CoStar Group is accelerating its headquarters move from Washington, D.C., to Arlington County, thanks to a deal with a tenant in the headquarters building that included a $48 million early termination fee.
The global real estate data and analytics company, best known for its Apartments.com and Homes.com marketplaces, announced plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to Arlington in February. CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance told Virginia Business in mid-October that some CoStar employees were already working in the building and CoStar planned to have “a significant percentage of [its] team in the Washington metropolitan area” moved there by May 2025. Now, CoStar plans to have the headquarters move finished in early 2025.
CoStar purchased the Central Place Tower at 1201 Wilson Blvd. for a reported $339 million in February, with plans to invest $20 million in the move. CoStar also secured sole use of the previously public 12,000-square-foot observation deck at the top of the building (formerly The View of DC), paying Arlington County $13.95 million, funding the county manager has proposed be put toward the planned redevelopment of a nearby 3-acre park.
The tenant releasing office space, Connecticut-based research and advisory firm Gartner, paid CoStar a $48 million early termination fee and ceded 11 floors of the 560,000-square-foot office tower. Gartner signed a new lease for about 49,000 square feet on the 11th and 12th floors through December 2032. The deal “unlocks sufficient space” for CoStar to relocate its headquarters, according to CoStar’s Nov. 1 news release.
“We’ve always intended for 1201 Wilson to become CoStar Group’s headquarters, but this agreement makes it possible for us to complete that process even faster and to better accommodate our continued rapid growth and expansion,” Florance said in a statement.
CoStar’s lease on its current headquarters — 1331 L St. NW in Washington, D.C. — is set to expire in 2025. The company bought the building for more than $41 million in 2010 and sold it in 2011 for $101 million, completing a sale-leaseback deal for a more than 140% return.
The real estate data and analytics firm has heavily invested in Virginia, with a $460.5 million expansion of its Richmond presence underway and expected to be completed in 2026. When complete, its Corporate Innovation Campus is set to have 1 million square feet of office space.
CoStar reported $2.46 billion in 2023 revenue. Founded in 1986, it has more than 6,400 employees.
When CoStar Group was searching for its new headquarters in 2022, Central Place Tower at 1201 Wilson Blvd. in Arlington County, with its impressive accompanying bird’s-eye views, captured the company’s attention.
Located about a quarter mile from the Potomac River, the gleaming, 391-foot-tall Class A office building features floor-to-ceiling windows across its 31 stories, reflecting the sky, all topped off by a 12,000-square-foot observation deck providing a panoramic view of the area and D.C. landmarks like the Washington Monument. The deck’s three stories of windows and a terrace looked like it would make an ideal meeting place for a company flying in clients from places like Los Angeles, London and Singapore.
Outside the 560,000-square-foot building, a 16,000-square-foot outdoor plaza provides a place to take a break or eat lunch, and across the street stands the Rosslyn Metro station, where passengers can catch a train to either of the region’s two major airports.
“What really appealed to us was the opportunity to have a significant presence up in Rosslyn on a transportation hub … and something that’s a real iconic building [where] we could gather folks coming from around the world for meetings and the like,” explains CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance.
CoStar, a global real estate data and analytics company best known for its Apartments.com and Homes.com brands, first contacted the Virginia Economic Development Partnership about potentially relocating its corporate headquarters to Virginia from Washington, D.C., in September 2022. During CoStar’s assessment of more than 25 sites in D.C., Arlington and Fairfax County, the company narrowed in on Central Place Tower.
But the building came with a challenge for CoStar: The observation deck, then called The View of DC, came with a county easement that kept it open to the public as a tourist attraction and events space. The View of DC recorded 32,188 visits in 2023, of which about 27,000 were from non-Arlington residents.
“For us,” Florance says, “when we’re trying to bring people in from around the world and having these meetings and partner meetings and staff and client training, having a special space to gather people was important, and having public access and secure, confidential meetings would be difficult or not feasible.”
That’s when Arlington rolled up their sleeves. To address the easement question, explains Arlington Economic Development Director Ryan Touhill, his team worked with the county’s planners, attorney’s office and board “to determine, ‘Could we unwind that?’ and that way, that could give CoStar full access to this prime, trophy office building, and then [the county could] use the funding that we would get from that to reinvest in the neighborhood.”
In February, CoStar announced it would relocate its corporate headquarters to Central Place Tower, purchasing the building for a reported $339 million with plans to invest $20 million in the move. The company is formulating its renovation plans for the building, including lobby and security improvements.
