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Tag: commercial real estate

Powhatan approves $2.7B data center campus

Powhatan County has approved an estimated $2.7 billion data center campus on 119.9 acres partly bordering Chesterfield County.

The county’s board of supervisors voted 3-2 during its Oct. 28 meeting for a rezoning and a conditional use permit allowing the proposed development to move forward.

The developer, Newport Beach, California–based Province Group, estimates that its capital investment at full real estate buildout would be $3 billion, but county staff estimates the full investment would be $2.7 billion based on Richmond region square footage values. The project buildout is expected to take five years at minimum.

The data center campus, located at 1318 Page Road, would have three detached data centers with a combined 1.525 million in floor area square footage, as well as six supporting structures. About 20% of the property — roughly 24 acres — will be designated open space.

The conditional use permit that the board approved will allow the developer to build structures up to 75 feet high, rather than being capped at a height of 45 feet.

The development would create 150 to 200 on-site jobs and up to 600 indirect jobs, according to a presentation from the applicant during the board meeting, although a Mangum Economics study projects it would create 165 direct jobs.

Based on the Mangum study, data centers on the property would directly pay $17 million in taxes to the county by 2034, and the county’s total annual tax revenue, including indirect taxes from activity the data centers support, would be $21.5 million.

Harold L. Ellis III and Christina W. Ellis own the land. They previously proposed a mixed-use development including up to 249 residential units for the property, which the county board of supervisors rejected in 2019.

The Powhatan Planning Commission held a work session for the data center campus proposal in May. It recommended denying the rezoning and conditional use permit in its Sept. 3 meeting.

Several county residents who spoke during the public hearing period and a supervisor said they were concerned that the project had no end user and has a provision for numerous possible other uses.

In its proffer, the developer outlined an 18-month period during which the only approved land use would be the data center campus, but after that period, the property could be used for data centers or for one or more of the 45 permitted uses it listed.

To secure an end user, “we need to go to market,” Province Group CEO Mark Kerslake said to the county board. “In order to go to market, we need our zoning approval. The users — occupiers, as we call them — have many sites being thrown at them. They won’t engage unless we have zoning approval.”

In response, Powhatan Supervisor Mark Kinney said the $17 million tax revenue projection depends on the project being fully built out.

“The $17 million is projected, and that’s if all three buildings are built out, they get a user that wants all three [and] all three buildings are packed to capacity with servers. Well, you know what comes after ‘if’ — ‘but,’” he said. “But what if they get a smaller user and there’s only one building, and [the user] only uses half the server capacity of that current building? Well, then your revenue goes down.”

In Northern Virginia, around 300 data centers are sprawled across Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax counties, with the majority in Loudoun. The Ashburn area in Loudoun is home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, a zone known as Data Center Alley, through which passes more than 70% of the world’s internet traffic. The Prince William Digital Gateway, if completed as planned, would be the largest data center complex in the world.

Central Virginia, though, is also seeing increased data center development. Henrico County is home to QTS Data Centers’ network access point, as well as Meta data centers. QTS also purchased 622 acres from Hourigan after the land was rezoned to light industrial.

Data center opponents argue the centers strain the state’s electric grid. Dominion Energy has previously estimated that Virginia data centers’ demand for electricity will jump from the 2.8 gigawatts it was in 2023 to 13 gigawatts by 2038.

The approved Powhatan data centers would use an anticipated 300 megawatts of electricity at full capacity. Dominion Energy will supply the facility, which will require building a substation.

According to a Dominion letter to the county’s economic development manager, the Fortune 500 utility expects distribution line upgrades to take about 18 months, for an expansion and upgrade of the existing substation to take about three years and for the construction of a new substation and transmission line to take about four years.

Earlier this month, Dominion Energy Virginia and Amazon.com announced they’d entered into an agreement to explore potential development of small modular nuclear reactors at North Anna Power Plant in Louisa County that could bring “at least 300 megawatts of power to the Virginia region.”

