FOR THE RECORD

CENTRAL 

Richmond-based international foam producer Carpenter acquired omnichannel bedding brand Casper Sleep for an undisclosed amount, it announced Oct. 29. Under the agreement, Casper will operate as a subsidiary of Carpenter. The deal marks the third acquisition Carpenter has made in the past 16 months. In November 2023, Carpenter acquired North Carolina-based NCFI Polyurethanes. That deal followed the company’s closing in June 2023
on its $492 million acquisition of Belgium-based Recticel’s engineered foam division. Carpenter and Casper have had a significant supply agreement for more than a year. (Furniture Today)

LL Flooring President and CEO Charles E. Tyson resigned effective immediately, the Henrico County flooring company formerly known as Lumber Liquidators announced in a Nov. 1 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The move was not exactly a surprise, coming several weeks after Thomas Sullivan, Lumber Liquidators’ founder and former CEO, purchased 219 LL Flooring stores, which he said he would keep operating — but renamed as Lumber Liquidators. LL Flooring filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, and an entity connected to investor F9 Group, owned by Sullivan, purchased the stores for $44.5 million in cash and at least $22 million in assumed liabilities. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

As of Nov. 1, Loop Capital is no longer affiliated with the partnership developing Richmond’s $2.4 billion Diamond District project, leaving Thalhimer Realty Partners
as the venture’s sole principal. The partner-ship, a limited liability company named Diamond District Partners, is developing the first redevelopment phase of the area surrounding the planned new baseball stadium for the Richmond Flying Squirrels. The entire 67-acre project is expected to include 2,800 residential units, 935,000 square feet of office space and 195,000 square feet of retail and community space. Diamond District Partners includes Capstone Development, Pennrose, Maryland-based NixDev and M Cos. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

More than 80% of Petersburg voters approved the city’s Nov. 5 casino referendum, according to results from the Virginia Department of Elections. The vote gives a green light to Cordish Cos.’ $1.4 billion Live! Casino & Hotel Virginia, set to be built on an undeveloped 100-acre site off Interstate 95 in Petersburg. The fifth casino voters have approved in Virginia, it is planned to include a 200,000-square-foot casino and 200-room hotel. Developers say they expect the
project to create 6,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Super Radiator Coils, an engineering and manufacturing company based in Minnesota, will invest $22 million to expand in Chesterfield County, creating an estimated 160 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced Nov. 15. The company will upgrade machinery and add approximately 80,000 square feet to its existing 160,000-square-foot facility at 451 Southlake Blvd. The plant has about 400 employees. Super Radiator Coils has previously expanded the Chesterfield facility three times, most recently in 2022. The company announced its most recent expansion, representing a $9 million investment, in March 2021. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Two years after he became interim CEO, Dr. Marlon F. Levy was named VCU Health System’s permanent head. Virginia Commonwealth University announced
Nov. 11 that Levy’s interim roles as the Richmond-based health system’s CEO and senior vice president for VCU Health Sciences were made permanent in appointments by the VCU Board of Visitors and the VCU Health System Authority Board of Directors. Formerly VCU Medical Center’s chief medical officer, Levy was a practicing abdominal multiorgan transplant surgeon who joined VCU Health in 2015 as chair of its transplant surgery department and director of the VCU Hume-Lee Transplant Center. Previously, Levy was surgical director of transplantation at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

EASTREN 

The group behind the Norfolk casino will spend $750 million to develop the project, Boyd Gaming president and CEO Keith Smith said in late October after a ceremonial groundbreaking next to Harbor Park. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s original 2018 pitch was for a soaring
$700 million glass tower hotel and casino, but that was before the state legislature legalized casinos in certain economically challenged cities and competitors popped up. When the Norfolk City Council approved Boyd’s entry into the project, the company had said it would spend somewhere around $500 million. It’s not clear what the extra $250 million will go toward, though Smith verified he hadn’t misspoken. (WHRO)