Some CoStar employees are already working at Central Place Tower, and the company plans to have “a significant percentage of [its] team in the Washington metropolitan area” based there by May 2025, Florance says, with all corporate headquarters staff moving to the building by the end of 2025.
CoStar reached a deal to obtain sole use of the observation deck, paying Arlington County $13.95 million, funding the county manager proposed to be used toward the planned redevelopment of the nearby 3-acre Gateway Park, home to the annual Rosslyn Jazz Festival.
In July, the Arlington County Board approved a site plan amendment and a zoning ordinance amendment allowing CoStar private use of the observation deck and allocated the funds for the park’s redevelopment.
“This actually helped accelerate the redevelopment of that park space by nearly a decade, and so now we’ll have a truly world-class amenity in the heart of Rosslyn that will benefit those folks that come to work there every day,” Touhill says. “It’ll benefit the residents and any visitors that we bring to the park.”
Arlington’s negotiations with CoStar to reach an agreement on the observation deck is one example of the flexibility Virginia state and local officials demonstrate when attracting and retaining large economic development projects, including multiple major corporate headquarters relocations.
Lay of the land
Twenty-four Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Virginia, not counting Amazon.com, which officially opened its East Coast headquarters, HQ2, in Arlington’s National Landing area in June 2023. Additionally, since 2020, huge companies like ASGN, Boeing, RTX and CoStar have announced headquarters moves to Virginia.
Winning Amazon’s HQ2 in 2018 was a coup for Virginia, which triumphed over nearly 240 competing bids from other cities and states.
HQ2 was “a real catalyst in some ways,” says VEDP President and CEO Jason El Koubi. “I think it sent a signal to the rest of the world that Virginia is America’s East Coast tech hub, that Virginia is sort of America’s corporate hometown, a place where you have a real density of corporate headquarters that are thriving.”
Along with state and local officials’ willingness to negotiate, Virginia has attracted corporations like Amazon because of its business-friendly environment, educated workforce, location and track record.
Although the state’s recent headquarters wins have garnered big headlines, it’s not a new phenomenon. In past decades, Virginia has been the corporate base for companies like ExxonMobil, AOL, Circuit City and A.H. Robins Co. And it’s currently home to international defense contracting giants like Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.
The commonwealth historically has had success attracting major headquarters, says Todd Haymore, managing director of Hunton Andrew Kurth’s global economic development, commerce and government relations consultancy and a former Virginia secretary of commerce and trade.
“Look at the broad scope of time,” Haymore says. “It’s not just happening in the last couple of years; it’s happened across decades, and I think it’s fostered by the fact that we are recognized as that pro-business, pro-growth, pro-job creation state.”
For instance, Virginia is a right-to-work state, meaning employees cannot be required to join a union as a condition of employment.
Factors such as these, along with the state’s strong foundation in higher education and workforce training, have contributed to Virginia’s record six wins as CNBC’s Top State for Business in the cable business news network’s annual rankings for 2024, 2021, 2019, 2011, 2009 and 2007.
Also aiding the state’s business-friendly reputation is its stable regulatory environment.
“Companies generally look at Virginia and say, ‘OK, doesn’t matter who’s in the governor’s mansion, doesn’t matter who’s controlling the General Assembly, it’s still going to be pro-business.’ That means a lot,” Haymore says.
CoStar worked with local and state officials, including multiple gubernatorial administrations, on bringing its campuses to Virginia and expanding its footprint in Richmond.
“Virginia generally is very supportive in their economic development efforts to help make it easy for companies like ours to make the sort of massive investments necessary to move your location into the state. They’ve been very supportive. They have gone the extra mile,” Florance says.
The state’s fiscally responsible as well, El Koubi points out. In November 2023, Fitch Ratings affirmed the Virginia government’s AAA long-term issuer default rating, the highest rating Fitch issues. In September, S&P Global Ratings affirmed the commonwealth’s AAA long-term rating on its general obligation debt outstanding, though its appropriation-backed debt received an AA+ rating. Virginia first received an AAA rating from S&P Global in 1962.
Additionally, the commonwealth has maintained a corporate income tax rate of 6% since 1972. “From a tax and regulatory standpoint, Virginia is a very reasonable, predictable, stable operating environment for businesses,” El Koubi says.
That steady corporate tax rate can reduce costs for businesses relocating from other states, providing a competitive advantage for Virginia. For example, neighbors Maryland and Washington, D.C., have an 8.25% corporate income tax rate.