Former NFL, U.Va. football player indicted on embezzlement charges

Real estate developer Christopher A. Harrison, a former University of Virginia and NFL football player, was indicted last week on federal embezzlement charges connected to a downtown Richmond residential project and Petersburg’s former Ramada Inn, which he purchased in 2018 to redevelop.

According to a news release by the U.S. Department of Justice, a grand jury at the Eastern District of Virginia federal court returned an indictment Oct. 15 against Harrison, charging him with wire fraud and mail fraud, which carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence; engaging in monetary transactions with criminally derived property, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years; and aggravated identity theft, which has a mandatory minimum prison term of two years.

A Washington, D.C., resident, Harrison allegedly used more than $22 million in bank loans for development and construction of two development projects in Richmond and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for other uses, including expenses related to the Petersburg Ramada Inn.

The DOJ alleges that Harrison secured a $14.4 million loan from Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust to redevelop the Model Tobacco building, a downtown Richmond residence in which his company was investing $59 million to build 203 high-end apartments. He also secured a $7.7 million loan for Whitaker Park, a Winston-Salem residential development project.

Instead of using the funds for those projects, “Harrison skimmed loan proceeds … by first creating a straw demolition company, Virginia Demolition LLC, that had no employees, demolition equipment or office space,” according to the DOJ. He allegedly forged and falsified documents that purported to show that Virginia Demolition had done actual work on the two commercial real estate projects, and “is alleged to have doctored and inflated invoices in the name of a separate construction vendor for Model Tobacco, inducing CRBT to disburse inflated loan amounts. In total, Harrison allegedly submitted over a dozen falsified invoices and lien waivers in draw requests to induce CRBT to disburse over $3.6 million in loan proceeds to Harrison to satisfy purported expenditures.”

Some of that money, the DOJ alleges, went toward expenses related to the shuttered Petersburg Ramada Inn, which Harrison purchased in 2018 and promised to replace with a $20 million multiuse development that included a hotel, 100 apartments and retail space. However, in 2021, the City of Petersburg sued Harrison’s company, C.A. Harrison Cos., after the former hotel — considered an eyesore — was still standing. In 2020, Harrison said he had trouble financing the Petersburg project after he lost a $5 million tourism grant from the city, and in 2022, he sold the property back to the city.

According to the DOJ, he “allegedly used fraud proceeds to pay legal fees to a law firm for Harrison’s litigation against the City of Petersburg pertaining to the project,” as well as for personal use, including Rolex watches, mortgage payments, home landscaping, and tuition and tutoring for his child.

U.Va. dedicates Ramon W. Breeden Jr. Commerce Grounds

The University of Virginia on Friday dedicated the Ramon W. Breeden Jr. Commerce Grounds plaza and officially named “Breeden Way,” located adjacent to the McIntire School of Commerce.

The honor is in recognition of Breeden’s legacy as founder and chair of Virginia Beach-based real estate company The Breeden Co., as well as his philanthropy to U.Va., his alma matter, according to a media advisory.

In September 2023, U.Va. announced Breeden, a 1956 McIntire graduate, had given $50 million to support business education and athletics. The gift was divided between the university’s McIntire Expansion Project, a renovation and expansion of U.Va’s commerce school, and the Virginia Athletics Master Plan. 

“The McIntire School broadened my education and gave me confidence in myself. I have many friends who attended Ivy League schools, and I can stand toe to toe with them in business, as I got just as good an education and, in some cases, better,” Breeden said in an interview with Virginia Business earlier this year. “McIntire taught me not to give up and to keep pushing on in life.”

The McIntire expansion includes construction of a new building, Shumway Hall, on the southeast corner of U.Va’s lawn as well as a renovated Cobb Hall and a host of outdoor meeting areas, expanded walkways and green spaces.

