April For The Record

Roanoke/New River Valley

Strasburg-based First National Corp. (the bank holding company of First Bank) announced in February it will acquire The Bank of Fincastle. Financial terms of the transaction were not released, but the combined bank is expected to have approximately $1.2 billion in assets, $868 million in loans, $1 billion in deposits and 20 branch offices across Virginia. Founded in 1875 and based in Botetourt County, The Bank of Fincastle currently operates six locations in the Roanoke region. As of Dec. 31, 2020, it reported $256 million in assets. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Nottingham, England-based software company Ideagen plc announced in March it has acquired Blacksburg-based Qualtrax. Founded in 1993, Qualtrax provides software that helps companies with managing documents and training. Its 340 clients include Walmart Inc., the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, SABIC Innovative Plastics and the Arkansas State Crime Lab. Qualtrax, which employs 40 people, reported approximately $5.2 million in 2020 revenue. All Qualtrax employees will remain with the company. Its Blacksburg location will become Ideagen’s U.S. headquarters, where approximately 80 people will be based. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Undergraduate tuition at Radford University Carilion will be dropping from the current rate of $21,792 per year to approximately $12,000, the university announced in March. Tuition is currently at $11,416 for full-time undergraduate students at the Radford campus. University President Brian Hemphill said that 88% of RUC’s approximately 1,100 students — a 6% increase from the previous year — are from Virginia, so the investment legislators made in the school will largely impact state residents. (The Roanoke Times)

Several eateries and a dental office will be housed in two new outparcel buildings at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke County, mall owner Blackwater Resources announced in February. The new tenants include Panda Express, Jersey Mike’s, Aspen Dental, Blaze Pizza and Chipotle. The two new buildings will be situated on Electric Road in front of Carilion Children’s on the former JCPenney end of the mall. Tenants are expected to open their doors in early 2022.
(The Roanoke Times)

The Valleys Innovation Council (VIC), the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council (RBTC) and the Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP) in March announced an alliance initiative called Verge, which is aimed at supporting the region’s technologists, innovators and entrepreneurs. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The U.S. Department of Defense in early March selected Virginia Tech as one of three schools to lead its new Acquisition Innovation and Research Center (AIRC). The goal of the center is to unite higher education expertise to increase efficiency in the department’s acquisition system. Researchers will study how to better acquire quality products and resources used by the armed forces. Virginia Tech will also develop policies to expedite that acquisition process. In April, the center will hold the Acquisition Innovation Forum, where researchers can learn more about AIRC’s research into digital transformation and acquisition. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) for the past 25 years, will step down from his position and return to the faculty, the university announced in March. The endowed professor has been a driver safety researcher for the past 35 years and has had a keen focus on autonomous technologies for vehicles. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Botetourt County Chamber of Commerce board of directors in early March appointed Khari Ryder as its executive director. Ryder previously served as finance director at Total Action Against Poverty. (WFIR)

Eastern Virginia

The new state budget includes more funds to expand Interstate 64 in Hampton Roads, including widening the highway all the way to Richmond. Negotiators in the General Assembly agreed to set aside $93.1 million from federal COVID-19 relief funds for work on I-64. The money is to go to the proposed 44-mile network of express and toll lanes for the region. The express lanes network includes the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, which is undergoing a $3.86 billion expansion. (Daily Press)

Downtown Norfolk’s 140-store mall MacArthur Center may have a future date with a wrecking ball. According to Norfolk’s economic development department, a complete teardown of the 1.1 million-square-foot structure is one of three possibilities envisioned for MacArthur Center’s future by the city. Still, the city doesn’t own the mall and can’t control what happens to it. The mall structure is owned by Starwood Property Trust, which defaulted on an interest-only loan worth $725 million in late 2019 that used MacArthur and three other malls as collateral. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Newport News Shipbuilding has laid off 314 salaried employees in its first workforce reduction since the shipyard laid off 1,218 employees in 2015, according to a letter sent to employees on Feb. 26. The action also included the demotion of an additional 119 managers. The shipbuilding company, the largest industrial employer in the state with more than 25,000 employees, is continuing to hire for some positions. A subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News Shipbuilding is the largest military shipbuilding company in the country. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Plasser American Corp., a Chesapeake manufacturer of huge railroad repair machines, plans to significantly expand its operations and add 98 new jobs to the region. The company, which has a 150,000-square-foot headquarters, announced a $52.6 million expansion on March 3. Plasser will build an 82,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and a 45,000-square-foot, three-story office building near the company’s current location. Plasser will hire 98 more employees in manufacturing and engineering through the expansion and double the company’s production capabilities. (Inside Business)