Sweetening the pot
Along with Fairfax County’s location, a factor in Hilton’s decision to relocate its headquarters there in 2009 from Beverly Hills, California, was that the move would significantly reduce operating costs, according to the Fortune 500 global hotelier.
“Northern Virginia places Hilton strategically in a central location near our nation’s capital, where we’ve had the benefit of operating in a stable business climate and have simultaneously reduced our operating costs,” Hilton’s senior vice president and global head of talent, Christine Maginnis, said in a statement to Virginia Business.
Similarly, while not always related to company costs, incentive packages offered by Virginia and its localities also help secure large economic development projects like headquarters relocations and major corporate campuses.
For example, CoStar’s Richmond campus, which predates its headquarters move to Arlington by nearly a decade, demonstrates the state’s success in tailoring benefits for companies.
In 2016, CoStar announced it would build a research and technology center in Richmond. Five years later, the company announced a $460.5 million expansion of its Richmond presence into its Corporate Innovation Campus, housing sales, marketing, software development and various other functions. CoStar expects to create 1,984 jobs and have 1 million square feet of office space in the expanded riverfront campus, which is expected to be completed in 2026.
As part of the benefit package for CoStar’s Richmond expansion, the state legislature approved a $15 million grant fund reimbursing the company for public infrastructure improvements, including commuter access and parking and pedestrian access. If, however, CoStar does not reach at least 90% of its pledged job creation and capital investment by Dec. 31, 2028, the company will have to repay an amount proportional to any missed targets.
For CoStar’s Arlington headquarters relocation, Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved $3.5 million for a Virginia Economic Development Incentive Grant (a performance-based cash grant), and a $1.25 million grant for Arlington County from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund, a cash grant awarded to local governments on behalf of a company to offset or reimburse certain project-related costs.
Nevertheless, economic incentives are generally just one of several factors that companies consider when locating headquarters or other major assets in Virginia, not the deciding factor.
For instance, when Boeing announced it would relocate its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington in May 2022, the Fortune 100 aerospace and defense contractor did not receive discretionary state incentives. Nor did Fortune 100 defense contractor RTX, at the time branded as Raytheon Technologies, which announced in June 2022 that it would move its headquarters from Massachusetts to Arlington.
Planning ahead
Access to an educated labor force is another important component of a company’s considerations when locating a headquarters, and another place where Virginia is strong.
“I would say that one of the key things that attracted us to Virginia is the higher education system — Virginia Tech, VCU, James Madison, just a whole range of great educational institutions [that] gave us the confidence that we would have the workforce we’d need,” says CoStar’s Florance.
In U.S. News & World Report’s education rankings for states, Virginia ranks No. 10 in education overall, No. 9 in pre-K-12 education and No. 20 for higher education.
In Arlington, 78% of the county population holds a bachelor’s or higher degree, according to the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey one-year estimate.
Additionally, Virginia is ripe to target businesses seeking tech talent. Part of the state’s successful bid to land Amazon HQ2, Virginia’s Tech Talent Investment Program aims to produce 31,000 in-demand computer science and related graduates in the next two decades. The program is 2 1/2 years ahead of schedule, according to El Koubi.
It also showed Virginia’s commitment to a long-term strategy, says Chris Lloyd, director of infrastructure and economic development with McGuireWoods Consulting: “I think that that showed that Virginia wasn’t just in it for the short term, but that we were going to build this 20-year pipeline of tech talent and obviously everything else associated with that. … Instead of thinking short term, we thought long term, and leading companies are recognizing that.”
The tech talent program has fueled large state investments in higher education infrastructure, such as Virginia Tech’s $1 billion Innovation Campus in Alexandria, which enrolled its first class in 2020 in temporary space. The campus’ first academic building is set to open in spring 2025. Meanwhile, George Mason University is building its $178 million Fuse at Mason Square, which will have 345,000 square feet for research and development labs, corporate innovation centers and related facilities.
“Almost every business operation now is in part sort of a tech operation, where, corporate headquarters included, … they need tech talent as part of their overall talent needs, and so we’re really doubling down on that and investing in our talent pipeline and solidifying that as one of Virginia’s differentiators,” El Koubi says.
When ASGN moved its headquarters from Calabasas, California, to Henrico County, announcing in 2020 that it would invest $12.4 million on the move, the decision was partly because the Fortune 1000 IT company already had a major subsidiary, Apex Systems, headquartered in Henrico, but ASGN President and CEO Ted Hanson also cited the state’s talent pipeline.