The athletics plan calls for a new athletics complex, including a 90,000-square-foot home for U.Va’s football program, an Olympic sports center to support to more than 750 student-athletes and the Center for Citizen Leaders and Sports Ethics. Cavaliers celebrated the opening of the 93,000 square-foot football operations center facility opened on June

Breeden, who founded the real estate development company in 1961, served as a member of the McIntire Foundation Board from 1994 to 1996 and also served on its advisor board. In January 2022, he stepped down as president and CEO of his company, naming Timothy Faulkner his successor. Breeden also co-founded Commerce Bank, which was purchased by Branch Bank & Trust, and he then served as a state director of BB&T, now part of Truist Financial Group.

Roanoke EDA delivers on Artspace funding

Artspace, a Minnesota-based ​​nonprofit that develops affordable housing for artists and creative spaces, plans to build a mixed-use affordable housing project for artists and their families in Roanoke, at the massive Riverdale redevelopment project planned for the Southeast quadrant of the city.

“This will be their first Virginia project,” Duke Baldridge, vice-chair of the Roanoke Economic Development Authority, told members of City Council during an Oct. 7 meeting. “Not Norfolk, not Charlottesville, not Northern Virginia.”

Currently, Artspace has 59 affordable housing developments across the United States, with another 10 under construction, including the South Main Artspace lofts in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Tashiro Arts Building in Seattle.

Artspace’s project is estimated to cost $20 million, according to Baldridge. Tenants living at Roanoke’s Artspace project will need to make between 30% and 60% of the area median income, he told council members; 80% would be $48,350 for a one-person household.

In a letter dated Sept. 3, which Riverdale real estate director Ed Walker shared with the media last week, Artspace executives noted that they require local buy-in for their projects. They want $150,000 by Nov. 1 and another $300,000 by January 2025 to cover predevelopment.

The funding will allow Artspace to submit a low-income housing tax credit by mid-March 2025, according to the letter. “If it doesn’t happen now, it’s waiting a year,” Roanoke vice-mayor Joe Cobb stressed at the Oct. 7 City Council meeting.

At the meeting, it didn’t appear that Artspace could necessarily count on receiving the city’s financial support. Council member Patricia White-Boyd pointed out that October is not the time of year when city councilors draft their budget; that typically happens during the summer.

“My thing is: how do you pay for it?” she asked.

Members of Roanoke’s Economic Development Authority answered that question partially Wednesday by unanimously voting to cover the $150,000 payment, using authority funds. This buys council members more time to figure out how to cover the remaining $300,000 due in January.

“We’ve generally been enthusiastic about finding ways to support workforce housing and affordable housing,” Baldridge said Friday.

A step forward

Lucas Koski, vice president of consulting at Artspace, said the money from the EDA allows the nonprofit to “move forward” and begin the due diligence process for the Roanoke development. Construction on Artspace’s project could be completed within 36 months of receiving the tax credit, according to Artspace’s letter.

Roanoke, like most U.S. cities, is grappling with a housing shortage, especially for mid- to lower-income households. A quarter of Roanoke households live in housing that costs more than 30% of household income, according to city documents.

“We’re eager, if we can, [to] be a small part of the solutions,” said Baldridge, who is president of Dominion Risk Advisors, a personal risk management and insurance company in Roanoke.

EDA chair Braxton Naff, owner of Appalachian Craft Provisions, a catering and private chef business, said the authority members were enthusiastic about providing the funding and hopes it serves as a catalyst to rally public and private support. “We cannot think of a better project to begin filling the gap in affordable workforce housing and lay the foundation for an outdoor and arts destination in Riverdale and Southeast Roanoke.”

Walker, a real estate developer who has changed Roanoke’s landscape by developing apartments in historic buildings, forged an agreement with the city in 2023, in which the EDA loaned Walker $10 million for Riverdale. If the project’s developers invest at least $50 million in the project through 2040, the loan will be forgiven. The redevelopment will take place on 120 acres on the sprawling former campus of American Viscose, a closed rayon plant.

In a third-quarter summary about Riverdale that Walker distributed last week, he noted the project will offer as many as 750 multifamily housing units, including Artspace’s project. Residences would be in both redeveloped and new buildings that range from market rate to “very affordable,” according to the summary. Plans also call for a five-story boutique hotel with a rooftop bar, as well as a brewery, offices, recreation offerings and even a possible Airstream glamping location.

