On the surface, Princess Cruises‘ decision to abandon plans to stop in historic Yorktown in favor of Norfolk would appear to be an economic blow. In reality, it may be only a slight hit, and one many area residents apparently are fine with.
Princess announced last year it would make three port calls in Yorktown during 2024. York County residents quickly raised concerns over groups of cruise passengers overwhelming their usually peaceful waterfront, and opposition mushroomed. Concerned Citizens of York County claimed more than 70% of 513 petition respondents opposed the stops, fearing crowds of tourists would disrupt the town and that the cruise ships might have a negative environmental impact.
In late January, Princess pulled the plug on Yorktown without stating a reason, saying that it would instead add three stops in Norfolk this year. York County officials chose not to comment.
Yorktown residents aren’t alone in their concerns about cruise stops. Bar Harbor, Maine, which also has a reputation as a quaint, tourist-friendly community, recently adopted restrictions on the number of cruise passengers allowed to come ashore. Several European cities, most notably Venice, also are limiting stops and visitors for similar reasons.
York County had estimated the local economic impact of the three Princess stops would have been $148,000, plus $186,000 in city docking fees.
Stephen Kirkland, executive director of Norfolk’s Nauticus maritime museum, also runs Norfolk’s cruise program and admits the switch is a boost for Norfolk, which will now have 10 stops from Princess this year. “But I’m kind of a regionalist,” he adds, “and I don’t see this as a win for Norfolk and a loss for Yorktown. These are passengers who are not going to Charleston or Baltimore; they’re staying in Hampton Roads, and when they tie up here, dozens of buses will be going up to Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg.
“Usually, 40% to 45% of the passengers stopping in town here take a shore excursion, and the No. 1 excursion is the Historic Triangle.”
Meanwhile, sentiment appears mixed among Yorktown business owners.
Marilyn West owns Auntie M’s American Cottage, an arts and crafts shop in the town’s Riverwalk Landing, and says she’s “not really” disappointed. “Even though I stood to gain from it, it just wouldn’t have been worth it. There was so much discord. And you can’t miss what you never had.”
In theory, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) would, among other things, help reduce inflation by adding transparency to container handling fees. In practice, though, it’s not that simple.
When President Joe Biden signed OSRA into law in June 2022, he touted it as a weapon against shipping costs that had soared during the pandemic. One of OSRA’s objectives was to give the Federal Maritime Commission more power over monitoring and investigating shipping practices. But almost a year later, experts say the law will have little, if any, impact on inflation.
“Most in Congress don’t really understand the shipping industry,” says Christine McDaniel, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a market-oriented think tank based at George Mason University. “They saw rising prices during COVID and thought there must be collusion. But, in fact, it was supply and demand. There was a huge spike in demand that overwhelmed supply.”
Supply not meeting demand created numerous problems, including a shortage of semiconductor chips affecting electronics and automobiles. But most noticeably, it caused shipping rates to skyrocket. During the pandemic, the charge for shipping 40-foot containers from the West Coast to China jumped from around $1,400 to more than $20,000. The cost has since dropped back to about $1,500.
“OSRA will not impact the rates charged,” says Brian Whitlock, an analyst specializing in global logistics with Connecticut-based Gartner Consulting. “OSRA gives the Federal Maritime Commission the ability to enforce the reasonableness of how rates are charged. As a result, it will likely not have a material impact on inflation.”
Joe Harris, spokesman for the Port of Virginia, says OSRA “doesn’t have a lot of bearing on” the port.
“We do not set rates,” Harris explains. “Those contracts are negotiated between the ocean carrier and cargo owner. What is important to ports is vessel schedule. When the carriers get off schedule as badly as they did during the pandemic, it’s felt at the ports.”
Shippers haven’t felt the impact of OSRA yet because the industry is waiting on the Federal Maritime Commission to rule how the law will be practically implemented, says Mike Coleman, president and CEO of Norfolk-based logistics and shipping firms CV International Inc. and Capes Shipping Agencies.
“I do not expect any appreciable impact until the final rules are implemented by the FMC, though freight providers will be preparing in advance,” he says. “OSRA was born out of the pandemic and the challenges it presented in shipping, specifically regarding equipment availability and associated costs.”
A secondary objective of OSRA is to address the issue of shipping companies refusing agricultural cargo and instead sending empty containers to foreign ports, often China, to be filled and returned. Many shippers preferred to send empty containers to China, where they could be quickly loaded with more profitable, high-demand cargo. In one two-month span in late 2020, U.S. carriers rejected almost 200,000 containers, according to a CNBC report. Under OSRA, there is more pressure on shippers to accept containers for export when space is available.
“But again, that happened during COVID, when U.S. demand for imported goods increased sharply,” says McDaniel. “So those price hikes and practices were largely the market’s response to supply and demand.”
OSRA also shifts the burden of proof in disputes from the shippers to the carriers, “a huge benefit to shippers who did not file complaints in the past due to this burden,” says Whitlock.
But, he adds, the impact of that “will rest squarely on the FMC and how they define and enforce the new rules. For example, fining Hapag-Lloyd [AG] $2 million for unfair detention charges when their first quarter [earnings before interest and taxes] exceeded $4 billion is hardly going to make a dent in ocean carrier behavior.”
McDaniel is concerned about recent discussions involving the Federal Maritime Commission that would single out ocean carriers as “special” and not subject to general antitrust regulations.
“That worries me because the big competition principles should be the same across industries and sectors,” she says. “Carving out one industry as ‘special’ is dangerous.