“Virginia’s strong pipeline of information technology talent for both the commercial and government sectors make it an ideal place for us to have our headquarters and continue to grow,” Hanson said in a statement at the time.
Boeing was also attracted to Virginia in part because of its talent pool, according to a statement then-CEO Dave Calhoun made during its announced relocation from Chicago: “The region makes strategic sense for our global headquarters given its proximity to our customers and stakeholders, and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent.”
Boeing had previously made a $50 million, multiyear commitment to Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus.
Location, location, location
Outside of tech talent, corporate headquarters need a large professional services core, and the Northern Virginia and Richmond regions offer that, says Lloyd. If you’re going to be establishing a headquarters, he says, “you need to have large law firms and large accounting firms and large ad firms and all the cluster around you.”
Virginia’s central Eastern Seaboard location gives it another boost in headquarters location decisions. “Virginia offers corporate headquarters companies proximity to key economic hubs around the East Coast [and] critical consumer markets,” El Koubi says.
Plus, Northern Virginia features two major airports, with Washington Dulles International Airport offering nonstop flights to 59 international destinations. And the statewide Port of Virginia system, which processed 3.5 million 20-foot equivalent units in fiscal 2024, provides convenient shipping and rail access.
“In Northern Virginia, the airports are a critical factor for a global company [that has] people coming in from around the country and around the world,” says Florance. The headquarters building in Rosslyn was particularly appealing because of its location on the Metro line between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Dulles airport, he says.
RTX’s 2022 announcement of its headquarters move to Arlington cited the Washington, D.C., region “as a convenient travel hub for the company’s global customers and employees.” And in 2009, Hilton President and CEO Christopher Nassetta touted the commonwealth’s “central location from which to operate a global organization.”
Additionally, Northern Virginia’s proximity to the nation’s capital and the Pentagon makes the region attractive for headquarters, particularly for federal contractors.
“It’s appealing to be headquartered in the D.C. area, not just from a talent access perspective or business climate perspective in Virginia, but because [companies] have close proximity to the federal government from a lobbying and government affairs standpoint,” says Michael Hartnett, JLL’s research lead for the mid-Atlantic region.
Virginia’s competitive advantages for landing corporate headquarters also have grown through the wealth of companies that have previously relocated to the commonwealth.
“Part of what makes Virginia a very business-friendly state and a very strong ecosystem for headquarters,” El Koubi explains, “is the fact that you have a very high density of corporate headquarters in Virginia. … These headquarters companies like to cluster to some extent, in part because of the talent but also because of some of the things that a corporate headquarters needs, including connectivity to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.”
On the local level, Arlington also is profiting from its record of attracting companies like Amazon, Boeing, RTX and CoStar.
“When these companies select us,” Touhill says, “it’s a vote of confidence in Arlington and Virginia’s business environment, and like-minded companies take note of that.”
Henrico County is getting a fifth Fortune 500 company. Global health care logistics and supply company Owens & Minor is moving from Hanover County to a new headquarters in Henrico’s Innsbrook Corporate Center.
The company is leasing the fourth floor of the Highwoods One building at 10900 Nuckols Road, according to Will Bradley, an executive managing director in Virginia for commercial real estate firm Newmark. Other tenants at the 130,803-square-foot Highwoods One building include LifeStance Health, a mental health care provider, and Primis Bank.
“Like many companies, Owens & Minor re-evaluated its office footprint in light of new workplace trends and the preferences of our teammates,” an Owens & Minor spokesperson said in a July 12 statement. “We recently finalized long-term plans for relocating our headquarters to a location in Innsbrook just minutes away from our current one and look forward to welcoming Richmond area teammates at the end of this year.”
In April, Newmark announced it had secured the $33.5 million sale of Owens & Minor’s 160,000-square-foot, Mechanicsville headquarters at 9120 Lockwood Blvd. in Hanover County to the Virginia Department of Transportation. In May, a VDOT spokesperson said the state agency’s central office will move to Hanover in summer 2025.
Owens & Minor has more than 20,000 employees worldwide with “hundreds of teammates that call the Richmond area home,” according to a spokesperson.
Henrico’s other Fortune 500 companies are tobacco products manufacturer Altria Group, conglomerate Markel Group, insurer Genworth Financial and convenience store and wholesale fuel company Arko.
“It’s a win for our region that … they’re going to continue to keep their headquarters in the Richmond region,” said Henrico Economic Development Authority Executive Director Anthony J. Romanello of the move, describing Highwoods One as “trophy office space.” He added, “There’s certainly a significant demand for very high-quality office space right now, and Innsbrook has that.”