The summary notes that in the 18 months since the project began, more than 2 million pounds of debris have been removed, and an “extensive environmental remediation” has been undertaken.

“At some point it’s going to be a city within a city over there,” Naff said at the Oct. 7 city council meeting.

New leadership

When Roanoke’s former city manager, Bob Cowell, submitted his resignation in May, Walker told the Roanoke Rambler that the sudden leadership change could affect Riverdale’s rate of progress.

In June, Roanoke City Council named Lydia Pettis Patton, the first female city manager of Portsmouth, as interim city manager while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted.

During an interview last week, Roanoke economic development director Marc Nelson said he thinks Walker’s earlier comments reflected his concern about whether with Cowell’s exit, the city would continue to support the mammoth project — “whether that support would be there.”

“I think it’s very much there,” Nelson said definitively.

Cowell’s style, Nelson added, was to handle administrative details on the front end and bring matters to City Council. “As opposed to Dr. Patton, whose style is very much, ‘Let’s bring this to council and have it discussed in the open and council can make a decision,” Nelson says.

Walker said Friday he’s confident in Patton’s leadership. “There’s just no way to have imagined that somebody could … take the reins and make as make as much of a contribution as she has in a short time,” he noted.

While no action was taken by City Council on Oct. 7, a few members made no secret of their support for Riverdale and Artspace.

Bev Fitzpatrick, an interim member of Roanoke City Council and a longtime Roanoke leader, put the project in historical perspective: “When Norfolk and Western dieselized in 1958 and the Viscose plant closed in 1958, we had 10,000 people out of work. We never had that kind of challenge in Roanoke since. “

Before that happened, Fitzpatrick said Southeast Roanoke was a “middle class, strong neighborhood,” but the loss of jobs changed the area, noting the work the Presbyterian Community Center does to address homelessness and poverty in that quadrant of Roanoke.

The Riverdale development and Artspace’s project has the potential to transform Southeast, Fitzpatrick said. “I can think of nothing more important in the city than the health of Southeast and moving it forward in a fundamental way.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the details of Walker’s 2023 deal with the city. 

Hardee to retire as Lawson Cos. CEO in 2025

Lawson Cos., the Norfolk-based residential real estate development and construction company, announced Thursday 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, according to the company’s announcement. Hardee joined Lawson in 1991 as a regional property manager at Lawson Realty Corp., one of the company’s subsidiaries, and became its president in 1996. He then was promoted to vice president and chief operating officer of the parent company in 1999.

“It has been an incredible journey growing alongside Lawson. I am immensely proud of what we’ve achieved together as a team, and I have the utmost confidence in Aaron to lead Lawson into the next phase of its growth,” Hardee said in a statement. “Aaron’s leadership and financial acumen have already strengthened our position, and I know he will continue to drive the company forward.”

Aaron Phipps

Lawson, which has 190 employees, was started in Hampton Roads and is still based there, but it’s expanded into Richmond, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Woodbridge. During Hardee’s tenure, the company grew from 2,500 units under management to a development, construction and property management business with 5,100 units in its portfolio. It specializes in multifamily properties and has more than 30 new Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) communities with 3,200 affordable apartments, according to Lawson.

Phipps joined Lawson in 2013 in his current position, and he previously worked for private and publicly traded investment real estate companies, specializing in accounting and financial reporting. He is a graduate of Purdue University, while Hardee, a Gulf War veteran, is an alumnus of Virginia Military Institute.

VCU eyes purchasing Altria’s Richmond research facility

Officials with Virginia Commonwealth University are discussing with the Altria Group the possibility of buying its 450,000-square-foot research building in downtown Richmond, the two parties acknowledged separately this week. 

The Altria Center for Research and Technology, which opened in 2007, sits on more than four acres at 600 E. Leigh St. and is assessed for $275 million. School executives have been holding “active discussions with state budget leaders” about purchasing it, VCU spokesperson Grant Heston noted in a statement. 