The company behind Portsmouth’s upcoming casino wants it to be the first casino to open in Virginia, maybe as soon as late next year, but without its planned hotel. In a March 9 meeting with Portsmouth City Council, representatives of casino operator Rush Street Gaming said their development agreement with the city guaranteed they would build a hotel, but they don’t plan to open it at the same time as Rivers Casino. Rush Street says the hotel will take longer to build and that the pandemic has introduced uncertainty into the lodging industry. (The Virginian-Pilot)

PEOPLE

Radford University President Brian Hemphill has been hired as Old Dominion University’s ninth president, ODU announced on Feb. 12. He will succeed John Broderick, who is retiring this year. Hemphill, who has led Radford since 2016, will join ODU this summer. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The board of directors for Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries has elected Kari Wilkinson to serve as executive vice president of HII and president of HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division, effective April 1. She will succeed Brian Cuccias, who retired on April 1. Wilkinson has served as Ingalls’ vice president of program management since 2016. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

ShenandoahValley

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority seeks $62.3 million in damages in a lawsuit against Jennifer McDonald, its former executive director, and her related real estate companies. The case comes up in the court on April 9 for a hearing on the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment against McDonald and her real estate entities for various schemes alleged by the plaintiff in its lawsuit. Opening statements filed by the EDA’s attorneys state that the defendants are liable to the EDA for $20.65 million for several counts that include fraud, conversion, conspiracy and unjust enrichment. The EDA also seeks $350,000 in punitive damages.
(The Northern Virginia Daily)

In February, the attorneys general of Virginia, Massachusetts and New York sued Virginia-based Nexus Services Inc., alleging that its Libre by Nexus subsidiary “preys on consumers held in federal detention centers by offering to pay for consumers’ immigration bonds to secure their release.” In exchange for those services, the suit alleges, “Libre demands large upfront fees and hefty monthly payments while concealing or misrepresenting the true costs of its services.” Nexus CEO and President Mike Donovan said the allegations are “offensive, 100% false and detrimental” and claimed the suits were retaliation for previous lawsuits. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

On Feb. 25, Atlanta-based medical cannabis production company TheraTrue Inc. announced it is seeking to establish a facility in Staunton. The minority-owned medical cannabis production company also announced in February it has received $50 million in funding commitments and has submitted medical cannabis license applications in Georgia and Virginia. These applications mark the first major actions of TheraTrue Inc. in the medical cannabis industry. TheraTrue is looking to provide vertically integrated production facilities designed to deliver medical grade cannabis products to patients in Georgia and Virginia. (News Leader)

Harrisonburg-based Valley Guard Supply LLC announced on Feb. 10 it will invest $1 million to establish a personal protective equipment manufacturing facility. A service-disabled veteran-owned company, Valley Guard makes three-ply disposable masks but intends to expand into manufacturing other types of safety and security gear. The project investment will create 45 jobs. Valley Guard is a startup manufacturer of personal protective equipment that opened in April 2020. The company has leased a facility in Harrisonburg and is currently purchasing machinery and hiring full-time staff to establish its first permanent location

in the state. (News Leader)

In an interim report, investigators looking into reported racist incidents at Virginia Military Institute say some alumni and current cadets reported hearing racial slurs “on a regular basis” at the state-funded military college in Lexington. Indianapolis-based law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP, which submitted its report on March 8 to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, detailed several uses of racial slurs, including an account from one Black alumnus who reported being called the n-word “many times” between 2018 and 2021, and a white graduate who attended the school in the late 1990s saying that racial slurs were “common” and “absolutely a part of life in the barracks.” (VirginiaBusiness.com)