Owens & Minor reported $10.3 billion in 2023 revenues, up from $9.9 billion in 2022.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has purchased the Mechanicsville headquarters of Owens & Minor for $33.5 million, with plans to move the state agency’s central office there in summer 2025.
Much of VDOT’s staff will move from the Annex building at 1401 E. Broad St. into the new building at 9120 Lockwood Blvd. in Hanover County, according to Jessica Cowardin, assistant director of communications for the state agency. The 160,000-square-foot campus in Atlee Station Business Park was built by Timmons Group in 2006. VDOT also purchased an additional 50 acres, according to Newmark Group, which brokered the deal.
Meanwhile, Owens & Minor expects to vacate the building by the end of this year. The Fortune 500 global health care logistics and supplies company plans to relocate its corporate headquarters somewhere in the Richmond region. While declining to specify where the company would move, a company spokesperson said the move “better reflects the current needs of our organization and our teammates.” Owens & Minor has 1,400 employees in Virginia and more than 20,000 worldwide, including hundreds of workers in the Richmond area.
The move will not impact the company’s operations and is a reflection of workplace trends and worker preference, according to the company.
In November 2020, Owens & Minor announced it was pulling the plug on its 90,000-square-foot downtown Richmond call center and would be seeking tenants to sublet the space after so many workers started working remotely.
“We’re proud that Owens & Minor has called Richmond, Virginia, home for more than 100 years, and look forward to our continued presence in the local community,” a statement from the company said.
Brandon Turner, director of Hanover County Economic Development, said Monday that he doesn’t expect Owens & Minor’s next headquarters to be located in the county. “It would be very difficult because we don’t have a lot of Class A office space,” he said. “What we have is very small, and I think what they’re looking for is larger than what we have available on the market in Hanover.”
Owens & Minor moving to a new headquarters is a double-edged sword, Turner said. The company will be off the county’s tax roll and VDOT, as a Virginia state agency, will not pay taxes.
“That in and of itself is a bit of a hit,” Turner said. “On the flip side, the building is heavily underutilized right now by Owens & Minor due to their [work-from-home] policies. When VDOT comes up, they will bring significantly more individuals up here, and those people will be going out into the neighboring businesses [and] eating, buying groceries, whatever. So if you own a business in this corridor, it’s going to be a boon.”
Andrew Sandquist and Adam Faulk, JC Asensio and Adam Petrillo, Briggs Goldberg, Will Bradley and Mark Williford, all of Newmark, represented the seller on the transaction.
Owens & Minor reported $10.3 billion in 2023 revenues, up from $9.9 billion in 2022.
CoStar Group, which already has a major presence in Richmond, will invest $20 million to move its global corporate headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Arlington County’s Rosslyn area, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Tuesday.
Known for its online real estate marketplaces Apartments.com and Homes.com, the real estate analytics and data company also purchased the 560,000-square-foot Central Place Tower building at 1201 Wilson Boulevard from Bethesda, Maryland-based JBG Smith Properties and Newark, New Jersey-based PGIM Real Estate. CoStar paid $339 million for the property, according to a report from Bisnow based on CoStar’s own commercial real estate data.
About 500 corporate office employees will be relocated from downtown D.C. to Arlington, and CoStar plans to add 150 jobs at the new headquarters, where it expects to occupy 150,000 square feet in late 2024.
“The financially strategic acquisition of this building will provide the perfect home for the more than 500 employees at our current headquarters. We’re incredibly thankful for our 14 years calling Washington, D.C., home, and we will continue to be a part of this community even as we move across the river to Arlington County,” CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance said in a statement.
In making the announcement, Youngkin said, “Virginia’s a great choice for a new corporate headquarters location, and we are excited that CoStar Group, a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information, and analytics in the property markets, sees the economic advantage in moving to the commonwealth. … We are proud that CoStar has chosen Virginia as its home.”
Arlington is already home to Fortune 500 companies RTX, Boeing and AES, as well as Amazon.com’s HQ2 East Coast headquarters and Nestlé’s North American headquarters.
CoStar Group will pay $13.95 million to Arlington County to obtain exclusive, sole use of the 12,000-square-foot Observation Deck in the Central Place Tower, which was the region’s highest public observation deck, offering panoramic skyline views. At 391 feet tall, the 31-story building is also the tallest in the Greater Washington region. Designed by D.C. architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle, the building was completed in 2017. CBRE assisted with marketing Central Place. The tower’s other features include a two-story, Calacatta marble lobby with a floor-to-ceiling video wall. There’s also an outdoor public plaza offering 45,000 square feet of dining and retail space.