“Though the building was not listed for sale, Altria agreed to discuss a potential sale when approached by VCU and the Commonwealth of Virginia,” David Sutton, a spokesperson for Altria, the parent company of tobacco products manufacturer Philip Morris USA, said in a statement. 

Sutton added that if the deal comes to fruition, Altria plans to construct a new research facility in Richmond, likely at Philip Morris USA’s Manufacturing Center complex, located near Interstate 95 in South Richmond.

In 2022, the National Science Foundation included VCU for the first time on a list of the top 50 public research universities. 

“This recognition comes despite significant need for new, modern research facilities,” Heston said. “Additional research space is a priority for VCU, Richmond and the Commonwealth and is crucial to delivering new drugs, medical devices, pharmaceutical advancements and breakthroughs in disease prevention and treatments.”

VCU’s Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center and Medicines for All Institute, an initiative to improve global access to medicines, as well as some of the university’s academic health sciences programs such as the School of Pharmacy, could move into the new facility. The space, Heston stated, also “would help the health system add more fully private rooms to the VCU Medical Center.”

Constructing a new building the size of the research facility would likely cost more than $700 million and take at least a decade, according to Heston.

VCU has not set a timetable for making a decision. Any agreements would need to be reviewed and approved by the VCU Board of Visitors, the Virginia General Assembly and the governor’s office, according to the university’s statement.

VCU and VCU Health have had a controversial history with downtown development deals in recent years. In spring 2023, news broke that the university’s health system was planning to pay developers $72.9 million to back out of a $325 million downtown development project with higher costs than the university had anticipated.

Known as the Clay Street Project, VCU planned to build a medical office tower and a multiuse project at the site of the City of Richmond-owned Public Safety Building at 10th and Clay streets. Ultimately, VCU paid about $5 million to demolish the Public Safety Building in a promise to the city — bringing the university’s costs to nearly $80 million. VCU Health also had an agreement with the city government to pay about $56 million to make up for lost tax revenue, but the city and VCU Health have not yet reached an agreement over that money. Ultimately, state watchdog JLARC recommended changes in governance for the health system. In September, VCU Health’s board voted at the request of VCU President Michael Rao to eliminate his dual title as VCU Health president, noting the “title was misleading as it implied an operational role which did not exist.”  

Since real estate owned by VCU would likely be tax exempt, the city’s coffers could take a hit if VCU’s deal to acquire Altria’s research facility becomes a reality. 

In a brief response to a request for comment, Margaret Ekam, a city spokesperson, said in a statement, “At this time, we are still gathering information about the proposed plan.” 

Dropping anchor

LS GreenLink USA spent two years on site selection, scouring much of the East Coast for the right location to build a 750,000-square-foot factory to manufacture subsea cables for offshore wind farms.

Then it landed on Chesapeake.

Patrick Shim, LS GreenLink’s managing director, cited several reasons for the company’s decision: access to the Port of Virginia, the approximately 15,000 veterans who enter the civilian workforce each year in the region, and the state, regional and local economic development support for companies like his.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in any other region out there,” Shim says.

In July, LS GreenLink, a U.S. subsidiary of South Korea’s LS Cable & System, announced it would build the United States’ first offshore wind subsea cable factory at the Deep Water Terminal Site in Chesapeake, creating an estimated 381 jobs and investing $681 million. 

The port has remained a large attraction for retailers and developers looking to invest in Hampton Roads. Industrial real estate had a 2.3% vacancy rate for the second quarter of 2023, which slipped to 3.6% for the second quarter of 2024, according to Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. But that’s still well below the national rate of 6.6%, according to real estate company JLL.

A national slowdown in imports and rising interest rates are to blame for some of that increase, says Geoff Poston, senior vice president of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s industrial group. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Hampton Roads lagged behind other markets, like Savannah, Georgia, in spec building before the pandemic, but that’s changed in recent years, and more spec buildings are coming online. This contributes to the boost in the region’s vacancy rate, but Poston notes that Hampton Roads remains “in a much healthier position than most other industrial markets.”

