EASTERN VIRGINIA

Amazon.com Inc. will build two operations facilities in Hampton Roads in 2021, creating an expected 1,500 jobs. A multistory robotics fulfillment center in Suffolk will create 1,000 jobs and a 650,000-square-foot processing center in Chesapeake will create 500 jobs. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the city of Chesapeake, the city of Suffolk, the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance and the Port of Virginia to secure the projects. The e-commerce giant, which is building its $2.5 billion East Coast HQ2 headquarters in Arlington County, already has 10 fulfillment and sortation centers and delivery stations across Virginia. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Navien Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of a South Korean manufacturer of water heaters and boilers, is setting up shop at the former Lumber Liquidators building in James City County. The project is expected to create 180 manufacturing jobs, the governor’s office announced in late February. This is the first U.S. manufacturing operation for KD Navien, which is headquartered in Seoul. The company plans to invest $77.5 million in expanding the building to 900,000 square feet. Lumber Liquidators moved its headquarters last November from Toano to Henrico County. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Former Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport Executive Director Ken Spirito was found guilty in March of 23 felony charges in U.S. District Court in Norfolk. Most of the charges against Spirito pertained to a $5 million loan guarantee to People Express Airlines in 2014. That deal, made largely behind closed doors, led to the airport paying $4.5 million in public money to pay off the airline’s debt in 2015. Prosecutors argued that Spirito spearheaded the loan guarantee, including shifting airport money around and keeping a shroud of secrecy around the guarantee. Spirito’s lawyer said his client was the fall guy for the actions of a host of local players involved in the loan decision. (Daily Press)

Gov. Ralph Northam and Norfolk Mayor Kenneth Cooper Alexander broke ground in February on the Ohio Creek Watershed project, aimed at protecting two Norfolk neighborhoods at risk of flooding due to sea-level rise. The project will include the new Resilience Park, which will connect the historic Grandy Village and Chesterfield Heights neighborhoods, as well as a flood berm, a restored tidal creek and wetland, and a multiuse sports field. Funding for the $112 million project comes from a $120.5 million grant awarded to Virginia in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The project is expected to be complete by April 2023. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

A special license plate bearing the design “VB Strong” will be made available to Virginians soon. It’s the unofficial slogan the city embraced shortly after a gunman killed 12 people in the Virginia Beach Municipal Center on May 31. Also, in late February, the Virginia Beach Tragedy Fund distributed $4.5 million in donations to the families of the 12 people killed and four people who survived the shooting. The fund is managed by the United Way of South Hampton Roads and will remain open through May 31. (The Virginian-Pilot)

The Virginian-Pilot, which sold its downtown Norfolk flagship office building, is moving its headquarters to Newport News by the end of April. The newspaper will move into space already leased by its related publication, the Daily Press, also owned by Tribune Publishing, at City Center at Oyster Point. The company’s goal was to lease space in the vicinity of downtown Norfolk, but as it looked to cut costs companywide, the strategy shifted to moving employees to existing office space. In November, newspaper-owning hedge fund Alden Global Capital acquired a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing after buying out the largest shareholder at the time, and 20 reporters and editors at the Hampton Roads papers have accepted buyouts since January. (The Virginian-Pilot)

SHENANDOAH VALLEY

Culpeper County Public Schools may experience an employee exodus if workers absorb a 26% increase in health insurance costs this fiscal year. Of the school system’s 1,200 employees, 70% make $50,000 or less a year. An increase in 2019 claims — $13.4 million — from the approximate 1,241 Culpeper County employees receiving health coverage through Anthem contributed to the sharp rise in cost to renew the plan. Reducing the employee share of increased premiums from a 26% increase to a 10% increase would cost the county $619,000 more than the $2.3 million in new costs already projected. (Culpeper Star-Exponent)