“The shipping industry is vital. Don’t mess it up.”
Of all those whom Pharrell Williams has made happy, Virginia Beach government officials and business owners could be at the top of the list with the return of the music superstar’s Something in the Water this spring.
Williams’ three-day music festival debuted in April 2019 at the Oceanfront and was a smash hit, with 25,000 tickets sold in less than half an hour, prompting the sale of an additional 10,000 tickets, which also sold out.
SITW‘s economic impact on Virginia Beach was $21.76 million, and the entire Hampton Roads region benefited to the tune of $24.11 million, according to a joint report from Old Dominion University and the city. Virginia Beach’s costs were roughly $1.1 million, which was covered by an estimated tax revenue of $1.19 million. Hotel occupancy for the region that weekend was 86% or higher, spreading all the way up to Williamsburg.
“It was, by far, the largest event we’ve had in Virginia Beach, period,” says John Zirkle, who operates two hotels in the city and is president of the Virginia Beach Hotel Association. Many people who didn’t even have tickets to the three-day concert came for the festival’s other activities, he adds.
City leaders are similarly excited about the prospects for the 2023 festival, which returns to Virginia Beach April 28-30, after two years of COVID-related cancellations and the festival’s 2022 detour to Washington, D.C.
In November 2022, Williams, a 49-year-old Virginia Beach native, Grammy-winning musician and businessman, was joined by the city’s mayor and other officials as he announced Something in the Water would return to the city. The announcement, which was made during Williams’ Mighty Dream forum in Norfolk, was a surprise for many, given the contentious relations between Williams and Virginia Beach officials that had spilled into public view a year earlier.
In October 2021, a letter Williams wrote to City Manager Patrick A. Duhaney landed in local media like a hand grenade. Williams was pulling the SITW festival from Virginia Beach in 2022, he wrote, saying, “I love my city, but for far too long it has been run by — and with — toxic energy.”
At his Mighty Dream business forum in Norfolk last fall, Pharrell Williams announced his music festival would be returning to his hometown, Virginia Beach, in April.Pharrell Williams photo by Mark Rhodes
Williams was angered by the city’s response following the March 2021 police killing of his cousin, Donovon Lynch, as well as what he considered negative attitudes among city leaders toward Williams’ economic development projects. Williams explained that SITW had been intended to “ease racial tension, to unify the region [and] to bring about economic development opportunities” amid spring break festivities.
Virginia Beach officials tried to change Williams’ mind, but in July 2022, Williams held the second SITW festival in Washington, D.C., with no indication he would bring it back to the beach.
“I was shocked and hurt by it, because it was such a huge success,” says George Alcaraz, who owns two restaurants in Virginia Beach as well as events promotion company Resort Management LLC. “I don’t know what [Williams] did, but I swear … it was magical.”
Seeking solutions
Planned in less than a year, the 2019 SITW festival came about after Virginia Beach’s then-police chief, James Cervera, approached Williams for help in easing racial tensions during College Beach Weekend, which attracted students from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) up and down the East Coast. In recent years, the event had been marred by violence, and some Oceanfront business owners were worried.
“They had a problem with the students when they came down [for spring break],” Williams told Virginia Business in January 2022, and Cervera “asked me what I thought we could do. He was the one that agreed with me when I said, ‘Let’s do a festival.’ The next thing you know, the hotel association, the restaurant association and all those things, they all showed up.”
Alcaraz, who helped organize the first SITW, recalls a jubilant atmosphere in April 2019. “When I saw our safety personnel out there, doing high fives and hugging our guests who came to Something in the Water … I’ve never seen that before. That was a miracle.”
But when the pandemic led to the cancellations of the 2020 and 2021 SITW festivals, “the fear built back up” surrounding the prospect of big crowds at the Oceanfront, Williams said. On top of that, he said in early 2022 that he felt city leaders were concerned more about the future of the festival than the loss of his cousin’s life. “While we have a community that’s getting to accept such toxicity and extending toxicity, I can’t be a part of that.”
Williams didn’t entirely abandon his hometown. For instance, his $340 million Atlantic Park surf park project at the Oceanfront is still in development. But he also pointedly focused more of his attention on Norfolk. He hosted his Elephant in the Room and Mighty Dream business forums in fall 2021 and 2022 there and joined a team of developers vying for the opportunity to redevelop Norfolk’s Military Circle Mall property. As of early January, Norfolk officials were still negotiating with Williams’ group about its proposal.
Williams and his spokespeople didn’t respond to interview requests for this story, and city officials declined to give many details, but Williams met with four Virginia Beach officials in New York City last August, and that’s likely when relations began to thaw.
Taylor Adams, Virginia Beach’s deputy city manager and director of economic development, joined Duhaney and then-City Council members Linwood Branch and Aaron Rouse (who is now a Virginia state senator) on the trip, which coincided with Williams throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees-Mets game.
The group discussed Atlantic Park, in which the city has a $53.4 million stake. To be located on the former Dome site between 18th and 20th streets, the surf park is being developed by Williams and Virginia Beach-based Venture Realty Group, but it has seen some delays due to financing. While the group had hoped to start construction in late 2022, a groundbreaking date still has not been set.
During the New York meeting between Williams and city officials, the Something in the Water festival also came up in conversation, Adams says, but it was not dwelled upon.
“The real intention of the meeting was really just to work on the relationship and work on getting to a more productive place in our communication with each other,” Adams says. “I think the sincerity of that gave us a way forward. It’s important to give Pharrell a lot of credit. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think there is a power in Virginia Beach being his home.”