That includes Savannah, which posted a 7.9% industrial vacancy rate for the second quarter of 2024.

“We’ve just got through an all-time record historical industrial market, and so this is a little more normal, although the developers, you know, they’d love to have more activity,” Poston says.

The port’s draw

The Port of Virginia’s shipping channel opened to two-way traffic for ultra-large container vessels in March, reducing turnaround time by 15%, according to the port. A central rail expansion that will allow it to handle an extra 455,000 20-foot-equivalent containers (TEUs) a year, bringing the total rail capacity to 1.8 million TEUs annually, was finished in early August.

The port processed 3.5 million TEUs in fiscal 2024, a 2% increase over 2023 and the second best year in its history.

Lang Williams, an executive vice president and principal with Colliers International Virginia and vice president of the Virginia Maritime Association, says trends are reversing, and cargo is beginning to again flow more freely. Coupled with the port’s improvements, he expects the more recent lag in vacancies “will start to go away.”

That could be good news for large projects underway, including more than 3.6 million square feet spread across 11 spec buildings that are either being constructed or anticipated, Colliers reported. That’s on top of four such buildings, totaling more than 1.4 million square feet, completed last year.

Developers Matan and the Rockefeller Group are planning a 5 million-square-foot industrial park on 500 acres in Suffolk, with five spec buildings, two of which are set to be completed by the end of 2025.

“They’re having really good activity for those buildings, and maybe some other activity as well,” Deputy City Manager Kevin Hughes says. Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in July that the City of Suffolk would receive $30.1 million to widen a 2.3-mile stretch of Route 460 to support the development.

Other high-profile projects are also continuing. Amazon.com is on track to complete a 219,000-square-foot delivery station in Virginia Beach in time for the 2024 holiday season, and a robotics fulfillment center, in an adjacent space, is set to be complete in late 2025, company spokesperson Sam Fisher says.

Also in August, the City of Chesapeake received a $35 million grant from the state’s Virginia Business Ready Sites Program to help extend utility infrastructure to the 1,400-acre Coastal Virginia Commerce Park, according to Steven Wright, the city’s economic development director. The state has looked to the megasite as a possible location for a semiconductor or microchip manufacturer. While Chesapeake is continuing to look for funding for development, Wright says it is close to reaching Tier 4 status.

“Everyone that calls is curious about what is the status of the infrastructure to support the property,” Wright says.

  

ACI doubles its Chesterfield HQ

Commercial and industrial contractor Atlantic Constructors Inc. (ACI) is doubling its headquarters in Chesterfield County, a roughly $25 million project.

The contractor, which provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection products and services, plans to open a second 170,000-square-foot building on 18 acres beside its existing building, which sits on 25 acres, in early November. The facility will be primarily used for warehouse and manufacturing space, with some office space.

“Since so much of our work is non-office-based, that’s how we set up our facilities. They’re a large manufacturing center, along with some office that supports it,” said ACI CEO Evan Shriver.

The company will create modular construction components in the new facility, expanding its production.

“We’re dedicating that space to building some structural steel components that we can then put the main piping systems, electrical systems, plumbing systems and fire protection systems together on, and then ship them all across the country to then build the buildings in sections like that,” Shriver said.

“But it’s mainly achieved by building it here in our factory in Richmond,” he added, “as opposed to having to find skilled tradesmen across the country and move those people around. It’s much easier to just build it in a controlled environment and then ship it out there.”

ACI currently has 1,200 employees and plans to hire up to 100 people to work in the second headquarters building, likely within the first two years of its opening, Shriver said. The company expects to have about 50 people working in the facility when it opens.

As of Aug. 30, the exterior of the new building was complete. Over September, the company is working on final landscaping and the paving of parking lots and roads. Interior drywall and paint finishes are ongoing.

ACI began planning the expansion in 2019, Shriver said, and physical construction started in early 2023.

“This is part of the strategic vision of the company … to maximize offsite construction through modular building, and that increases safety, quality and productivity and helps remove geographic barriers so we can then pursue projects all across the country,” he said.