According to Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz, CoStar’s nearly $14 million payment to secure Observation Deck access is contingent upon approval by the county Board of Supervisors, and will be allocated toward the reconstruction of Rosslyn’s Gateway Park to be completed nearly 10 years earlier than planned. After CoStar submits required land use applications and receives approvals, the county would vacate its Observation Deck easement.
“CoStar Group’s move to Arlington is a huge win and a testament to our high quality of life, dynamic urban centers, unparalleled talent pool and business-friendly environment,” said Arlington Economic Development Director Ryan Touhill. “CoStar Group’s outright purchase of the building also signifies confidence in our commercial real estate market, which is key to our ongoing efforts to reduce office vacancies.”
Founded in 1987, CoStar employs more than 6,200 workers in 14 countries and is included in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes.
In addition to the Homes.com and Apartments.com residential real estate online portals, CoStar Group’s other divisions include CoStar, a provider of commercial real estate data, analytics and news; LoopNet, a leading online marketplace for commercial real estate; Ten-X, the world’s largest online commercial real estate exchange; and STR, a hospitality data and analytics division it acquired in 2019. CoStar may be best known by the general public for its Apartments.com advertisements with movie star Jeff Goldblum, including a big-budget, special effects-heavy 2024 Super Bowl ad.
In November 2022, CoStar broke ground on its $460 million expansion in downtown Richmond, where the company employs more than 1,000 people at its research and data analytics headquarters, established in 2016. CoStar has said it plans to add 2,000 employees to the city’s local workforce when its new, 750,000-square-foot Richmond campus is expected to open in 2026.
Last year, CoStar made an $18 million commitment toward Virginia Commonwealth University’s CoStar Center for Arts and Innovation in Richmond. The $253 million center, which could begin construction this year, will house VCU’s School of the Arts and interdisciplinary programs involving business, sciences, medicine and engineering.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Arlington Economic Development to secure CoStar’s headquarters relocation for Virginia. Youngkin approved a $1.25 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Arlington with this project, and he also approved a $3.5 million Virginia Economic Development Incentive Grant for the project. Funding and services to support the company’s workforce training needs will be provided through VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional details of CoStar’s acquisition of Central Place Tower.
Framatome, a French nuclear power company with its United States headquarters in Lynchburg, will invest $49.4 million to expand, modernize and enhance its facilities, creating an estimated 515 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Thursday.
The expansion will meet increased demand for servicing existing nuclear power plants and developing solutions for advanced and small nuclear reactors. At the end of October, Framatome had 1,350 employees in Lynchburg, where it has had a presence since 1989. Framatome designs, services and installs components, fuel and instrumentation and control systems for nuclear power plants worldwide.
“We are building the world’s leading nuclear energy hub right here in Virginia, thanks to the continued growth of industry leaders like Framatome,” Youngkin said in a statement. “The commonwealth is implementing an all-of-the-above energy plan to ensure abundant, reliable, affordable and clean energy, and Framatome is key to increasing our workforce in this critical technology for our future. Virginia can set the standard when it comes to energy innovation and has a pipeline of world-class talent prepared to meet demand.”
Virginia competed with North Carolina and Pennsylvania for the project.
In 2018, Framatome moved its North American headquarters from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Lynchburg and now has three operational and corporate sites in Lynchburg for its fuel, installed base and instrumentation and control (I&C) business units.
The company also operates its Framatome Nuclear Technology Academy at Lynchburg’s Central Virginia Community College, with the academy announcing a major revamp in May.
“The greater Lynchburg region and the commonwealth of Virginia have been Framatome’s North American base of operations for over a half-century. Now, we’re strengthening our commitment to our home and our shared goal of safe, reliable, low-carbon power generation,” Kathy Williams, CEO of Framatome North America, said in a statement. “Our extensive investments in facility expansion and modernization, broadening our labor pool and escalating recruitment will help energize our community and align us with the Commonwealth of Virginia as catalysts in the transition to a clean energy future.”
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the City of Lynchburg to secure the project. Youngkin approved a $5 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Development Opportunity Fund to assist Lynchburg with the project. Framatome is eligible to receive state benefits from the Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit for full-time jobs created, as well as benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. VEDP will also provide support to Framatome through its Virginia Talent Accelerator Program.