In late 2022, the city approved making a $500,000 financial contribution to the SITW festival, as well as footing the bill for an approximately $2 million city sponsorship funded through its Tourism Investment Program. The festival’s organizers would retain admissions, meals and local sales tax revenues within the festival’s footprint between Fourth and 15th streets, as well as online ticket sales. The final sponsorship amount will be determined after the festival, and if it exceeds $2 million, City Council must vote again to approve the amount.
It may also have helped that the city agreed in December 2022 to settle a federal wrongful death lawsuit brought by Lynch’s family and estate for $3 million, though the matter was still not finalized in early January.
In his announcement that SITW was coming back home, Williams acknowledged that demand for the festival “in Virginia Beach and the 757 [region] among the people has never wavered. If anything, it has only intensified. College Beach Weekend continues every year, and the city of Virginia Beach leaders have been eager to reconcile and move forward.
“I need to come back home. There is a pervasive feeling by almost everyone that the festival belongs in Virginia Beach, and the time is right to bring it back.”
Also, with more time for preparations this year, city officials’ expectations and plans have grown. Says Adams: “This one will be larger.”
More than music
Restaurant owner and event promoter George Alcaraz, who helped organize the 2019 Something in the Water, says Pharrell’s team dealt well with logistical challenges. Photo by Mark Rhodes
The prospect of a larger Something in the Water has Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads officials understandably excited. Adams expects the city’s hotels to have a “hard sellout” well before the festival, which would be “unprecedented.”
“There are weekends in the summer where we’ll sell out the resort,” he says, “but to sell out the resort in late April, that’s unheard of.”
Zirkle, with the hotel association, agrees: “I’ve been telling folks this is kind of like getting a bonus Fourth of July weekend or Memorial Day weekend. It’s that kind of impact — with even more demand, to be honest.
“It has an effect on everybody, because these folks will be going throughout the city. Airbnbs and rental homes will be used as well — the restaurants, the attractions, the adventure parks, the aquarium — it’s just good for everybody.”
The festival’s main draw is, of course, its big-name music acts, such as Williams himself and Virginia musicians Missy Elliott, Pusha T and Dave Matthews, all of whom performed at SITW in 2019. But it also features a variety of other activities and marketing promotions. Sony and Timberland were among the brands with a presence four years ago, and this year’s festival is set to include more partnerships, as well as opportunities for local businesses to get involved.
“I’ll tell you what I love about Pharrell and his team,” says D. Nachnani, Atlantic Avenue Association president and owner of Oceanfront clothing shop Coastal Edge. “I think there’s a real thoughtfulness in bringing our business community, our art community and our music community into the fold of the overall experience.”
The city’s contract with the festival also includes language that confirms that the event is much more than just music to Williams. Under “responsibilities of the producer,” organizers will “create a festival where young people will meet others who are pushing business and culture forward,” and “where these bright young minds may find their first job out of college, or they will be inspired to start a company of their own.”
For a city that relies heavily on tourism, the festival also is a prime opportunity for positive publicity. Condé Nast’s Traveler magazine recently named Virginia Beach as one of the 23 best places to visit in the U.S. in 2023 — citing the return of Something in the Water as one of the reasons.
“After the first festival, there were articles internationally, nationally, regionally — in all sorts of publications, related to Something in the Water,” says Kate Pittman, executive director of the city’s ViBe Creative District. “That brought attention to Virginia Beach, and the ViBe District was fortunate enough to be mentioned in many of those publications. Something in the Water has had a lasting impact on the reputation of the district.”
As the festival grows, so do its logistical challenges. But if the first event four years ago is any indication, Williams’ team appears up to the task, Alcaraz says.
“The magnitude of the infrastructure and what he did throughout the resort was incredible,” he adds. “I didn’t see or hear any problems.”
There were of course some issues, mostly revolving around parking and traffic, and some restaurants complained that barriers restricted customer access and hurt their businesses. Pittman notes that the ViBe District was particularly impacted by ongoing road construction, but city officials have promised to get a better handle on traffic congestion this time around.
Another potential speed bump is the ongoing labor shortage. Staffing for hotels and restaurants continues to be a challenge everywhere and will test Virginia Beach during the festival.
But now that the city has SITW back, it hopes to never let it go.
“It was hard to see it go to D.C., losing that momentum,” Pittman says. “But we’re so, so happy to have it come back. I think everybody loves a comeback story.”
Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
Virginia Beach at a glance
What was once Princess Anne County became the city of Virginia Beach in 1963. Located where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay, the approximately 310-square-mile beachfront city is a major East Coast tourism draw. Other local industries include defense, bio and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, maritime and logistics, IT/cyber and offshore wind energy. Regent University and Virginia Wesleyan University are based in Virginia Beach, as well as campuses for Tidewater Community College, Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University.
Population
457,672
Top employers
Naval Air Station Oceana Dam Neck Annex (10,227)
Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story (5,020)
Sentara Healthcare (4,900)
GEICO General Insurance Co. (3,600)
STIHL Inc. (3,300)
Major attractions
Virginia Beach’s 3-mile boardwalk along the Atlantic Ocean draws beachgoing tourists from around the world. For a more secluded beach experience, visitors enjoy the city’s Sandbridge area, sometimes referred to as Virginia’s Outer Banks. But the resort city also has access to the Chesapeake Bay,
providing even more beach access. The city is also home to attractions such as the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, the historic First Landing State Park and the Cape Henry Lighthouse.
