A recent episode illustrates what Richard Mansell is aiming for with the opening of his new family entertainment center, Mountain Rush, in downtown Covington.
A woman came into the white brick Main Street building during the August soft opening of the center, which offers laser tag, arcade games, a golf simulator and more.
She bought activity passes for the three teenagers with her.
“I asked, ‘Would you like one, too?’ She’s like, ‘No, I just bought the teens, ’” Mansell said.
About five minutes later, the woman — apparently at the urging of the kids — came back to the front counter for her own activity pass: “Well, I’ve been told I need to get one, too,” she said.
For two hours, the woman and the three teenagers hung out, Mansell said.
First, they played laser tag. Later, they sat together in a booth, eating ice cream, “just laughing and talking about who knows what,” he said.
“It just did my heart good to see the parent and teens interacting and laughing together and playing together,” he said.
Mansell moved to Covington from North Carolina 14 years ago. He’s the assistant pastor of Calvary Baptist Church and a father of three daughters.
He wanted to create a place families in the region could go to have fun without having to drive to a bigger city. So, he started up Mountain Rush.
Rather than take out a bank loan, Mansell asked the community to back the business directly. Supporters loaned hundreds or thousands of dollars each, with the returns to be paid out of profits.
Mansell has developed about 16,000 square feet inside the Main Street building, but that’s only about half of what its three stories could offer.
Still to come: a roller skating rink in the basement with locally sourced hardwood, a food court-style restaurant with Japanese ramen and American fast dining, and a birthday party room.
Mountain Rush is among more than a dozen businesses that in the past few years have opened up in, or moved to, the downtown district of Covington, a small city of less than 6,000 people near the West Virginia border.
Mountain Rush’s debut is just one example of a local effort to provide more amenities, shopping and places to eat for residents and tourists alike.
Together, these efforts — which also include public beautification projects and an expanded sports complex across town — outline the city’s work in writing its next chapter.
A city by the numbers
From the Roanoke region, the straightest shot to Covington is to head north on U.S. 220 and then turn west onto Interstate 64. The city is right off the highway.
Visitors who arrive during the fall will be greeted by broad swaths of colorful trees across the Allegheny Mountains that serve as a backdrop for the city.
Taking the off-ramp with a mind toward heading downtown, one sees stores and other businesses, then neighborhoods of single-family homes. Soon, steam from the local paper mill joins the mountains in looming large in one’s view.
Covington is a city of about five and a half square miles on the Jackson River near the border of West Virginia. It’s part of a region called the Alleghany Highlands, known for its mountain views, trails, camping and fishing.
Other places in the region include Alleghany County, surrounding the city, along with the counties of Bath, Craig and Highland. The towns of Clifton Forge and Iron Gate are near Covington.
Covington’s population of just over 5,700, as of the 2020 census, makes it the second least-populous independent city in Virginia behind Norton, which is surrounded by Wise County and has almost 3,700 people.
A few more numbers add additional context to its economic picture.
The median household income is $42,724, similar to that of Danville and Martinsville. It’s about half the Virginia average, but Virginia’s average is skewed by Northern Virginia, which includes some of the wealthiest counties in the country.
About 24% of Covington’s residents live below the poverty line. That’s the 10th highest poverty rate among Virginia localities, but it’s comparable to some other Virginia cities, including Charlottesville, Galax and Hopewell.
Its median age is just over 41 years old, higher than the statewide median of about 39.
Covington’s local economy was built on industries such as railroads and paper production. After significant population decreases in the 1970s and 1980s, its population continued to steadily decline before mostly leveling out in recent years.
Ask Covington residents which business there is the most recognizable and they’ll likely tell you it’s the 126-year-old paper mill owned by Smurfit Westrock that sits on the Jackson River northwest of the city.
That facility and the company’s nearby Low Moor plant employed about 1,000 people together as of the end of August, according to a company spokesperson.
While the paper plant represents big business in Covington, small business activity is picking up, with more than a dozen mom-and-pop shops opening their doors downtown in the past few years.
Public improvements aim to beautify downtown
“I’ll always like this view of Main Street, with the mountains back there,” said Terri McClung on a recent walk around downtown Covington.
McClung is the city’s small business coordinator, which means she’s worked closely with a number of the businesses that have set up downtown.
She also sits on the board of Olde Town Covington, a nonprofit downtown revitalization group.
As she strolled around the city’s downtown blocks, McClung pointed out signs of local business owners, residents and city officials working to improve Covington’s public spaces.
Some of those signs were subtle: Small pots of flowers were dispersed along downtown streets, adding welcome splashes of color even on a gray, overcast day.
Some were not as subtle: during the summer, orange cones and ripped-up concrete marked the work of crews fixing sidewalks and improving walkability; by fall, the project was finished.
McClung grew up in Covington and has lived in the city her whole life, except for a brief stint in Dallas. Her love of her hometown is obvious as she talks about the city.
Covington at Christmas time, she said, is “one of the most beautiful downtowns ever.”
“All these trees are wrapped with lights. And then they have big wreaths hanging from the lights. It’s just breathtaking,” McClung said.
She pointed out a new “pocket park” where passers-by can stop for a small space to meet, eat lunch or just sit and enjoy the fresh air.
An alleyway has been transformed into an outdoor gallery to showcase local artwork.
“We would like to have some more lighting through here. We would like to have a couple benches, few more things for the little kids,” she said.
Approaching the end of Maple Street, two tall white Doric columns came into view.
“Those columns were actually left from the hotel,” McClung said. “And they just decided to keep them, paint them, and make it part.”