Dominion Energy completed its $2.6 billion sale of a 50% noncontrolling stake in its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project to investor Stonepeak in late October. This transaction and several other recent sales reduce Dominion’s debt by approximately $21 billion, meeting a goal the Richmond utility set in a recent business review, it said. The Stonepeak deal was announced in February and was estimated at nearly $3 billion, a number that went down to $2.6 billion at closing. Dominion will retain full operational control of construction and operations of the $9.8 billion CVOW project, set to be complete in 2026. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Rick Dreiling stepped down in early November as CEO and board chairman of Chesapeake-based Dollar Tree, effective immediately. He cited health challenges as the reason for his departure. Michael C. Creedon Jr., Dollar Tree’s chief operating officer since 2022, was named interim CEO, and Edward “Ned” Kelly III, the board’s lead independent director, was named chairman of Dollar Tree’s board. Dreiling came aboard as CEO in 2022, having served on Dollar Tree’s board and previously been CEO of competitor Dollar General. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Port of Virginia will receive $390 million in federal funding to support its effort to reach carbon neutrality by 2040. Funding will come from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Ports Program, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The EPA distributed about $3 billion among 55 locations, aiming to reduce diesel pollution, build zero-emission operations and create community engagement at ports. At the Port of Virginia, more than 150 pieces of equipment will be replaced, and funding will go toward developing battery charging infrastructure and energy storage. (The Virginian-Pilot)

PEOPLE

Jennifer Boykin, president of Newport News Shipbuilding, will retire at the end of the year, parent company Huntington Ingalls Industries announced in November. Kari Wilkinson, the president of HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi and executive vice president of HII, will succeed Boykin in January. Boykin has been with the shipbuilder for 37 years and is the company’s 20th president. NNS is the state’s largest industrial employer, with 26,000 employees. Brian Blanchette, Ingalls Shipbuilding’s vice president of quality and engineering, was named to succeed Wilkinson. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Lawson Cos., the Norfolk-based residential real estate development and construction company, announced in October that its president and CEO, Carl Hardee, will retire at the end of 2025. Aaron Phipps, Lawson’s senior vice president and chief financial officer, is expected to succeed Hardee, who was named president and CEO in 2016. Hardee joined Lawson in 1991 as a regional property manager at one of its subsidiaries. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

NORTHREN

Members of Arlington County-based Boeing’s largest union approved a new contract in early November, ending a weekslong strike that was one of the country’s most financially damaging work stoppages in decades. The contract was endorsed by 59% of those voting, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The union represents about 33,000 workers, most of whom make commercial airplanes in the Seattle area. The strike began Sept. 13, and workers voted down two previous contract offers from Boeing. Under the new contract, wages will rise more than 43% over the next four years. (The New York Times)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Navy Federal Credit Union to refund more than $80 million to customers and pay a $15 million civil penalty for allegedly charging illegal overdraft fees. The federal agency announced the actions against the nation’s largest credit union, based in Vienna, in early November. CFPB alleges that from 2017 to 2022, Navy Federal charged customers surprise overdraft fees on certain ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases, despite their accounts showing sufficient funds at the times of the transactions. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

CoStar Group is accelerating its headquarters move from Washington, D.C., to Arlington County in early 2025, thanks to a deal with a tenant in the headquarters building that included a $48 million early termination fee. CoStar purchased the Central Place Tower at 1201 Wilson Blvd. for a reported $339 million in February, with plans to invest $20 million in the move. CoStar also secured sole use of the previously public observation deck at the top of the building, paying the county $13.95 million. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Kellanova, the Chicago-based maker of Pringles, Cheez-It crackers and Eggo waffles, said in November that its shareholders overwhelmingly signed off on its $35.9 billion sale to McLean food and pet care giant Mars. Kellanova rebranded from Kellogg Co. in 2023 when it separated its North American cereals business as WK Kellogg Co. Mars will pay $83.50 a share in the all-cash deal, formally announced in August. Mars said it will finance the acquisition through cash on hand and new debt it has already secured. The deal, the largest ever in the packaged-food industry, is expected to close in the first half of 2025. (Washington Business Journal)

In late October, a judge dismissed all 10 counts of a lawsuit against the developers of the Prince William Digital Gateway, effectively halting the case before it reached trial. During a demurrer hearing in Prince William County Circuit Court, Judge Tracy C. Hudson ruled in favor of the developers’ opposition to a lawsuit filed by nine Gainesville residents and the American Battlefield Trust. The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling. They allege it was illegal for county supervisors to grant approval of
23 million square feet of data centers on
2,100 acres near Bristow. (Inside NoVa)