Top convention hotels
The Founders Inn and Spa 240 rooms, 40,000 square feet
of meeting space
Marriott Virginia Beach Oceanfront 305 rooms, 25,000 square feet
of meeting space
Holiday Inn Virginia Beach – Norfolk 317 rooms, 22,000 square feet
of meeting space
Wyndham Virginia Beach / Oceanfront 244 rooms, 16,247 square feet
of meeting space
Boutique/luxury hotels
The Cavalier Resort 400 rooms, 26,912 square feet
of meeting space
The Westin Virginia Beach
Town Center 236 rooms, 11,266 square feet
of event space
Hyatt House Virginia Beach / Oceanfront 156 rooms, 1,943 square feet
of meeting space
Beach Quarters Resort 168 rooms, 2,400 square feet
of meeting space
If all goes according to plan, towering wind turbines off the coast of Virginia Beach will begin spinning out enough electricity in 2026 to power up to 660,000 homes.
Dominion Energy Inc.’s $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) farm will have 176 turbines — each rising 800 feet above the ocean, with around 8,000 parts apiece. Up until now, most of those components have been manufactured in Europe, but Virginia wants to change that.
The state scored a win in October 2021 when Spain-based Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A., a partner with Dominion on the wind farm, committed to building the first offshore-wind turbine blade facility in the United States at Portsmouth Marine Terminal. Siemens says the plant will create 260 jobs and include a capital investment of more than $80 million to erect buildings and lease 80 acres of the property that’s part of the Port of Virginia. The company says infrastructure work should begin in 2023, with actual production scheduled for 2025.
“The Virginia blade facility will be enabled by the CVOW project,” says Brett Persons, offshore U.S. localization manager for Siemens Gamesa. “However, it’s envisioned to potentially support other offshore wind projects on the East Coast.”
Virginia’s ultimate goal? Make Hampton Roads the East Coast supply chain hub for the mushrooming offshore wind industry. With CVOW construction scheduled to begin in 2024, businesses are lining up for a share of the work. Virginia Beach is home to the necessary coastline, of course, but the city can’t do it alone.
“The Dominion project is important to Virginia, but I’d say our broader goal as a region is to be serving the [wind] industry,” says Matt Smith, director of offshore wind business development for the Hampton Roads Alliance. “We have a whole group of folks — the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the alliance, localities — talking to companies all up and down the supply chain about investing in Hampton Roads.”
High demands
The Biden administration has focused on promoting renewable energy, as well as building a more robust supply chain and workforce to design, build and maintain parts of turbines and other key equipment.
CVOW is projected to require around 900 workers for its construction phase and 1,100 employees for operation and maintenance during the next 30 years. There are currently plans for more than 30 offshore wind projects for the East Coast, including one off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, all of which could be a boon for Virginia. Analysts have estimated future wind farms could create between 5,000 and 6,000 additional jobs in Hampton Roads, Smith says.
“This is where a regional strategy wins for us because if you look at the cities in Hampton Roads, we all bring a different piece of the puzzle to the table,” says Taylor Adams, Virginia Beach’s deputy city manager and director of economic development. “We have great sites for suppliers and distribution, but we don’t have an abundance of deep-water port access. Portsmouth and Norfolk certainly have some of the critical pieces. Chesapeake has open land.”
It starts with Dominion, which is banking heavily on energy from its 112,800-acre ocean floor property that starts 27 miles off Virginia Beach and extends east another
15 miles. Dominion’s bid of $1.6 million won the federal government’s lease in 2013.
The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act requires the utility to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity generation by 2045. Dominion has its own goal of reaching net-zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions from its power generation and natural gas operations by 2050.
In August, the Virginia State Corporation Commission approved Dominion’s application to build and recover costs of the wind farm, but there are still some details left to settle. Later in August, Dominion petitioned the commission to remove what it called an “involuntary performance guarantee” — making the utility financially responsible if CVOW doesn’t produce the amount of electricity promised due to factors beyond the utility’s control, such as severe weather or terrorist attacks. The SCC granted Dominion’s request for a review, and the matter is expected to be resolved this fall.
Even with that hitch, wind energy has gained plenty of momentum in terms of federal, state and corporate support.
“The Biden administration’s goal is to build out 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, so companies are considering their supply chain investments in the U.S. with respect to meeting that goal,” Smith says. “To get projects built using components that are manufactured in the U.S., we’d want to locate as much of that supply chain here as possible.”
That could include every major component, he adds: “The towers, foundations, blades, cables, even the actual wind turbine generators themselves.”
Matt Smith, director of offshore wind business development for the Hampton Roads Alliance, says future wind farms could produce up to 6,000 jobs in Hampton Roads. Photo by Mark Rhodes
European influence
Experienced international players are already setting up shop in Hampton Roads. In addition to Siemens Gamesa, Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted has agreed to lease land at PMT to stage equipment through at least 2026, and Dominion is also leasing terminal property to preassemble the turbines’ foundations.
Three English energy-focused companies have office space in Virginia Beach, and the influx of these businesses has created a snowball effect, notes Laura Chalk, business development coordinator for the city. “It’s such a niche market, they all know each other,” she says. “We just had an Irish group in here for three days trying to get a feel for the area.”
In May, the Virginia Beach-based Miller Group purchased Lambert’s Point Docks in Norfolk from Norfolk Southern Railway Co., with plans to use it in part to support offshore wind operations. Now called Fairwinds Landing, the 111-acre property is expected to generate $100 million in investments and 500 jobs, starting later this year.
