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Recent Articles from Joan Tupponce
Pittsylvania officials hope to spur brownfields development
Pittsylvania County’s growth trajectory received an added boost in May when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the county a $600,000 grant to conduct environmental due diligence on 18 brownfield sites in the county. Five of the sites are considered high priorities. They include the former Southside Manufacturing mill site in Blairs; Pat’s Place in […]
Turn up the volume
The Port of Virginia is benefiting from pent-up demand for goods, seeing a significant uptick in cargo volume since last fall, which translates into more work for truckers. The $800 million-plus investment made in the port’s Virginia International Gateway and Norfolk International Terminal has allowed more room for vessels, and “cargo is flowing really well,” […]
A jackpot for Danville?
The now-blighted property that was Dan River Mills when textile was king in the city of Danville will soon morph into the gleaming, $400 million Caesars Virginia casino and resort. At one time, the 80-acre site in the Schoolfield neighborhood was the world’s largest single-unit textile manufacturing site. Now abandoned, the unsightly property represents the […]
Regional reboot
Public and private investments are boosting the economy in Southwest Virginia, bringing in a diversified group of new companies, from indoor salmon farming to medical information technology firms — as well as a long-awaited casino. Addressing the region’s steady decline in the coal industry, officials in the Southwestern region continue to lay out the roadmap […]
Payout on a dream
“Get it done!” Those three words sent Jason Eige and Martin Kent on a mission to bring a casino to Bristol Mall before commercial gaming resorts were even legal in Virginia. Eige, general counsel for The United Co., and Kent, the oil and gas company’s president and chief operating officer, vividly remember the day they […]
Growth and development
Despite dealing with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern Virginia is celebrating the development of a resort casino, new investments in the area and several company expansions. The pandemic has presented localities in the region like Danville with a number of challenges they haven’t seen before, but the city continues to look for […]
Hemp industry takes another step forward
The co-founders of South Boston-based Golden Piedmont Labs want to give the county a boost by processing hemp from local farmers. “We were looking for a way to give back,” says Rick Gregory, who started Golden Piedmont Labs with Sterling Edmunds Jr. Both are Halifax County natives with extensive backgrounds in real estate and finance. […]
Home prices still increasing
Hampton Roads home values continued trending upward from July 2019 through July 2020. According to the latest available data from the Real Estate Information Network Inc., the Multiple Listing Service for the region, the median price of buying a home in Hampton Roads this July was $275,000 — a 7.84% increase from July 2019. When […]
Staying strong
No one could have predicted 2020 would bring such dramatic changes. Civil unrest after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, coupled with a once-in-a-century pandemic, is accelerating social and economic changes around the country, including in the Richmond region. Once the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond began creating a blueprint for the future […]
Creating space for startups to bring products to fruition
South Boston’s town manager, Tom Raab, was elated when Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. announced in early summer its plan for a Southern Virginia Tech Hub adjacent to its Southern Virginia Innovation Hub. “That’s big for South Boston and Halifax County,” Raab says. “The locations will have the fastest free Wi-Fi in Southern Virginia.” The Tech […]