Front Royal’s proposed budget in early March includes about $29 million worth of infrastructure projects. Projects include construction of a $12 million water line backing the pipe running to the Winchester Road corridor; $8 million for stormwater infiltrating in the wastewater treatment plant; $4.8 million worth of paving on the town’s secondary roads; among others. The proposed improvements are included within a budget that calls for a half-cent real estate tax decrease, which was subject of a public hearing in March. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

The historic Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs says its Jefferson Pools spa facility, which dates back to 1761, could reopen later this year. Richmond architecture firm 3North and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources are partnering with the resort to repair and reopen the 98-degree watered pools, which are natural hot springs listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. The pools have been slowly deteriorating and were closed in 2017. Omni purchased the Homestead and pools in 2013. (News Leader)

The Strasburg Chamber of Commerce closed in late February, citing a lack of finances and shortage of volunteers. Over the years, the chamber had to move to different offices, and the funds allocated by the town dwindled until $8,000 in funding was withdrawn in the town’s 2015-2016 fiscal year budget. The chamber liquidated the certificates of deposits to continue to operate and pay its part-time staff. The chamber did not send out notices for 2020 dues. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

A $21.8 million, 66,000-square-foot addition to Winchester Medical Center’s Heart & Vascular Center opened in early March. Valley Health opened a four-story wing for specialists in prevention, early diagnosis and advanced treatment of cardiovascular disease. The new wing adjoins the existing 22,000-square-foot Heart & Vascular Center, which opened in 2011. Site work on the project began in March 2018. (The Winchester Star)

Lynx Ventures Inc. bought the former Winchester Towers site in early March to develop a $35.5 million mixed-use complex called Cameron Square, which is expected to include 165 one- and two-bedroom apartments in up to five separate buildings, plus 8,000 square feet of ground-floor space for retail and restaurant use and a parking deck. Up to 20% of the apartments would be affordable housing. No start date for Cameron Square’s construction has been established, but officials have said the complex should be open for business no later than 2025. (The Winchester Star)

SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

Reston-based information technology services company 1901 Group will invest $1.15 million in Washington County to establish its third Virginia operations center, creating 150 jobs. The new center will be located at the Virginia Highlands Small Business Incubator in Abingdon. Founded in 2009, 1901 Group offers cloud, cybersecurity and enterprise scale-managed services. It has clients in the federal, state and local governments, as well as law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia mine officials are trying to assess what a $141 million proposed cut in federal surface mine reclamation funding will do to the state’s Abandoned Mine Land programs in the 2020-2021 fiscal year. The Trump administration has proposed cutting its Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement budget requests from $257 million to $116.2 million, which could cut the state’s AML program funds from $3.5 million to $3 million if approved by Congress. The funding goes toward Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy projects like portal closures and addressing mining-related landslides and subsidence across the state. U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-9th, said the president’s February proposal is far from final. (Kingsport Times-News)

In early March, Abingdon Town Council started considering a project to widen U.S. Highway 58. The plan would use an acre for a maintenance easement on the trail at Drowning Ford, with the construction of two bridges to widen U.S. 58 from two lanes to four lanes and a new alignment near Damascus. Construction is expected to start in 2021 and would include building bridges about 65 feet above the trail. (SWVAToday.com)

The Rapha Foundation, a Norton-based philanthropic organization created last year after the sale of Norton Community Hospital to Ballad Health System, made its first major gift of $1 million to the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Foundation. The gift will be matched by U.Va.’s Strategic Investment Fund and will be used to provide need-based scholarships to undergraduate students. Scholarships will be awarded to students from Wise and Dickenson counties. (The Coalfield Progress)

Southwest Virginia Community College announced in late February that all 2020 Tazewell County high school graduates can attend the college tuition-free, and others graduating from home school, private school or having received a GED with at least a 2.0 grade point average are eligible too. Funding is available from a partnership between Priscilla McCall, a trustee of the estate of Sam G. McCall Jr., and the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors. Students must enroll in at least six credit hours each semester, and are encouraged to take 12 or more hours. The cost of books is not included, but students can qualify for scholarships that can cover this expense. (News release)