“Together, Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Lambert’s Point give us 400 really prime acres to base the development of the industry in Hampton Roads,” Smith says. “North Carolina did a study that looked at the best manufacturing sites for offshore wind in the country, and Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Lambert’s Point were ranked in the top three.”
The proposed North Carolina wind farm is being developed by Avangrid Renewables, a major player in the industry with projects in more than 20 states. Avangrid, headquartered in Connecticut, won the lease for 122,405 acres off the Outer Banks and is pitching the project as Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind. Still in the planning stages, Kitty Hawk Offshore would be similar in scale to Dominion’s CVOW, generating 2.5 gigawatts of energy as compared with CVOW’s 2.6 gigawatts. Likewise, it anticipates sending considerable business to Virginia.
“We expect that the Hampton Roads area would be a major beneficiary of this project,” says Ken Kimmel, vice president of offshore wind development for Avangrid. “And we see Virginia Beach playing an important role by serving as a landing location for some or all of our cables.”
Avangrid’s proposal to bring its Kitty Hawk cables ashore at Sandbridge in southern Virginia Beach has stirred up opposition among some residents; Dominion’s cables will land a few miles north at the State Military Reservation, then work their way west through Oceana Naval Air Station.
Avangrid, which already has a 104-turbine onshore wind farm near Elizabeth City just south of the Virginia border, projects that the Kitty Hawk wind farm’s construction phase alone would add 799 jobs and $390 million to the Virginia economy. Adds Kimmel: “We are also looking at many other opportunities along the East Coast, including the mid-Atlantic.”
Virginia Beach’s Adams says the city has been “in almost constant contact with the Avangrid team.”
Training up
Further inland — 240 miles west of Virginia Beach’s Oceanfront, to be precise — is New College Institute in Martinsville. In 2021, NCI became the first location in Virginia to offer Global Wind Organisation certification, a requirement for anyone working on an offshore wind turbine.
Most of the 30 or so people who have gone through the program have come from out of state, with their employers paying the way, says NCI’s advanced manufacturing trainer/instructor Evan Kissel. But he expects that to change soon, following the SCC’s approval of CVOW.
NCI offers two one-week courses: basic technical training and safety training. Among the safety assignments: learning how to get a 150-pound dummy down a ladder that can be almost three football fields high.
“The goal is for it to not ever happen,” says Kissel, “but things do happen, and people do get hurt. Generally, when you’re on a site doing maintenance, you’re working in two-man crews, and you’d hope the other guy knows how to help you.”
The NCI program is part of a state workforce initiative that also includes offshore wind training at Tidewater Community College, Centura College in Virginia Beach and the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy in Norfolk.
The region’s workforce is part of the sales pitch to prospective businesses, says Smith: “Workforce, port infrastructure, the shipbuilding industry — we see offshore wind as fitting into our existing maritime infrastructure. As the industry grows and moves south, we’re in a strategically located area. We have physical infrastructure available and ready, and that’s not the case everywhere. We have a workforce well-suited to the industry, the largest maritime workforce in the country.”
Another advantage, says Smith, is that Virginia is “generally a lower-cost state” to conduct business in, especially compared with New York and New Jersey, where the federal government held a February auction for six wind leases, yielding $4.37 billion.
One question that remains is what will result from Virginia’s noticeable absence from the White House’s Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership, which includes 11 other East Coast states led by governors from both political parties. President Joe Biden, who recently signed a spending bill with more than $300 billion in energy and climate reform, including $60 billion in renewable energy infrastructure, created the partnership to speed up offshore wind development.
Tackling an emerging industry has serious challenges, and while wind power is not new — it dates back to 2000 B.C. in China — offshore wind technology is up to the minute, especially in this country.
“If you look at the history of development, we’ve been an exporter of intellectual property in the U.S.,” Adams says. “But this is one of the first times in the last century that the U.S. is importing an industry. We can learn from the investments that have already been made overseas. So instead of having to write the future here, there’s a playbook we can already use.”
Virginia small businesses are getting a piece of the biggest highway construction pie ever baked by the Virginia Department of Transportation: the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project.
Since April 2019, VDOT has awarded 313 contracts worth a collective $455 million to companies that qualify under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned Business (SWaM) federal and state programs for government contractors.
“Thank God for this program,” says William André Gilliam, president of Metals of Distinction Inc., a Hampton-based welding and metal fabrication company that has so far been awarded $1.6 million in renewed contracts through DBE, a federal program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation. “I wish I could get more work like this, but unfortunately I only seem to get this kind of opportunity when there’s a requirement for DBE.”
The federal Department of Transportation designates DBE-qualified businesses, but certification is fully accepted throughout the state if a business is bidding for a contract in a project receiving federal transportation funds. SWaM certification, which is granted by the state Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity, is needed for state contracts that don’t include federal funding.
Then-Gov. Ralph Northam directed executive branch agencies in 2019 to allocate more than 42% of discretionary spending to certified SWaM businesses, a policy that has not changed under Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
To qualify for DBE status, a company must meet certain criteria, including posting gross receipts not exceeding an annual average of $26.29 million over the previous three fiscal years. Also, business owners cannot have a personal net worth that exceeds $1.32 million, excluding equity in a primary residence and ownership interest in the company.
Among Virginia’s criteria to be certified as a small business for SWaM purposes, a company must be at least 51% independently owned, have fewer than 250 employees and report average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less for the past three years. To qualify as women- or minority-owned, companies must be majority-controlled by a woman or any person of minority ethnicity. In all three cases, the majority owners need to be U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens.