In November, following the re-election of President Donald Trump, bitcoin hit a record high, breaching $87,000 per coin. Bitcoin whale Michael Saylor, the executive chairman of Tysons-based tech company MicroStrategy, has led his company to pursue bitcoin as an investment strategy since 2020. On Nov. 10, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries held a total of 279,420 bitcoins, which were worth $24.33 billion just before market close. The bitcoins were purchased for approximately $11.9 billion, at an average purchase price of $42,692 per bitcoin. In September, Saylor said he thought the cryptocurrency could rise as high as $13 million per bitcoin by 2045. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

ROANOKE/ LYNCHBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY

At an Oct. 30 groundbreaking for the Carilion Taubman Cancer Center in Roanoke, Nancy Howell Agee, Carilion Clinic’s CEO emeritus, announced the health system had raised $74 million toward its $100 million fundraising goal for the cancer center, which is set to open in 2027. HDR, an employee-owned design firm with headquarters in Nebraska, worked with Carilion oncology teams to design the 257,000-square-foot building. The new facility will bring a range of disciplines, advanced technology and clinical trials to a single location. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Authorities have filed criminal meals-tax charges against the owners of four closed food establishments in Roanoke, including FarmBurguesa restaurant, which shuttered its Grandin Village and Vinton locations in recent months. FarmBurguesa co-owner Kat Pascal, who was arrested the evening of Oct. 15, “failed to pay the required meals tax for 10 consecutive months” totaling $6,732.89, according to the allegations. Roanoke Commissioner of the Revenue Ryan LaFountain said his office and that of the city treasurer have made efforts during the past six months to tighten coordination of meals-tax processing and enforcement. (Roanoke Rambler)

In November, Roanoke County announced $115,000 in grant awards to 13 businesses through the Economic Development Authority’s Business Equipment Acquisition Program (BEAP) Grant, which is designed to help businesses acquire new capital. The grant recipients were: Children’s Castle Early Learning Center; Creative Occasions; Fit Studio VA; Fleet Feet Roanoke; Keltech; Stickers Plus, doing business as Magnets USA; Optical Cable Corp. (OCC); CMKS BBQ, doing business as Pok-e-Joe’s BBQ; Ride Source; RND Coffee; The Hearing Center at Hollins Communication Research Institute, doing business as Beltone; Varsity Landscaping & Grounds; and William H. Moore Dentistry. (News release)

Donald “Whitey” Taylor, owner of Trump Town, a Boones Mill store dedicated to merchandise celebrating the 45th and 47th president, and a former candidate for mayor in that same small town, faces three charges of misdemeanor simple assault and one charge of misdemeanor indecent exposure. The charges were taken out by three female store employees on Oct. 22 through the magistrate’s office. Taylor said he is not guilty, dismissing the charges as “fake news” and “election interference.” His next court date is Jan. 16, 2025. In November, he lost the Boones Mill mayoral election to incumbent Victor Conner, receiving just 15 of 125 votes cast. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In October, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced it has awarded a $1.48 million grant to the Town of Bedford to support potential development of a new intercity passenger rail stop in the town. The preferred location for the stop is a site along the north side of Macon Street and west of 4th Street, across from the town’s athletic fields between the Bedford County Health Department and Bedford Primary School. The cost estimate for the project development phase of a rail stop is
$1.8 million. Bedford Town Council will contribute the remaining $375,000. (The News & Advance)

In October, the Virginia Board of Physical Therapy revoked the license of a Lynchburg physical therapist over sexting patients. According to the board, Stephen Maynard Scott sent sexually explicit text messages and photos of his genitalia to a 74-year-old patient whom he had treated while she was recovering from a stroke at a rehabilitation facility in Stuart. Scott was suspended from the facility in February. The board had previously placed Scott on indefinite probation stemming from separate allegations that he sent inappropriate texts to an 81-year-old patient. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SHENANDOAH VALLEY

AD Engineering, a small, women- and minority-owned company based in Quicksburg, will invest $1.21 million to expand its Shenandoah County operations, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Nov. 7. The company, which manufactures HVAC and refrigeration components, expects to create 25 jobs. AD Engineering also offers custom HVAC supplies options for residential and commercial projects. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Shenandoah County to secure the project. AD Engineering will participate in VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides services related to recruitment and training and cash grant reimbursements for associated human resources costs after new employees have been on the company’s payroll for at least 90 days. (News release)

