BWXT to invest $65M in new Campbell County campus

Lynchburg-based nuclear components and fuel supplier BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) will build out and upfit a center for manufacturing and research and development adjacent to its Campbell County facility, creating 97 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Friday. The Fortune 1000 company plans to invest $65 million over the next three years, a Virginia Economic Development Partnership spokesperson said.

Dubbed the BWXT Innovation Campus, the facility will be on 11 acres acquired by the Fortune 1000 company last year. BWXT will relocate 150 employees from nearby facilities to the campus, including its nuclear services group and the division that designs and produces microreactors and nuclear fuels for space exploration and national security for customers that include NASA and the U.S. departments of defense and energy.

In a May 2020 deal, BWXT divested its U.S.-based commercial nuclear services business to Lynchburg-based Framatome Inc., acquiring 11 acres and a 118,000-square-foot building on Mt. Athos Road in Campbell County from Framatome. Chris Dumond, BWXT’s communications manager, said the company will build out and upfit the building, which is adjacent to BWXT’s million-plus-square-foot manufacturing plant.

The governor’s office said in its announcement that BWXT plans to make significant capital improvements to the facility through 2023, and the 97 additional jobs will have an average salary of $115,000 per year.

Earlier this month, one of BWXT’s joint ventures, Savannah River Mission Completion LLC, won an Energy Department contract worth up to $21 billion to handle environmental management operations at a 310-square-mile site on the Savannah River at the South Carolina-Georgia state line.