Queen Crittendon, VDOT’s civil rights manager for the Hampton Roads district, says SWaM- and DBE-certified businesses have important roles to play. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Road contracts
Typically, a certain percentage of work on large transportation projects such as the HRBT is allocated to DBE- or SWaM-certified vendors.
The expansion of HRBT to four two-lane tunnels, which began construction in October 2020 and is expected to be finished in November 2025, pledged 12% of its contracts to DBE businesses and 20% to SWaM companies, says Brooke Grow, VDOT’s communication manager for the project.
As of early August, that goal had not been met, Grow notes, but the Hampton Roads Connector Partnership, the design-build joint venture running the project, “is tracking to achieve the established contract goals and demonstrates good-faith efforts in doing so.”
Queen Crittendon, VDOT’s civil rights manager for the Hampton Roads district, calls the inclusion of certified businesses “an important part of our culture. We want to ensure the maximum opportunity for small businesses to bid and participate in the procurement and contracting process. With the increase in federal transportation funding for highway and bridge improvement, VDOT will need the support of all businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses, to meet the demands.”
Although out-of-state companies can apply for certification, Grow says 80% of the DBE/SWaM companies involved with the expansion project are based in Virginia, and 52% hail from Hampton Roads.
One of those is Chesapeake-based Bryant-Ritter Hewitt Electric Corp., a 70-employee company founded in 2005. It has a contract through DBE and qualifies as both majority woman-owned and as a small business, says President Susan Ritter.
Her company has been DBE-certified for more than 10 years, and its contract is worth around $12 million for work performed over four years.
It’s one of the three largest contracts the company has ever won and will involve several tasks, including installing around 50 overhead sign structures along the revamped span.
Ritter says state procurement programs for businesses like hers are “critically important. They’ve allowed our company to grow tremendously in both size and scope.” She adds that it’s “an honor” for her company to be working on the HRBT, which opened in 1957.
Since Bryant-Ritter Hewitt received its certification, Ritter says, DBE contracts have made it possible for the company to expand from mostly local work to larger jobs in the Richmond area and now a major project in Maryland: assisting with the replacement of the Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge, which spans the Potomac River, connecting the Northern Neck to southern Maryland.
Gilliam, too, says that DBE contracts have been invaluable to his business, which was started by his father in 1969. In 1999, Gilliam took over the welding company, which now has12 employees, including Gilliam and his wife. Before winning contracts for work on the HRBT expansion, Metals of Distinction was awarded contracts associated with the expansion of the Midtown Tunnel that connects Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which was completed in 2017.
Working on big projects isn’t a magic bullet for future success — Gilliam says that “after the Midtown Tunnel, it seemed like no one knew who I was, so I had to get back out and grind at my business” — but he is thankful to be part of the HRBT expansion. His single $25,000 contract has been renewed dozens of times and has generated between $1.4 million and $1.6 million during the past two years.
“I just wish other contractors could see how I operate my business,” he says. “With these contracts, at least I’m able to prove myself worthy.”
“No, I don’t think so,” says Pete Graham, CFO for PRA Group Inc., a debt-buying company headquartered in Norfolk. “It’s quite something. Any one of those things would be a challenge, but to put them all together …”
Today’s array of issues is unprecedented, says Graham — at least in the 30 years he’s spent working in the financial industry, with the past six at PRA Group. “Our business is more than 25 years old,” he says, “and we’ve never faced anything like this.”
Fast-changing economic and geopolitical conditions have changed how and when CFOs are dealing with everything from audits to budget and operational planning, says Luther Griffith with Sweet Briar College. Photo courtesy Sweet Briar College
Few have. In the past, CFOs mostly focused on the job’s traditional responsibilities: the numbers — balance sheets, expenses and revenues.
Not anymore. In today’s world, the formerly narrow lens of duties expected of a CFO has considerably widened.
“The bar is continually getting raised higher,” Graham says. “The numbers part of it is just table stakes — you need to be really good at that, but to succeed now you need to bring much more value to the company.”
In Graham’s case, one of his added responsibilities is information technology: “The CIO reports to me now.”
Says Joel Flax, CFO for Cohen Investment Group, a commercial real estate investment firm based in Norfolk: “Today’s CFO could be named the chief flexible officer.”
While a CFO’s job is tough and getting tougher, the median salary for a CFO in Virginia is $411,800, according to Salary.com, perhaps accounting for their expanded roles.
Stephanie Peters, president and CEO of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants, says Graham’s experience is typical of CFOs today.
“Now some are having to be responsible for reporting how the company is doing in certain ESG [environmental, social and corporate governance] and DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] areas,” she says. “They have to track their environmental footprint and some social issues. They need to worry about what the customer of the future is going to want and expect.”
Peters, who has led the VSCPA for 15 years, hears from many CFOs who also have personnel matters added to their plates.
“It’s all about people,” she says, “and that involves a variety of issues. Finding people is already hard — and finding finance people is particularly challenging. And it’s not only finding people, but dealing with the salary … [and] benefit issues, along with costs going up so much, and how are we taking care of people mentally?”
Peters also says the field of finance is rapidly transforming, forcing CFOs to stay ahead of the trends: “They’re really working on, ‘How can I shift this team away from doing the traditional work of looking at the past and starting to shift to looking at the future?’ To do that, you need to use technology, be digital-first, be data-driven, and you need people with the skill sets to do that.
