Try this

<?php

global $custom_metabox;

if (($value = $custom_metabox->the_value('description')) !== '') {
    echo '<p class="description">' . $value . '</p>';
}

?>

See what the output value is by using the following as it sounds like white space may be present in the value.

echo 'Value: ' . $custom_metabox->the_value('description');

Sorry, forgot to wrap it in a function.

echo 'Value: ' . strlen($custom_metabox->the_value('description'));

You could try:

$desc = $custom_metabox->the_value('description');

if (!empty($desc)):
	 echo $desc;
endif;

Is this what you mean?

<?php
$desc = $custom_metabox->the_value('description');

if (!empty($desc)): ?>
       <p class="description"><?php echo $desc; ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

What's happening?

It's only echoing $desc without the p tags?

Try this instead:

<?php
$desc = $custom_metabox->the_value('description');

if (!empty($desc)): ?>
       <?php echo "<p class='description'>".$desc."</p>"; ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

Did you ever figure it out? I can't see any reason why the $desc would output, but not the tags around it.

@ChrisxClash, @Jamy_za tried helping me out to no success at this time. I sent him my entire theme and what I'm using for my custom meta box (WPAlchemy).

@TheDoc, I thought it was my cache also but I completely cleared it several times.

@TheDoc No, it doesn't output anything if I remove the code. Although, when I was speaking with Jamy, he had me firebug it and it showed quotes in the markup but not in view source. I'll screenshot.

@TheDoc No can do, it's local. http://i47.tinypic.com/6pyivk.png

Yeah, from what I can see in that screenshot, it looks like you're getting a p.description with your text in it.

I'm really close on this (I think).

<?php
$meta = $custom_metabox->the_meta('description', TRUE); 
	if ($meta):
       	echo '<p class="description">'.$meta.'</p>'; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Returns

<p class="description">Array</p>

Instead of the actual content but if I don't have any content in the metabox, it doesn't return anything, which is exactly what I wanted.

All I need is help figuring out why it returns "Array" instead of the actual content.

Glad you figured it out! Just a tip I always use when you get results like that (Array, Object, etc) is to use the trusty var_dump function in php. So in this case, if you would do var_dump($meta); it would have shown you that the array had a key of 'description' with your content in it. It's super helpful when you're not sure what's going on. (Works with any variable type, so use it anytime).

Good luck!