Hampton Roads real estate veteran to retire
Lisa Chandler, president and principal broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Property Management, announced her retirement Wednesday. Chandler will leave at the end of October after more than 40 years in real estate. Berkshire Hathaway and Virginia Beach-based Rose & Womble Realty merged in March, bringing more than 750 real estate agents together. Chandler […]
Flying high
Norfolk International Airport is on track to have the best year since its 1938 opening. In June, the airport reported a 7.5% increase in passenger activity, with 431,637 passengers — up from last June’s figure of 401,517, marking the largest number of June passengers in the airport’s history. During the first six months of 2023, […]
An overview of Hampton Roads
With a population of 1.79 million people in 17 localities, Hampton Roads is the second most populated region of Virginia, just behind Northern Virginia. Virginia Beach, with approximately 457,000 residents, is the commonwealth’s biggest city by population, and neighboring Norfolk has the highest density in the region, with 4,467 people per square mile, according to […]
A rising tide
The Port of Virginia continues to drive commercial real estate activity in Hampton Roads as shipping and logistics companies seek footholds. The region’s office vacancy rate rose this year — from 8.1% at the end of the first quarter to 8.4% at the end of the second quarter — but is “relatively healthy compared to […]
Space race
Leaders of a regional engineering firm figured finding office space in the Town Center of Virginia Beach would be a breeze. Newspapers were reporting that demand for offices was down nationally. But that isn’t the case in the Hampton Roads area, where the office vacancy rate was 8.1% for the first quarter of 2023, according […]
Gazing into the future
The waterways and shorelines that make up Hampton Roads harbor a historic reputation as ideal hosts for commerce, trade, shipbuilding, military installations and government research. Its beaches and historical sites attract millions of visitors, and the region is home to farms, businesses and universities. We know the past and present, but what about the future […]
Making bank
Suffolk-based TowneBank continued to lead Hampton Roads with the largest market share in fiscal 2022, 25.67%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s June 30, 2022, report. However, that figure declined from fiscal 2021, when the bank held a 27.49% market share. Meanwhile, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Truist Bank is threatening to close in on that […]
Under construction
Atlantic Park Virginia Beach Proposed in 2017 by music icon Pharrell Williams and Venture Realty Group, Atlantic Park finally got underway in March with a groundbreaking on the first phase of the $350 million surf park project. Phase one will involve 10.95 acres, including 309 multifamily units, 10,000 square feet of office space, a 70,000-square-foot […]
Wallops Island lifts off with Rocket Lab addition
Rocket Lab USA is boosting the visibility of one of the United States’ lesser-known spaceports on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Since January, the California-based aerospace company has launched three successful missions from its Launch Complex 2 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Rocket Lab selected the spaceport, located within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Ac[...]
Residential roller coaster
Last year began on a high note for the Hampton Roads residential real estate market, with home prices and apartment rents soaring. According to the Real Estate Information Network, monthly median rent costs rose 20.4% compared with 2021, with median rents of $1,800. But by the fourth quarter of 2022, rent growth slowed and sales […]
Answering local needs
Since it began offering inpatient psychiatric care at its $224 million Children’s Pavilion last October, Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters has admitted 500 patients, according to Dr. Carl Petersen, chief of mental health services at CHKD. One in five children are estimated to have a mental health condition, according to the U.S. Centers for […]
Teamwork makes dreams work
Talk with researchers a few minutes, and they’ll explain how many stages it takes for an idea to become a medical treatment, and for the treatment method to be tested, approved and brought to market. In many cases, it can take several years. Founded in June 2020, the Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium is a […]