“I hear people saying, ‘Oh, accounting is going to go away with automation.’ If only!”
Expanding roles, stresses
Extra duties, combined with a tight labor market, put added pressure on CFOs, she says. But there’s an upside: “It’s making businesses think about how they are using technology, how they are getting work done, making them get creative and look at other options. You have to start thinking about what is the work you should be doing versus what is the work you are doing.”
Businesses are still feeling elements of a pandemic hangover, but many have solved — at least temporarily — the issue of whether to have staffers back in the office, working from home, or on a hybrid schedule. But for more than two years, staff location also has been a major burden placed on many CFOs.
“The title of CFO is mostly associated with the finance part of the business,” says Ana Gomes, controller for Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management LLC, a wealth management firm in Norfolk. “Nowadays, the need to wear many different hats is crucial for a successful CFO. That can include technology oversight, strategic support and company culture advocate.”
In addition to their expanding roles, Peters says, some Virginia CFOs also are navigating global economic reverberations from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ranging from inflation and supply chain woes to recessionary worries and companies seeking to divest assets in Russia.
“There is so much going on,” she says. “We just came out of a global pandemic, and we’re still dealing with that on top of rapid changes in the economy, and now geopolitics. … It’s just another stress on top of the other stresses people are having.”
Luther Griffith, vice president for finance, operations and auxiliary enterprises at Sweet Briar College, a private women’s college in Amherst County, says adapting comes with the territory for CFOs: “Most CFOs deal in four time segments at once: auditing the prior year’s financial results, operating the current year’s business and finances, planning the budget and operating plan for next year, and updating a rolling five-year model.”
Historically speaking, he says, “This cycle was pretty routine — ‘rinse and repeat.’ Today, with the variations caused by the global pandemic, as well as economic, domestic political and geopolitical influences, the four segments can be vastly different. So, it’s much more challenging to manage and educate board members and administrators on the nuances.”
Ana Gomes with Norfolk wealth management firm Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management doesn’t think a recession is ahead, but says that “it all depends on the Fed’s ability to dampen inflation without diminishing growth.” Photo courtesy Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management LLC
The elephant in the room
Of all the economic challenges out there for financial officers right now, one looms largest, however: the possibility of recession and the accompanying headaches it could bring. While no one knows for sure whether there will be a recession, Peters says simply, “Something’s coming.”
Nearly 70% of economists believe a recession will occur in 2023, according to a Financial Times survey. In late June, responding to the Federal Reserve’s 0.75% rate increase, Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank, said, “We now expect an earlier and somewhat more severe recession.” Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs analysts rated the risk for recession higher than they had previously, now rating the chance of recession this year at 30% (up from 15%) and within two years at 50% (up from 35%).
“We now see recession risk as higher and more front-loaded,” they said, citing high inflation and energy prices. They downgraded their economic growth forecasts but aren’t predicting that the economy will shrink.
Most every CFO has an opinion about the potential for recession — as well as a plan for weathering the potential storm.
“One day the economic gurus will be right, and we will have a recession,” says Flax. “I have been preparing since I started here in 2016 to build a cash reserve. I maintain a running budget to monitor projected cash needs for the next 15 months.”
At Smith-Midland Corp., a precast concrete company in Midland, its CFO, AJ Krick, is among those preparing for the worst. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but the economic signs are pointing in that direction,” he says. In the meantime, Krick says he is “increasing the amount of cash kept on hand for future reinvestment, and a potential rainy day.”
Even if there won’t be a recession this time around, the future probably holds one, says P.J. Ross, CFO for Hitt Contracting Inc., a Falls Church-based commercial real estate construction firm.
“Recessions are an inevitable part of the U.S. economic cycle,” says Ross, “so we are going to see more expansions, contractions and recessions in our lifetimes. Knowing this, it’s important that we always plan ahead to ensure we are well-prepared to handle what’s next.
“Borrowing rates are still relatively low from a historical standpoint, but the supply chain is being stressed like I have never seen before. We’re putting extra emphasis on supplier diversity to ensure we maintain our project schedules and quality standards.”
Griffith, of Sweet Briar College, says a recession “would have revenue impact,” potentially on philanthropy, which would require the school to dip into its reserves. “As with many recessions, we confirm them in hindsight,” Griffith says, noting that even without a recession, inflation and supply-chain issues are having immediate effects on campus construction plans and the college’s endowment.
Not everyone is wringing their hands over the “R” word.
“I don’t think there will be a recession,” Gomes says. “The current labor market is robust, with low unemployment rates. Consumer balance sheets reflect savings built up during the pandemic, gains in the stock and housing markets.
“To a large extent, it all depends on the Fed’s ability to dampen inflation without diminishing growth — a task that becomes even more difficult with the uncertainties surrounding Ukraine, but not an impossible one.”
Cheryl Morris, financial manager for Salem Montessori School, says, “I think we will have a mild recession and we’ll see a restriction of luxury, nonessential purchases.”
Graham, who believes “it’s not a matter of if, but rather when a recession will begin,” says PRA Group is prepared, but not panicking.
“We see some consumers already experiencing financial stress caused by increased expenses and inflation rates, regardless of whether the recession has been formally declared,” he says. “But our business is somewhat countercyclical, so we anticipate more investment opportunity as credit metrics are impacted by recessionary forces.
“When it comes to preparation, our focus is twofold: We must ensure that we maintain a strong balance sheet with access to funding for investments, and that we maintain a highly trained and dedicated workforce, so we are equipped to partner with customers to help them on the pathway to financial recovery through these challenging times.”