The Virginia Highlands Airport in Abingdon will receive a $4.85 million federal grant for a new phase of an ongoing runway extension project, U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith’s office announced in February. The grant from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program will support construction of an embankment for Runway 6/24. In 2019, the airport received a $4.15 million grant and in 2018, a $4.3 million grant. Previous phases of the project included relocating a road, stream and wetland mitigation, building a culvert to reroute a stream and starting construction of the runway embankment, according to the FAA. (Bristol Herald Courier)

ROANOKE/NEW RIVER VALLEY

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in February concerning a permit granted by the U.S. Forest Service that gave the Atlantic Coast Pipeline the right-of-way to cross federal lands beneath the Appalachian Trail. A December 2018 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit stripped the pipeline of that permit on the grounds that the Forest Service had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” and didn’t have the authority to grant rights-of-way for pipelines to cross federal lands under the Mineral Leasing Act. It was the latter determination that the high court took up. A decision is expected in late spring, and it could affect both the ACP, 53% of which is owned by Dominion Energy Inc., and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which also proposes crossing the Appalachian Trail. (Virginia Mercury)

Blue Ridge Parkway managers announced in March that nearly   15 million people visited the 469-mile parkway in 2019. Despite extended weather-related closures in multiple sections, the parkway saw a 4.4% increase in visitors compared to 2018, but fell short of the 16 million visitors reached in 2017, according to the National Park Service. (News release)

The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors in mid-February approved a $700,000 performance agreement with Mack Trucks to offset some of the company’s costs of opening a new manufacturing plant. Mack plans to invest         $13 million in a new facility in the Valley Tech Industrial Park, where it will manufacture medium-duty trucks. Roanoke County and the county’s economic development authority will match the money awarded from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund. The county will reimburse the company new local tax revenue it generates over the next seven years, up to $700,000. (The Roanoke Times)

Norfolk Southern Corp., which is moving its Norfolk headquarters to Atlanta, is picking up stakes in Roanoke too. In February, the railroad company announced it will move its Roanoke distribution center and locomotive shop operations to Pennsylvania, affecting a total of 104 employees in the Roanoke Valley area. Roanoke’s 85 mechanical employees will have the option to transfer to the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Pennsylvania and will be eligible for relocation benefits. It is expected that affected employees will continue working at the distribution center through April 18 and at the locomotive shop through May 18. Despite the closure of its Roanoke Locomotive Shop, Norfolk Southern says it will continue to employ 650 people in the valley. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The city of Radford has continued its $30 million civil lawsuit against dozens of pharmaceutical companies and distributors. Filed last June, the suit claims the companies “caused an opioid epidemic that has resulted in economic, social and emotional damages to tens of thousands of Americans throughout virtually every community in the United States.” In February, Radford City Council agreed to share information about the suit with other localities suing the companies, including the cities of Salem and Roanoke, and Botetourt, Floyd, Franklin, Montgomery and Roanoke counties. (The Roanoke Times)

Mary Dana Hinton will serve as Hollins University’s next president, effective Aug. 1. Hinton is currently the president of the College of Saint Benedict, a private women’s school in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Hollins’ former president, Pareena Lawrence, left the university last summer. Nancy Oliver Gray, a retired Hollins president, stepped in to serve as the school’s interim leader. (News release)

SOUTHERN VIRGINIA

Plans emerged in late February for the site of the old American of Martinsville furniture plant at 201/209 Aaron St. in Martinsville  to be converted to an $8.1 million apartment complex for residents 50 years and older, or younger with a qualifying disability. The project, called Aaron Mills Apartments, is proposed by the Landmark Group, a family-owned development company based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It will have 52 one- and two-bedroom apartments and be financed with federal housing tax credits, private equity and permanent financing, according to Landmark, and be open by the third quarter of 2022. (Martinsville Bulletin)