The International Automotive Components Group plant in Strasburg is set to permanently close Dec. 31, which will put 69 employees out of work. IAC previously fired 135 workers at the facility in April. The plant has operated for about 40 years, and in December 2020, IAC announced a $4.6 million expansion of the Strasburg facility. United Automobile Workers Local 2999 negotiated a severance package for employees active as of Aug 20. The package includes a period of no-cost health care benefits, and the union and IAC have committed to providing letters of recommendation and resume assistance. (The Northern Virginia Daily; VirginiaBusiness.com)

The first shipment of U.S.-grown turkey products from Virginia to India left the Port of Virginia the week of Nov. 3, according to a Nov. 12 announcement from Sen. Mark Warner’s office. Warner is co-chair of the Senate India Caucus. Under a trade agreement announced in September 2023, the Republic of India eliminated and reduced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. turkey products. The Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative raised the turkeys sent in the first shipment. In 2021, Virginia was the sixth largest turkey source in America, producing 14.5 million birds. (News release)

Shamrock Farms, an Arizona-based dairy products manufacturer, will invest $59 million to expand its Augusta County manufacturing operation, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Oct. 15. The company expects to create 28 jobs through the expansion, which will add 81,000 square feet to its 250,000-square-foot facility in Mill Place Commerce Park. Shamrock Farms opened its Augusta facility in 2014, and the facility focuses on producing extended shelf-life dairy products. In the expansion project, the manufacturer will reconfigure space to allow for a new production line and will add incremental cold storage. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The first Wawa in western Virginia opened
Nov. 7 in Frederick County. Part of a Pennsylvania-based chain of gas stations with convenience stores, the new location north of Winchester has 24 car fueling positions and a 6,000-square-foot convenience store, according to a site plan. There are more than 100 Wawa locations in Virginia, but most are in the northeastern part of the state. The closest Wawa locations to the site at 1544 Martinsburg Pike are in Warrenton and Ashburn, as well as in Frederick, Maryland. (The Winchester Star)

PEOPLE

The American Hotel & Lodging Association presented Mark Spadoni, managing director of The Omni Homestead Resort in Bath County, with the association’s General Manager Lifetime Achievement Award on Oct. 28. The association honored Spadoni in San Antonio at its second annual The Hospitality Show conference, co-sponsored by Questex’s Hotel Management brand. Spadoni joined the Omni Homestead in 2021. He has worked in the hospitality industry for more than 40 years, working at The Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa in Georgia for about 20 of those years. Spadoni also was the first chair of Visit Bath County’s board. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SOUTHERN 

The developer planning a natural gas power plant and data center campus on 2,233 acres in the Banister and Callands-Gretna districts of Pittsylvania County withdrew the project’s rezoning application in early November. Instead, Herndon-based Balico, the development company behind the project, said it intended to file a revised application pitching a scaled-down version on about 600 acres in the same area. The project was downscaled to avoid triggering a traffic impact analysis study, according to Balico founder and CEO Irfan Ali. Public meetings about the project drew vocal opposition in October from citizens and county supervisors. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The $750 million Caesars Virginia resort casino — a 587,000-square-foot facility being built in Danville’s Schoolfield neighborhood — is slated to open Dec. 12. The permanent casino, which will be the state’s third and most expensive such gaming facility, will offer 90,000 square feet of gaming space with 1,500 slot machines, 79 live-action table games, 48 electronic table games, a poker room and sportsbook. The resort will feature a 320-room hotel, 50,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, a 2,500-seat entertainment venue, a full-service spa and pool, and an array of restaurants and bars. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Carter Bank & Trust said in October that the amount of interest income it has lost from past-due loans owed by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his family companies had risen to $57.2 million, up $8.8 million from the previous quarter. In mid-2023, the Martinsville-based bank placed the Justices’ loan portfolio, totaling more than $300 million, in nonaccrual status. The bank said that the Justice companies paid $7.8 million during this year’s second quarter and $13.2 million during the third quarter. (Cardinal News)

Danville city officials are seeking bids from firms to develop sites next to Caesars Virginia in Schoolfield. Danville’s office of economic development and tourism has sent out notices seeking development proposals for sites at Bishop Road and West Main Street, Community Way between the casino and the Danville Police Department headquarters and the Main Street Green site next to the casino. The three sites total nearly 15 acres in the area next to the casino in Schoolfield. Officials hope
to bring mixed-use developments to the properties to complement the casino. (Danville Register & Bee)