People

Tynisha Willingham, dean of Mary Baldwin University’s College of Education, was named the Staunton school’s interim provost and chief academic officer, effective Feb. 15. She replaces Ty Buckman, who joined the Foundation of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture as its executive vice president in February. Willingham started her tenure at MBU last summer, coming from Wisconsin’s St. Norbert College, where she served as associate academic dean and associate professor of education. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Central virginia

Henrico-based tobacco manufacturer Altria Group Inc. is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to help it spread the word that nicotine doesn’t cause cancer. Altria sent a Feb. 25 letter to the FDA asking the agency to help get the message out about nicotine as part of a proposed advertising campaign on the risks of tobacco use. It said that clearing up misperceptions about nicotine would help traditional smokers transition to noncombustible methods of using nicotine that are potentially less risky than products with smoke. (CNBC)

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s office confirmed Feb. 26 that the city received six eligible casino proposals for consideration by Richmond City Council and voters. Contenders include Bally’s Corp. and Golden Nugget Hotels & Casinos, Virginia’s Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Baltimore-based Cordish Cos., Wind Creek Hospitality and a partnership between Colonial Downs and Maryland-based media company Urban One Inc. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

With cryptocurrency on the rise, customers of Charlottesville-based Blue Ridge Bankshares Inc., the parent holding company of Blue Ridge Bank, will now be able to purchase and redeem bitcoin at its ATMs, making them the nation’s first commercial bank to do so, the company announced Feb. 10. Blue Ridge Bank cardholders can purchase and redeem bitcoin at 19 locations across the state, including its branch locations and offsite ATMs. The bank partnered with Woodstock-based BluePoint ATM Solutions and Boston-based bitcoin ATM software provider LibertyX for the new service. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. and five other major utilities announced a plan on March 2 to create a network of charging stations for electric vehicles across major highway systems stretching from Washington, D.C., to Chicago to West Texas and the Florida Heartland. The newly announced Electric Highway Coalition — made up of American Electric Power, Dominion, Duke Energy Corp., Entergy Corp., Southern Co. and the Tennessee Valley Authority — aims to create a semi-national network of direct-current fast charging stations for electric vehicles that would allow drivers the ability to travel without interruption. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond-based convenience stores owner and operator GPM Investments LLC announced March 8 it has signed an agreement to acquire 61 ExpressStop convenience stores with gas stations in Michigan and Ohio. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. GPM Investments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Richmond-based holding company Arko Corp. In total, GPM operates 1,350 stores. The transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2021. Fifth Third Securities served as financial adviser to ExpressStop. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond City Council approved the sale of the city’s Public Safety Building on March 1, clearing the way for a $325 million VCU Health System medical office tower and multiuse project downtown. Council members unanimously approved the 3-acre property’s $3.5 million sale to Capital City Partners LLC, a collaboration between Michael Hallmark of Los Angeles-based Future Cities LLC and Susan Eastridge of Fairfax-based Concord Eastridge Inc. Hallmark and Eastridge were part of the failed Navy Hill project last year. The public safety building will be demolished. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

People

The University of Richmond announced March 4 its next president will be Kevin F. Hallock, the current dean and professor of strategy and business economics at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business. He will succeed Ronald A. Crutcher, who in September 2020 asked the board of trustees to begin a search for his successor, with plans to have a new president take office no later than
July 1, 2022. Hallock will join the university in fall 2021. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Southern Virginia

In March, Caesars Entertainment selected Marnell Cos. as the architect for its $400 million Caesars Virginia casino project at the former Dan River Inc. site in Danville’s Schoolfield neighborhood. Las Vegas-based Marnell is behind some of the nation’s most famous casinos, including the Bellagio Las Vegas and the Caesars Palace convention expansion, among other large projects. The Danville casino, with 300 hotel guestrooms, a 2,500-seat live entertainment venue and a 35,000-square-foot conference center, as well as sportsbook and gaming facilities, is set to be finished in 2023. (Danville Register & Bee)

