited work force will keep it from remaining primarily an industrial community. Reamer said that in the future there will be 12,000 jobs in Buena Vista, but only 3,000 people to fill the skilled positions.
He hopes that in the long-run the city will use assets like Glen Maury Park and Vista Links golf course to promote recreation. But he acknowledges that ultimately what happens to Buena Vista is out of his control.
“Whatever Buena Vista wants to be, it will be,” he said. “It’s going to
take everybody in the community to have a singular focus.”
List of new
businesses
in Buena Vista
Tim Reamer discusses Buena Vista's economy
City of Buena Vista
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Brian Richardson
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd