Eastern Va. Year-in-Review: Region aims to lean in on energy, defense sectors

A new economic development plan for Hampton Roads seeks to build on the region’s strengths as a long-time maritime and defense industry center, while also focusing on the energy sector.

With 17 cities and counties, the region has struggled to work together as one cohesive unit, leaders have said over the years, but the Hampton Roads Alliance is set to launch a “regional investment playbook,” says Alliance President and CEO Doug Smith. “Two or three years ago, we really made a bit of a pivot in our approach to recruiting economic development.”

The playbook aims to refocus the region’s efforts on the energy and defense sectors — natural areas of emphasis, given Hampton Roads’ military and shipbuilding presence, as well as the burgeoning wind energy sector represented by Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm.

“There’s always a push to diversify, but we think it makes sense to lean in,” says Steven C. Wright, Chesapeake’s economic development director.

Chesapeake made one of the state’s biggest economic development announcements in 2024, LS GreenLink USA’s $681 million subsea cable manufacturing plant that will produce submarine cables used for offshore wind farms — the first such facility in the United States. It’s expected to create 338 jobs.

Another major announcement, this time in James City County, came from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, a subsidiary of a Norwegian company, which plans to invest $71 million in a missile assembly plant and create an estimated 187 jobs.

In all, the region’s top 10 economic development announcements in 2024 — ranked in terms of jobs created — promised more than 1,200 new positions and at least $1.1 billion in investment in a half dozen localities.

Smith says that the new playbook will highlight six to eight “big initiatives that the region can get behind” to attract more defense and energy companies.

The strategy is meant to address a new economic era, Smith says — an era shaped by the pandemic and geopolitical conflict, by supply chain disruptions and reshoring efforts, and by the push toward renewable energy sources.

Smith says that Australia, which he visited late last year on an economic development mission trip, will also be an important economic player in Hampton Roads.

A 2021 agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., dubbed AUKUS, calls for the U.S. and the U.K. to share nuclear propulsion technology with Australia, whose Navy is set to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines built by Huntington Ingalls Industries. Smith predicts that 40 or more Australian companies would soon seek some level of representation in Hampton Roads.
Jared Chalk, Hampton Roads Alliance’s chief business officer, says that the point is to seek global opportunities for a region already well-stocked with expertise in defense and energy.

“Because of the craziness that is happening around the world, Hampton Roads has an outsized presence,” Chalk says.

James City County

In September 2024, Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace announced it would build its first U.S. production facility in James City County, the region’s second largest economic development announcement last year, behind LS GreenLink.

The new plant is to assemble and test two types of missiles: the Naval Strike Missile used by the U.S. Navy and Marines, and the Joint Strike Missile used by the U.S. Air Force.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who met with Kongsberg executives during trade missions to Europe in 2023 and 2024, said at the time of the announcement that the company’s plan highlights Virginia’s “strategic location” for defense companies. The move was part of an expansion of missile plants worldwide for Kongsberg, which is experiencing higher demand. In addition to the James City County facility, the company is building plants in Norway and Australia.

In November 2024, the Navy awarded Kongsberg a $896 million, five-year contract to produce Naval Strike Missiles for the military branch’s littoral combat ships and Constellation-class frigates.

As of the end of 2024, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace President Heather Armentrout said that the company still was negotiating for purchase of a site for its plant and hoped to close on the property soon. She says that construction should last through 2027, and production is to start in 2028.

Armentrout says that decision to build in James City County was prompted by the availability of workers with military backgrounds, saying the company plans “to hire a substantially veteran workforce.”

Another factor was the county’s proximity to Kongsberg’s personnel in Richmond and around Washington, D.C., she says. Armentrout herself is based in Alexandria.

Finally, Kongsberg was won over by outreach from government officials, including Youngkin, U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Armentrout says. Youngkin approved $2.25 million in state grants to secure the project, and the Virginia Accelerator Program will assist Kongsberg in recruitment and workforce training efforts at no cost to the company.

“We just feel like we have the support of the local, state and federal officials to succeed over the long term,” Armentrout says.

Hampton and Newport News

In December 2024, Amazon.com announced the opening of a same-day delivery facility in Hampton that created approximately 125 jobs. A set of hair rollers was the facility’s first delivery, according to a statement from city officials.

In June 2024, Liebherr Mining Equipment, part of a company launched in Germany in 1949 and a presence in Newport News since 1970, announced that it planned a $73 million expansion with 175 more jobs, in addition to its existing 550 workers. On the border of Newport News and Hampton, the plant produces huge trucks weighing 300 tons and up that are used in surface mining operations.

“It is a wonderful example of two cities coming together and helping an important local business grow and stay in the region,” says Newport News Economic Development Director Florence Kingston. The plant also will have a new name, Liebherr-America, another branch of the company.
Kingston says that the Liebherr expansion indirectly fits the new regional economic development plan’s focus on energy because Liebherr is moving toward making its vehicles all-electric, as well as the company’s reliance on the Port of Virginia for distribution.

“While maritime is in our DNA, so is advanced manufacturing,” she says.

Norfolk and Virginia Beach

Although other parts of the region had larger economic development announcements in 2024, the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach progressed on their own projects.

Investing approximately $350 million, Amazon.com’s 650,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Virginia Beach, a five-floor facility with 55 loading docks, is expected to open late this year, and the e-tail giant’s new delivery station opened in September 2024. Set to open in May is the $350 million-plus Atlantic Park project, with music and fashion superstar Pharrell Williams and Venture Realty Group behind the multiuse development anchored by a wave pool and The Dome, a $54.8 million amphitheater.

In Norfolk, the Nauticus Half Moone Cruise Center is undergoing $12 million in renovations to handle about 300,000 cruise passengers annually, the city’s first venture into the year-round cruise business, expected to start in February. Also, the city’s long-awaited casino is under construction, with a temporary site expected to be open by this fall and the permanent $750 million resort scheduled to open in late 2027.