The Danville Industrial Development Authority granted The Alexander Co. more time to decide whether it wants to purchase the White Mill property, moving the deadline from March 8 to June 6, the Wisconsin-based company’s third extension. In January 2019, the IDA approved an agreement with Alexander for an option to buy the property for $3 million. City officials hope the building could provide homes for employees of the casino planned by Caesars Entertainment in the Schoolfield neighborhood.
(Danville Register & Bee)

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. is moving forward with a $3 million companion facility to the SOVA Innovation Hub in downtown South Boston. Currently under design, the SOVA Innovation Lab will be geared toward attracting entrepreneurs and tech firms that need space to grow. MBC is working with Microsoft to fit the project into the computing giant’s TechSpark initiative to foster economic growth in rural communities where Microsoft maintains cloud computing operations. In early March, MBC requested a $100,000 grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission to pay for part of the design and engineering study. (News & Record)

Twenty-three years after the landmark Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was reached, defunct Keysville tobacco company S&M Brands Inc. settled with Virginia for nearly $40 million, the state attorney general’s office announced in March. S&M Brands, the makers of Bailey cigarettes and other products, closed in 2019. It was started in 1995 by father and son Mac and Steven Bailey, part of a longtime family business growing and brokering tobacco in Charlotte County since 1860. The company did not join the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the four largest tobacco product manufacturers and 46 states. S&M Brands agreed to pay $39.38 million into the Virginia Health Care Fund through the 2021 settlement. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Sovah Health officials initiated a new approach to address a deficiency in diversity for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the West Piedmont Health District, starting in early March. Under the leadership of Sovah’s pharmacy director, Heather Ashe, the Health Equity Group recruited representatives from local nonprofits and the Virginia Department of Health to better serve minority residents and people without access to a computer or the internet, and a community coalition is acting as a liaison between the health system and community groups. (Martinsville Bulletin)

PEOPLE

Longtime Mecklenburg County supervisor W.P. Hudgins Sr. died in March at the age of 89. He was the county’s first and only Black board chair and also led its budget and finance committee after being elected in 1991. Along with serving on the board for two decades, Hudgins was a Korean War veteran and a teacher, principal and administrator for the county school system for 38 years. (News & Record)

Northern Virginia

George Mason University President Gregory Washington in late February formed an advisory roundtable of nearly 30 regional business executives and community leaders to focus on the university’s Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) and its efforts to build a pipeline of tech workers. Former Virginia Technology Secretary Aneesh Chopra, who served as the federal government’s first chief tech officer during the Obama administration, will chair the council. GMU also announced a team led by Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate and Harrison Street will manage construction of the Arlington campus’ expansion. (VirginiaBusiness.com and Washington Business Journal)

Metro will likely avoid service cuts and layoffs it was building into its budget due to new federal funding provided by the American Recovery Plan, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority officials said in early March. The $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package signed by President Joe Biden on March 11 allocates $1.4 billion to the Washington-area transit agencies. Metro was planning for scenarios that included eliminating all weekend service, closing 19 stations, increasing rail wait times and reducing the number of bus lines. Layoffs of more than 1,000 employees in Virginia and Washington were also possibilities. The fiscal 2022 budget starts in July.
(Washington Business Journal)

Tysons-based business software company MicroStrategy Inc. purchased more than $2 billion in bitcoin in late February, and founder and CEO Michael Saylor has become one of the most prominent advocates for bitcoin as a safe haven investment. Saylor has received some pushback from economists, including The Oxford Group chief income strategist Marc Lichtenfeld, who called the investment “completely irresponsible,” and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who labeled the cryptocurrency “extremely inefficient” and “highly speculative” in February. However, Tesla founder Elon Musk has made significant purchases of bitcoin and said Tesla will accept the currency for transactions. (VirginiaBusiness.com, Washington Business Journal and CNBC)