The Halifax County Board of Supervisors granted a conditional use permit for construction of the Piney Creek Solar array on 778 acres in Clover, a project being developed by Charlottesville-based Hexagon Energy. It will have a generation capacity of 80 megawatts and sit on land owned by Black Walnut Land and Timber Co. Board members set aside a second solar request at the March 2 meeting, a proposal by Alton Post Office Solar LLC to add five land parcels to that previously approved 80-megawatt project in Alton. (South Boston News & Record)

Danville officials met with casino company representatives in closed sessions in late February, the Danville Register & Bee learned. The meetings, the city’s mayor confirmed, have included presentations from four casino company finalists who had responded to a request for proposals issued by the city Dec. 2 to bring a gambling facility to Danville. The presentations did not include off-track or pari-mutuel wagering facilities, a separate issue. Danville Regional Airport officials said that representatives from five casino companies, including Caesars Entertainment, have flown in and out of the airport more than a dozen times in the past month. (Danville Register & Bee)

With Falkland Farms in Halifax County now in the hands of tech billionaire and land conservationist Tim Sweeney, the question arises: What lies ahead for one of Virginia’s largest open-space land tracts? Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, purchased the 7,000-acre Falkland Farms for $11.5 million in late 2019 to protect it from future development. Before the sale, Falkland Farms belonged to the heirs of Col. Ira Vaughan, a 20^th-century tobacconist. Sweeney, whose personal net worth is estimated around $6 billion, has extensive land holdings in North Carolina. In text messages to the News & Record acknowledging the purchase, Sweeney said he did not intend to keep Falkland Farms for long: “When it goes for conservation, I will sell it for the price I paid.” (South Boston News & Record)

A skilled gaming parlor may be coming to the town of Hurt. During a joint meeting between the planning commission and town council, councilors voted 3-2 to grant a special-use permit to McCormick Storage Facility LLC. Owner Walter McCormick expects to rent the building at 419 Church St. to another company that has several gaming parlors in Virginia. (Danville Register & Bee)

Throughout the first day of Danville’s Industrial Hemp Summit, one number kept coming up again and again: 0.3%. That tiny percentage poses big problems for hemp producers across the country, multiple speakers agreed. Federal law states that hemp crops cannot contain more than 0.3% THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. Anything testing above that threshold must be destroyed, which, for the farmers, means sending tens of thousands of dollars up in smoke. In late February, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research drew 400 attendees from 25 states, including growers, attorneys, government regulators and CBD retailers. (Martinsville Bulletin)

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

In late February, Amazon.com Inc. signed a lease with its HQ2 landlord and developer JBG Smith Properties for the Arlington building that has served as Public Broadcasting Service’s headquarters since 2006. Amazon expects to move into the 272,000-square-foot space at 2100 Crystal Drive by the end of the year. PBS plans to move to a 120,000-square-foot office at 1225 S. Clark St. by mid-2020. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Arlington-based E-Trade Financial Corp. will be purchased for $13 billion under an agreement with Morgan Stanley, the New York City-based wealth management company. The companies announced the agreement, set to close in the fourth quarter of the year, in February. E-Trade stockholders will receive 1.0432 Morgan Stanley shares for each of their E-Trade shares as a result of the acquisition, which is subject to approval by E-Trade shareholders. The online banking service has more than 5.2 million client accounts and $360 billion in retail client assets, while Morgan Stanley has three million accounts and more than $2.7 trillion in client assets. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Inova Health System plans to open a new health care facility on part of Oakville Triangle, giving another try to the 13-acre site on Richmond Highway in Alexandria across from the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. Inova has signed an agreement with Stonebridge Associates and Carras Partners to anchor the long-planned development, but details are still being worked through, said Doug Firstenberg, principal at Stonebridge, in March. (Washington Business Journal)

Reston-based government and defense technology contractor Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) completed its acquisition of Reston-based federal government information technology services contractor Unisys Federal on March 13 for $1.2 billion in cash. The acquisition brings Unisys Federal’s cloud migration services to SAIC and adds 2,000 employees to the company’s 23,000-person workforce. SAIC serves defense, space, civilian and intelligence clients. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