Engineering and design firm Timmons Group topped off the last steel beam of its new, $50 million headquarters Friday at Chesterfield County’s Springline at District 60 mixed-use development.
The five-story, 150,000-square-foot building is part of the $210 million, 42-acre first phase of the county’s Springline at District 60 development, located on Midlothian Turnpike off Chippenham Parkway. Chesterfield County cleared the way for development in March by starting demolition on the former Best Products building in what was the Spring Rock Green shopping center.
“The topping off of the building marks an important milestone for the project,” Timmons President and CEO Brian Bortell said in a statement. “Hourigan [Group] is making extremely good progress with construction, and we are excited that very soon our employees will be in a new office building located in District 60.”
Construction on the Timmons office building started in August and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2024. The new headquarters is about a mile away from the company’s current office. The building will house about 400 Timmons employees and is fully leased. It will also house the administrative offices of the Chesterfield County Public Schools and the county’s Department of Economic Development.
“Having the Timmons Group’s office building at the Springline development keeps their corporate headquarters in Chesterfield and allows them to grow their talented workforce,” Mark Miller, the Midlothian District representative for the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “People are telling us they want high-quality places to live, work and play in Chesterfield, and Springline will deliver on that vision.”
Chesterfield previously marked a milestone in the Springline project with the groundbreaking of The James at Springline, an $80 million apartment building with ground-floor retail space, in late September.
The first phase of Springline at District 60 also will have a 150,000-square-foot office building, a sports entertainment and tournament venue, a specialty grocery store and a parking garage. The center of the site will be an open space that can host concerts, markets, festivals or other similar events.
The Chesterfield Economic Development Authority bought the land from Bond Cos. in 2021 for $16 million, and the county supervisors approved the development plan in April 2022. At the time of rezoning in 2022, the initial development cost estimate for the overall project was $675 million, according to a project spokesperson.
Remaining phases are still in planning stages. As of March, the county expected to have 1,200 residential units total, split between apartments and townhouses, and plans to add another office building, an extended-stay hotel, entertainment venues and a police station.
Three weeks after U.S. Sen. Mark Warner lambasted a decision to place the FBI headquarters in Maryland instead of Springfield as “corrupt,” the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. General Services Administration said Thursday it would launch an investigation immediately, according to a letter made public by Warner’s office.
In the letter dated Nov. 30, acting Inspector Gen. Robert Erickson wrote that his office “is initiating an evaluation of GSA’s selection of the site. Our objective will be to assess the agency’s process and procedures for the site selection to relocate the FBI headquarters.”
The probe comes after Warner, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and almost all of Virginia’s congressional delegation — as well as FBI director Christopher Wray — all raised concerns about the GSA’s decision to build a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland, on land owned by the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority.
Although Warner, a Democrat who serves as chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, and Kaine expressed disappointment on Nov. 8 when the GSA’s choice was made public, his tone changed to anger by the next morning. Early on Nov. 9, Wray sent an email to the entire FBI workforce raising concerns that a former political appointee to the GSA who previously worked at WMATA had overridden the recommendation of a three-person panel — including two longtime GSA officials and one career FBI official — that the FBI headquarters be placed in Springfield, in southern Fairfax County, on property owned by the GSA.
Upon reading a draft of the GSA executive’s report, FBI officials “expressed concern that elements of the site selection plan were not followed,” Wray wrote. “In particular, the FBI observed that, at times, outside information was inserted into the process in a manner which appeared to disproportionately favor Greenbelt, and the justifications for the departures from the panel were varied and inconsistent.” He also wrote that FBI officials “raised a serious concern about the appearance of a lack of impartiality by the GSA senior executive, given the executive’s previous professional affiliation with the owner of the selected site.”
According to an Engineering News-Record article, Nina M. Albert, WMATA’s former top real estate official, was appointed commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service in 2021 by the Biden White House. However, Albert left the GSA and became Washington, D.C.’s deputy mayor of planning and economic development in October, according to The Washington Post. Wray did not include Albert’s name in his email.
In the hours after Wray sent his email, Kaine, Warner, Youngkin and U.S. Reps. Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly, Jen Kiggans, Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, Abigail Spanberger, Jennifer Wexton and Rob Wittman sent out a statement condemning “political interference” in the site selection decision. Warner went on to say during a news conference later that day that he was “shocked” at Wray’s email and called the override of the panel’s recommendation “outrageous. This whole process needs to be thrown out and restarted.”