Three Northern Virginia companies announced plans to go public in March: Tysons-based risk analytics firm Qomplx Inc.; Arlington-based Leonardo DRS, a subsidiary of Italian federal defense conglomerate Leonardo SpA; and Herndon- and Seattle-based global monitoring company BlackSky. A week after Qomplx’s announced merger with Tailwind Acquisition Corp., backed by Casper Sleep Inc. founder Philip Krim, the company said it would acquire two firms — Alabama-based cyber intelligence company Sentar and London insurance software corporation RPC Tyche. Qomplx was valued at $1.4 billion or $10 per share. Leonardo DRS, a defense contractor with $2 billion in annual revenue, is valued at $2.54 billion, according to Reuters. In February, BlackSky announced it would go public after being acquired by Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp. The combined company was valued at $1.1 billion. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

An investigation by the National Football League recommends that Washington Football Team majority owner Daniel Snyder divest his ownership of the team, according to part of a report leaked to a Washington-based sports radio show in early March. WJFK FM 106.7 The Fan’s “The Sports Junkies” show reported that the lawyer conducting the NFL’s probe into the Ashburn-based team recommended that Snyder sell his portion of the team or be suspended for several months. Last year, The Washington Post reported that 15 women who worked for the organization claimed they had been sexually harassed during Snyder’s tenure. The Post also reported that the team paid $1.6 million to settle another former employee’s lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct by Snyder. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Southwest Virginia

Appalachian Power Co. in February issued a request for proposals for up to 300 megawatts of solar and/or wind generation resources. Under the RFP, Appalachian Power may consider a single project or multiple facilities. Solar projects must be located in Virginia, while wind projects don’t have to be located in Virginia, but it is preferred. Appalachian Power is seeking facilities of at least 50 megawatts that can be commercially operational by mid-December 2023. Proposals with an operational date by Dec. 15, 2024, will still be considered, however. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

As part of an effort to entice data centers to locate in the region, Southwest Virginia leaders in early March announced a joint agreement to set what will be Virginia’s lowest regional property tax rate on data center equipment. The localities comprising the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority — Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties and Norton — have entered into an agreement to each establish a tax rate of 24 cents per $100 on data center equipment. Through its Project Oasis initiative, the region hopes to leverage the area’s underground water in former coal mines to provide free geothermal cooling as a significant savings tool for data centers, which typically rack up high HVAC utility and maintenance bills to keep equipment from overheating. The block tax rate is intended as an additional incentive to the region’s offer of available and cheap land, geothermal cooling and workforce readiness and development. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Textiles manufacturing startup Maine Five announced in February it is opening a sewing factory at Buchanan County’s Council Industrial Park building. Investing $350,000 in the 17,211-square-foot factory space, the company will hire 12 workers and has plans to employ 100 total workers by 2026. Founded in 2020, the company manufactures medical supplies, bags and field kits and is expanding into producing nylon backpacks, uniforms and outdoor apparel. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia in February issued a request for proposals for partnership in the Southwest Virginia 2021 Residential Solar Program, which will provide solar installation services for homeowners in the coalfield region. The goal is to use solar energy development to reduce utility bills and be an economic catalyst in Norton and the counties of Wise, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Buchanan and Tazewell. The workgroup is seeking proposals for a solar developer to conduct solar assessments and installations in at least two of the seven Southwest Virginia coalfield counties. (The Coalfield Progress)

Bedding product designer, manufacturer and distributor Tempur Sealy International Inc. will invest $16.7 million to expand its Scott County operation, creating 25 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in March. Headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, Tempur Sealy operates two manufacturing facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Scott County, employing more than 5,000 people in the U.S. The company employs 300 people at its Duffield facility, which opened in 2001. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Construction on the runway at Virginia Highlands Airport was expected to begin by late March or early April. When complete, the extended runway will be a multimillion-dollar mile aimed at enhancing safety and bringing bigger corporate jets into the small airport along Lee Highway south of Abingdon. Extending the runway from 4,471 feet to 5,500 feet on the airport’s southeast side could be complete in fall 2022 or spring 2023. The runway extension could cost as much as $24 million. (Bristol Herald Courier)