Central Va. Big Deal: Renaissance times
Henrico County’s near West End is seeing a renaissance. For decades, the area bordering Richmond around the Willow Lawn neighborhood has been home to mostly defunct commercial projects and old homes. But a $450 million project announced in December 2023 to renovate an old Elevance Health (formerly Anthem) campus promises to bring a “transformation” to […]
Arko names new CFO
Arko has named Robert E. Giammatteo as its chief financial officer and executive vice president, according to a Thursday announcement from the Henrico County-based Fortune 500 company that is one of the nation’s largest convenience store operators and fuel wholesalers. Giammatteo will start his new role on Jan. 2, 2024. He will also serve as […]
Henrico greenlights $450M live-work-play community
The Henrico County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12 greenlit Kinsale Center, a massive redevelopment project in the Willow Lawn area from insurance company Kinsale Capital Group and Richmond-based Marchetti Development. The $450 million mixed-use development is expected to bring nearly 700 residences, an eight-story “high end” hotel, 32,300 square feet of retail and 345,000 […]
LL Flooring receives $194M acquisition proposal
Las Vegas-based holding company Live Ventures has submitted a proposal to acquire Henrico County-based hard-surface flooring retailer LL Flooring Holdings for approximately $194.4 million in cash. Live Ventures, which specializes in the retail and flooring industries, published Thursday the letter sent by its president and CEO, Jon Isaac, to the LL Flooring board the previous […]
Love at first site
Home to eight Fortune 500 companies and three Fortune 1000 companies, metro Richmond is “punching above our weight” for a region of 1.3 million residents, says Jennifer Wakefield, president and CEO of the Greater Richmond Partnership. For the third year in a row, the Richmond region was named by Business Facilities magazine as a top […]
RVA757 Connects releases plan for global internet hub
RVA757 Connects, a nonprofit focused on regional cooperation for economic development in Richmond and Hampton Roads, released on Thursday its 10-point strategic plan for transforming the “megaregion” into the next global internet hub. Virginia is already home to the world’s largest internet hub in Loudoun County’s Ashburn area, which has the world’s greatest concentration of […]
Dominion pitches state on $70M battery storage pilot
Dominion Energy Virginia is asking the state to allow it to test two technologies that it says could lengthen the time its batteries can electrify the grid from an average of four hours to longer than four days. In a 117-page filing made Monday with the State Corporation Commission, Dominion said its Darbytown Storage Pilot […]
Manufacturing 2023: GREGORY TREPP
In 1996, Trepp joined appliance manufacturer Hamilton Beach as its director of marketing and has since held various senior and executive leadership positions within the company. In 2017, he became president and CEO, overseeing the company’s consumer, international and commercial divisions. He also previously served as the CEO of various subsidiaries, including Hamilton Beach’s Canadian [&helli[...]
Economic Development 2023: ANTHONY ROMANELLO
In the past year, Romanello was instrumental in growing Henrico’s data center footprint, as QTS Data Centers announced a 1.5 million-square-foot expansion to be completed in 2024, and the DE-CIX Richmond internet exchange opened in November 2022. In other sectors, education research firm EAB announced it was bringing 200 more jobs to Henrico, and plans […]
Finance | Insurance 2023: ALBERTO SCHIAVON
Schiavon, who joined Elephant Auto Insurance in 2017 as its head of marketing and pricing, became CEO just eight months later. The Italian executive (who shares a name with an Italian Olympic snowboarder) earned his MBA from the University of Manchester in England and his undergraduate engineering degree at the University of Padova in Italy. […]
Transportation 2023: PERRY J. MILLER
This summer, Miller was elected 2023-24 chair of the Alexandria-based American Association of Airport Executives. The world’s largest professional organization for airport managers, the association represents roughly 7,000 executives from about 875 airports and authorities. Miller also leads the Capital Region Airport Commission, which owns and operates Richmond International Airport (RIC), a po[...]
Transportation 2023: P. DALE BENNETT
Though he originally planned to pursue a law career, Bennett instead took a job for the predecessor organization of the Virginia Trucking Association. It was a job close to home for Bennett, whose father was a trucker for two decades. Nearly 40 years later, he continues to advocate for Virginia’s trucking industry. In 2019, Bennett […]