While a construction site has factors outside of a contractor’s control, a controlled environment like a manufacturing facility reduces safety risks and has the advantage of automated machinery, Shriver added.

ACI works on large commercial buildings for health care, advanced manufacturing, data centers, higher education, chemicals manufacturers and other industries. In addition to its Chesterfield County facilities, the contractor has offices in Roanoke, Sterling and Suffolk, as well as in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 2022, the company expanded its presence in Roanoke and Hampton Roads.

Peterson Cos. names president

Daniel McCahan, most recently chief operating officer of Madison Marquette, will become president of Fairfax-based real estate developer Peterson Cos. on Sept. 9.

McCahan worked at Washington, D.C.-based real estate investment firm Madison Marquette for 13 years, first joining as a senior vice president.

“We are pleased to welcome Daniel McCahan as president of Peterson Cos.” Jon Peterson, Peterson Cos.’ CEO and chairman of the executive committee, said in a statement. “Dan brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of success in the both the commercial and residential real estate sectors, making him a valuable addition to our leadership team.”

As a senior vice president at Madison Marquette, McCahan managed the development of a 3 million-square-foot-plus portfolio and managed the company’s day-to-day activity as co-developer of The Wharf.

Before joining Madison Marquette, McCahan held executive roles at Archstone, where he contributed to the $700 million CityCenterDC project, and Urban Atlantic, where, as a project manager, he was responsible for Henson Ridge, a residential redevelopment of a former public housing site in Washington, D.C.

A Washington, D.C., resident, McCahan holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Founded in 1965 by the late Milton V. Peterson, the privately held Peterson Cos. developed multiple major mixed-use projects in Northern Virginia and Maryland, including National Harbor in Maryland, home to the MGM National Harbor casino resort; the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center; The Capital Wheel; Fairfax Corner; Fair Lakes; Burke Centre; and Tysons McLean Office Park.

LL Flooring sells Henrico distribution center for $104M

Read more: LL Flooring to sell 219 stores; 211 other stores set to close

LL Flooring has sold its eastern Henrico County distribution center to a limited liability company for $104.75 million, according to documents the Henrico-based flooring company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

Formerly known as Lumber Liquidators, LL Flooring filed for bankruptcy in August and announced it was pursuing a sale of its business, according to SEC documents. Before entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, however, the company worked with JLL to find a buyer for its 995,792-square-foot distribution center on 97.55 acres in Sandston.

SNA NE LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, is the buyer of that property, and according to federal bankruptcy court documents, is “the largest landowner in the White Oak Technology Park,” where the LL Flooring property is located. In a document filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Aug. 30, Chad Williams signed an agreement as CEO of the purchaser, SNA NE LLC. Williams is chairman and CEO of Kansas-based QTS Data Centers, which has built a data center campus in Henrico County’s White Oak Technology Park and announced in 2022 plans to expand it by 1.5 million square feet. As of July, QTS has purchased all 622 acres of White Oak Technology Park II but did not share project details.

Under the LL Flooring contract’s terms, the buyer will lease back the building to LL Flooring for six months at no cost, and the flooring company can terminate the lease on 60 days’ notice. The deal must be approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Brendan L. Shannon, and the parties are set to hold a hearing Wednesday. The transaction is expected to close Sept. 30.

According to Henrico County property records, an LLC connected with LL Flooring owns the 97.55-acre property at 6115 Technology Creek Drive, which is adjacent to two plots of land owned by QTS Data Centers.

In its August bankruptcy filing, LL Flooring said it planned to close 94 stores out of its more than 300 stores across the country. In 2019, LL Flooring was forced to pay $33 million to settle allegations of securities fraud, and sales fell in fiscal 2023 to $904.7 million, down from $1.11 billion in fiscal 2022. In June 2023, LL Flooring’s board rejected an unsolicited acquisition proposal from Cabinets to Go, a subsidiary of F9 Brands, which then began a proxy fight.

Representatives for LL Flooring and Henrico County declined to comment on the transaction, and QTS did not respond immediately to a request for comment.