Danville City Council approved a special-use permit for a 12-megawatt battery energy storage facility to be built at 900 Mount Cross Road in November. Arlington-based Lightshift Energy will construct the battery-storage facility at a city-owned property that has been vacant for 50 years. The director of Danville Utilities has said the project would reduce dependence on the regional electric grid by discharging energy into the city’s electric system during peak use. Lightshift Energy also owns and operates the city’s battery-storage project that launched in 2022 at Industrial Avenue across from Goodyear Boulevard. (Danville Register & Bee)

The Mecklenburg County Board of Super-visors in November agreed to defer until January 2025 a rezoning request that would allow a Clarksville-area data center to expand and add housing for workers at the site. The goal is to give residents more time to learn about the project. Florida-based TecFusions is seeking to rezone seven parcels on Burlington Drive outside of Clarksville to erect new buildings for data servers used in the company’s artificial intelligence operations. The company purchased 66.13 acres of land adjacent to its existing facility. (The Mecklenburg Sun)

SOUTHWEST

Electro-Mechanical — an electrical equipment manufacturer headquartered in Bristol — will invest $16.55 million to expand in Washington County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Oct. 29. The manufacturer plans to add a 200,000-square-foot facility, creating more than 109 jobs. Electro-Mechanical hopes to complete the expansion in 2025. The company has five other manufacturing facilities: three in Bristol, one in Canada and another in Mexico. About 520 of the company’s 700 employees work in Bristol. Electro-Mechanical’s roots date to 1958 when Frank Leonard opened an electrical apparatus repair shop on Bristol’s Williams Street. Virginia competed with Tennessee for the expansion. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Three environmental groups — Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club — filed a lawsuit
Oct. 31 alleging A&G Coal is violating the terms of a 2023 court settlement that requires the company to reclaim three Wise County strip mines. The groups urged the court to halt mining activity at A&G’s Looney Ridge No. 1 mine, Sawmill Hollow No. 3 mine and the Canepatch surface mine until the company, owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his family, demonstrates that it is in full compliance with the Jan. 26, 2023, consent decree. (The Coalfield Progress)

On Oct. 21, the State Corporation Commission approved Appalachian Power’s application to build its first battery energy storage system to serve customers prone to power outages in Southwest Virginia. The $57.3 million project would create two battery energy storage sites: one in Grayson County and one in Smyth County. The system, which draws electricity from the grid and stores it to be used as needed, would serve about 2,790 customers spanning about 260 miles of mountainous terrain. The two sites would total 7.5 megawatts of capacity and 30 megawatt-hours of energy. (Cardinal News)

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise received its largest ever donation, $11.2 million, from The Bill Gatton Foundation, it announced Nov. 4. The late Carol Martin “Bill” Gatton, a successful businessman who owned the Gatton Automotive Group with dealerships in Kentucky and Tennessee, made significant gifts to the University of Kentucky and East Tennessee State University during his lifetime. After his 2022 death, his Bristol-based foundation made further donations, including $2 million to Emory & Henry University in 2023. The foundation’s donation will create six endowed funds at U.Va. Wise. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Hurricane Helene’s agricultural damage in Virginia totaled more than $159.3 million, according to Virginia Cooperative Extension research announced in an Oct. 22 news release. Extension agents worked across 21 localities — 20 counties and the city of Radford — to assess the agricultural damage, finding that 3,672 Virginia farms suffered losses from hurricane damage. Grayson County had the biggest losses, amounting to $61 million, or 38% of the statewide damage. The final total for hurricane damage to Virginia’s agriculture, forestry and related industries — including direct losses and replacement costs on farms as well as projected future income losses — will fall between $416 million and $630 million, according to a Virginia Tech analysis announced Nov. 11. (VirginiaBusiness.com; News release)

Abingdon’s Wellspring Foundation of Southwest Virginia has provided a 13-year, $14.9 million grant to allow Washington County students to attend Virginia Highlands Community College for free. The grant to the college’s foundation is the largest the Wellspring Foundation has awarded since its founding in 2022. Announced Oct. 21, the Promise Program will pay tuition and fees after all financial aid and scholarships have been applied for students graduating from 2025 through 2037. It will also provide up to $500 per student each semester for books and supplies purchased in the college’s bookstore. (Bristol Herald Courier)