On Nov. 15, the same group of Virginia congressional lawmakers, with the addition of U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, wrote to the GSA’s Office of the Inspector General to request an investigation into the selection process, arguing that the GSA “administered a site selection process fouled by political considerations and alleged impropriety – one that was repeatedly curated to arrive at a predetermined outcome.”
The letter continues, stating that the political appointee, again unnamed in the elected officials’ letter, “promptly left the federal government” after directing that the FBI headquarters be built in Maryland, “implicating Congress’s ability to engage with this individual in an oversight capacity. In defending the indefensible, GSA has decided to proceed with the selection of Greenbelt over the objections of its client agency, the FBI. These facts, when taken together, paint an ugly picture of a fatally flawed procurement that demands further investigation.”
Thursday, after receiving Erickson’s letter confirming the investigation, the same group of Virginia congressional leaders issued a statement praising the decision: “We applaud the inspector general for moving quickly and encourage him to move forward to complete a careful and thorough review. In the meantime, the GSA must pause all activities related to the relocation until the IG’s investigation is complete.”
The director of communications at Albert’s office said Thursday they had no comment at this time.
The new FBI headquarters would replace the aging J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, D.C. A second location in Prince George’s County, Maryland, was under consideration in addition to the Greenbelt and Springfield properties. In the past two years, the Springfield site has been promoted by Kaine, Warner and Youngkin as a natural fit for the headquarters, where between 750 and 1,000 people would work, due to its proximity to the FBI’s Quantico training facility and other intelligence sites. The project also is expected to bring thousands of other jobs and an economic boost to the region.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said Nov. 9 that the General Services Administration’s selection of Greenbelt, Maryland, instead of Fairfax County for the new FBI headquarters was a “corrupt” process, and that he expected better from the Biden administration.
Warner’s comments followed an email that day from FBI Director Christopher Wray to the agency’s entire workforce, saying that a former political appointee to the GSA overrode a three-person panel’s unanimous recommendation to build the FBI’s new headquarters in Springfield.
In a bipartisan statement, Warner, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and almost all of Virginia’s congressional delegation called for a reversal of the decision, condemning “political interference” in the site selection.
The location for the new headquarters, replacing the FBI’s aging J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., has long been under discussion, with Virginia and Maryland officials competing for the new office, which is expected to bring in 750 to 1,000 jobs and an economic boost.
In a two-part site selection process, two career GSA officials and a longtime FBI official evaluated two locations in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and a location in Springfield, and the panelists unanimously recommended 58 acres in Springfield already owned by the GSA. However, during the second phase of site selection, a senior GSA executive appointed by the White House recommended the Maryland site.
Wray wrote in his email that upon reading a draft of that GSA executive’s report, FBI officials “expressed concern that elements of the site selection plan were not followed. In particular, the FBI observed that, at times, outside information was inserted into the process in a manner which appeared to disproportionately favor Greenbelt.”
FBI officials “raised a serious concern about the appearance of a lack of impartiality by the GSA senior executive,” Wray wrote. Without naming the executive, he noted that the person had worked for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which owns the Greenbelt property.
Nina M. Albert, WMATA’s former top real estate official, was named commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service in 2021. However, Albert left the GSA in October and is now Washington, D.C.’s deputy mayor of planning and economic development. Albert’s representative did not return messages seeking comment.
Warner said he and other officials will call on the Biden administration for a general inspector review. “This whole process needs to be thrown out and restarted.”
Glen Allen-based real estate company Capital Square has relocated to a new, expanded corporate headquarters in Henrico County’s Innsbrook area, not far from its original headquarters.
Capital Square has subleased the space at 4851 Lake Brook Drive in the Innsbrook Corporate Center until March 2028. The new office, which is 44,867 square feet, is more than double the size of its previous office, at 10900 Nuckols Road, also in Innsbrook.
The new office has multiple conference room configurations with a glass wall and garden views, an onsite classroom for training, updated technology, a full-service cafe, a fitness center with locker rooms, parking and other amenities.
“This workplace of the future for real estate professionals provides a sense of home, where team members can gather and brainstorm, with a positive impact on their careers and relationship with the firm. The new headquarters creates an upward spiral of success for all stakeholders,” Louis Rogers, founder and co-CEO of Capital Square, said in a statement.
Both Capital Square’s expanded development and in-house property management divisions will be housed in the space.
Since Rogers founded Capital Square in 2012, the firm has completed more than $7.5 billion in transaction volume.
Capital Square is a developer of multifamily properties and has been the largest developer of multifamily housing in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition neighborhood.
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