She was referring to the Hotel Collins, which sat across from the city’s train station for more than a century, serving travelers until it was torn down — except for the columns — in 2023.
The property is now set to be transformed into a green space with a gazebo, new restrooms and plans for live music.
Next to that space, an old car wash will become a museum dedicated to the fire department.
“When you start doing things to better your downtown, sometimes it kind of gives a domino effect, you know?” McClung said.
The work isn’t confined solely to the downtown area.
In the southern part of town, the city has added a miniature golf course at its Jackson River Sports Complex.
Elsewhere, a former Applebee’s on Thacker Avenue is becoming Garcia’s Bistro, a Mexican and American restaurant. A former Wendy’s on Craig Avenue is becoming home to Yamato Steakhouse & Sushi, a Japanese restaurant.
Outside the city, larger developments include officials breaking ground two years ago on a 104-acre pad site, hoping to attract a large business to Alleghany County’s industrial park.
That same year, Green Thumb Industries launched a cannabis manufacturing facility in a 300,000-square-foot building it purchased in Low Moor.
Economic development outside Covington brings benefits to the city, such as increased tax revenue from more people shopping there.
‘EV tourism’ uses modern tech to draw visitors
Josh Taylor knows that attracting people to Covington isn’t just about wanting residents to move there. It’s also about providing more amenities for tourists.
Taylor is executive director of the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism.
He worked on a project that recently came to fruition: Covington received two electric vehicle chargers downtown, each of which can recharge two vehicles at a time.
Grants paid for the chargers, valued at about $11,000 each, while local public works staff and a contracted electrician handled the installation, Taylor said.
The town of Clifton Forge also received two chargers.
The hope is to capitalize on what some call “EV tourism” — the simple notion that having electric vehicle chargers will inspire more electric vehicle drivers to stop in your town.
When EV drivers plan their trips, they factor in where they can recharge their vehicles, Taylor said.
The vehicles’ internal maps, or third-party services such as Apple Maps, have markers identifying the locations of chargers.
With those markers guiding drivers toward Covington, visitors will be able to hop off the highway, plug in their vehicles and stay a while — while spending a few bucks at local shops and restaurants, of course.
They might check out Ray’s Sweet Shoppe & Poutinerie, a retro-style ice cream diner; Inkazteca Tienda Latina, a convenience store offering Latin-American products; or Diva Room, a clothing and accessories boutique — all recent additions to the city’s downtown.
“From a tourism perspective, we’re right off Interstate 64, we’re just missing that visitor all the time. … Now we’ll get that traffic easily right off the interstate right into our downtown,” Taylor said.
Despite efforts, housing remains a challenge
Tara Simmons-Brewster is another lifelong Covington resident.
She holds a management degree from Radford University and a license in real estate, which is her full-time occupation.
In June 2022, she opened the florist business of what is now Formals & Florals on Main. The formals side was added the following January.
Simmons-Brewster said she was motivated by her mother, Connie, who died in October 2021 but always wanted to open a boutique of some sort on Main Street.
“When she passed, I just felt it in my heart to open the business in honor of my mom,” she said.
With Michelle McCoy Shumaker working as the shop’s designer, the business is blooming.
“We’re a very small town, but the backing of the community is a huge contribution to the success and growth of us,” Simmons-Brewster said.
Formals & Florals on Main is one of the businesses that have opened up in, or moved to, downtown Covington in the past few years.
From Simmons-Brewster’s point of view, Covington is a great place to do business and raise a family.
“I lived here, I left, but came back because of the close-knit community. You’re safe here,” she said.
But Simmons-Brewster sees a big challenge: Those families need somewhere to live, and visitors need more places to stay.
“A lot of people don’t stay here. We do not have the means to provide adequate lodging for people,” she said.
She isn’t alone in her view. Local officials have identified the region’s housing as a significant barrier to attracting new residents and growing the local workforce.
The Alleghany Highlands region has a lot to offer, said Ken McFadyen, who serves as administrator of Alleghany County as well as chair of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Corporation.
The recreational opportunities are numerous. The local community college, Mountain Gateway Community College, is responsive to employers’ needs.
Broadband internet access, which can be elusive in many parts of Virginia, is nearly everywhere in the Alleghany Highlands, McFadyen said.
And the region hasn’t suffered the sticker shock of rapidly rising home prices that many other housing markets have seen.
But, McFadyen said, much of the region’s housing is dated and, on average, more than 50 years old.
“It does not meet the current demand … of homebuyers or folks who are considering coming to the area to relocate for work. It discourages people to remain in the area to work and continue to live here, so they relocate elsewhere,” he said.
In June, the consulting firm S. Patz & Associates presented a regional housing study to local officials.
While the study offers ample data and supporting visuals, its main conclusions likely came as little surprise: the area lacks a sufficient housing supply to meet demand, and what housing stock it has is aging.
A recently completed 96-unit apartment complex, River Retreat in Low Moor, near the Green Thumb facility, was the first market-rate apartment community built in the region in more than 40 years, according to the study.
Recommended solutions include building a variety of housing, such as apartments and townhomes, as well as single-family homes in the low $200,000 range.
The study acknowledges that for single-family housing, that’s “a price point that is difficult to achieve under current development conditions.”
Meanwhile, the city’s residents and local officials are continuing their work to bring people to Covington.
McClung said that one day, she’d like to see every building downtown flourishing with a business of some sort.
At Mountain Rush, Mansell is pondering opening a second location one day.
He thinks it probably would go somewhere on the city-county line, so the space would be large enough to fit his vision: go-karts, trampoline parks, batting cages and more.