A long-awaited report on Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Silver Line by its inspector general lays out several significant concerns with the extension of rail service to Washington Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County. The report, released in early March, leaves the ultimate decision on how to proceed to Metro leaders, doing little to clear up when the line might open. Signaling software has been of major concern since a 2018 Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority audit, but there were few changes made, the report found. The airports authority hired the contractors building the Silver Line, but Metro will eventually take ownership and run the trains. (WTOP)

Gregory Washington, the dean of the University of California, Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, will become the eighth president of George Mason University on July 1. He takes over from former state Secretary of Education Anne Holton, who has served as the university’s interim president since August 2019, when former GMU President Ángel Cabrera left to become president of Georgia Tech. Washington has spearheaded initiatives to encourage children to pursue STEM careers and to help community college students transfer to four-year universities. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

CENTRAL VIRGINIA

Albemarle County’s Brookhill development is moving forward. In early March, the Albemarle County Architectural Review Board recommended approval of nine buildings with about 110 one- and two-bedroom condominiums, part of the 277-acre development near Polo Grounds Road in the northern section of the county. Site plans for a senior living facility and an ice rink are both under review, but permits and the final site plan for a 317-apartment complex along U.S. 29 have been approved. The ice rink, which will be owned and operated by a nonprofit group, is delayed at least until the end of the year as the organization raises funds. (The Daily Progress)

The Chesterfield Power Station, once the largest fossil fuel-fired power plant in Virginia, will deactivate its two remaining coal units in May 2023, Dominion Energy Inc. notified PJM, the regional electric grid operator from which Virginia gets its energy. The notification was sent in late February. Dominion has considered closing its two remaining coal units at Chesterfield for some time, including the possibility in its original 2018 Integrated Resource Plan, and under the Virginia Clean Economy Act enacted by the General Assembly — legislation supported by Dominion — the utility would be required to retire all of its coal-fired facilities by Dec. 31, 2024. Chesterfield Power Station also operates two natural gas units. (Virginia Mercury)

Washington, D.C., developer Douglas Development Corp. offered to buy and renovate the Richmond Coliseum and redevelop about       14 acres of publicly owned downtown real estate on the heels of City Council’s rejection of the $1.5 billion Navy Hill proposal. Doug Jemal, president and founder, offered $15 million for the city-owned property Feb. 18. His firm, which owns other properties in Richmond, would build a mixed-use development with a hotel, apartments, retail and office space, as well as a transit center it would lease back to the city. The offer, according to a letter sent to the city, expires May 18. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Oklahoma-based marketing conglomerate Moore DM Group will invest $31 million in reopening the Henrico County printing plant formerly operated by Colortree Group Inc., which abruptly went out of business in June, leaving 240 employees out of work. The new plant will be run as Richmond Print Group, a subsidiary of Moore. The company will prioritize hiring those who were laid off, creating 239 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in early March. Moore, based in Tulsa, owns 33 companies with more than 2,500 employees in marketing and media. It plans to operate a direct-mail operation in Henrico, including producing envelopes. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

With a green light from Richmond City Council, a $55 million apartment building near Virginia Commonwealth University is slated to rise on the GRTC Pulse line. Councilors voted 7-2 in late February to approve a special permit for a 12-story, 168-unit apartment building on West Broad Street geared toward students and young professionals. Minnesota-based The Opus Group proposed the building, which will also have street-level retail space. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Home security system manufacturer SimpliSafe is establishing a customer support center in western Henrico County, a deal expected to create 572 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late February. The Boston-based company will invest $5.5 million in a facility on Willow Lawn Drive, a three-story building with 57,110 square feet of unoccupied office space on the second and third floors. This is SimpliSafe’s second customer service office in the country, and it is set to be operational by the end of the summer, a spokesperson said. (VirginiaBusiness.com)