Read about Virginia Business’ 2022 Virginia CFO of the Year award winners:
Despite a resounding defeat, organizers are still fighting to unionize The Hershey Co. plant in Stuarts Draft. In late March, about 79% of the plant’s workers voted against unionizing at Hershey, the largest employer in Augusta County with nearly 1,500 workers.
But while that battle might be over, the war is not, according to officials with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union. The organization has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Hershey of 14 unfair labor practices related to the vote. The NLRB had not certified the voting results as of mid-May.
John Price, director of organization for BCTGM International, says he’s confident the labor board’s investigation will find Hershey guilty of “objectionable conduct during a critical period, and they’ll end up tossing the results.” That, he says, could lead to another vote.
Hershey spokesman Jeff Beckman says the lopsided result sends a clear message of support for the company: “We believe the team at Stuarts Draft has spoken with the vote and showed they have a strong preference to continue engaging directly with the plant leadership versus being represented by a third party.”
The effort to organize the plant began last year, with some workers complaining about seven-day work weeks, favoritism and a general lack of respect. Jim Gibson, one of the workers who led the movement, says the union had momentum last fall.
“But the main thing we had going against us was the fear of retaliation, that people were going to lose their jobs for being union supporters,” says Gibson, who quit his job the day after the vote.
The union’s filing with the NLRB cites several examples in which it claims Hershey “interfered with, restrained and coerced its employees” with the intent of discouraging union activities or membership. The filing also claims Hershey improperly offered employees numerous benefits during a union organizing campaign.
Nationwide, union membership has declined for decades until recently, when it scored several high-profile victories, including unionizing five Starbucks Corp. stores in the Richmond area and an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in New York. Virginia, however, has historically had one of the country’s lowest union density rates.
The Stuarts Draft plant, the second-largest of Hershey’s seven operations, primarily produces chocolate candy that includes nuts, such as Reese’s and Almond Joy. Two of Hershey’s other six plants are unionized.
In a city where tourism reigns, nothing could be more welcome than a post-pandemic world. And though we’re not quite there yet, Virginia Beach is licking its chops over the prospect of maskless visitors pouring into town.
The city, with fingers crossed in hopes that new coronavirus variants don’t arrive before the tourists do, is preparing for a summer like no other. In fact, last year was no slouch — even with COVID-19 still haunting travelers.
“It’s important to note that tourism was as strong in Virginia Beach as it could be during the pandemic,” says Taylor Adams, Virginia Beach’s deputy city manager and director of economic development. “Last year set records for hotel revenue, we think largely from pent-up demand from the two previous seasons. We anticipate this will be another strong season. We’re especially excited about the return of international tourism, particularly from Canada.”
Hampton Roads is aiming to become an East Coast hub for the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind industry, says Matt Smith with the Hampton Roads Alliance. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Tourism is considered a top driver in the Virginia Beach economy, employing more than 15,000 people with an impact of $1.42 billion in 2020, the latest figures available from the Virginia Tourism Corp. (See related story.) While city officials acknowledge that military spending might have a greater economic impact — they say it’s difficult to nail down exact figures — it’s a relative rock with little fluctuation. But tourism can grow or shrink due to a variety of factors: weather, gas prices, even a disruptive virus.
The best investment portfolio is diversified, though, and Virginia Beach officials have been working to balance the city’s economy. While tourism and defense are clearly the city’s two blue chips, its No. 3 industry might be a surprise: the quiet workhorse of agriculture ($134 million).
“I’m not sure who started referring to the three-legged stool in Virginia Beach, but I have great pride that in the most populous city in Virginia, agriculture is one of those legs that holds the city up,” says Roy D. Flanagan III, Virginia Cooperative Extension’s agriculture and natural resources extension agent for Virginia Beach.
With roughly 450,000 residents, Virginia Beach has — by far — the most residents of any city in the state. Its 23,000 acres of agriculture, largely grouped in the city’s southern area, have traditionally been devoted mostly to grain — corn, wheat and soybeans. There’s also considerable horse territory in the city, as well as hog production.
“Agriculture is really a part of the culture of the city,” says Adams. “We believe traditional uses will continue to be strong, but we’re really excited about the expansion of hydroponic farming, vertical farming, into Virginia Beach. And we’re finding that we’re becoming a destination as well for the life sciences and for biological engineering.”
By wind and by sea
The city’s bid for economic diversification includes wooing renewable energy and high-tech businesses.
The $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project calls for Dominion Energy Inc. to construct 176 turbines 27 miles off the city’s coast. Scheduled to begin operating in 2026, it’s projected to be the largest offshore wind farm in the United States, generating enough renewable energy to power 660,000 homes.
The project received a boost in October 2021 when Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A., a Spanish wind turbine company, committed $200 million for an offshore-wind blade factory at a marine terminal in neighboring Portsmouth. That facility aims to produce blades for 100 turbines a year — including the 176 for Dominion’s offshore wind farm. The giant turbines are more than 800 feet tall — considerably taller than the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument.
“Siemens Gamesa, that was the big domino to fall, one of the world’s most preeminent offshore wind companies selecting Hampton Roads,” says Matt Smith, director of offshore wind business development for the Hampton Roads Alliance, the regional economic developmentorganization. “We’re trying to attract companies that can make investments and employ Virginia workers so we can become one of the hubs of the industry.”
While tourism has remained strong in Virginia Beach amid the pandemic, the return of international tourists is expected to help boost the summer season, says the city’s economic development director, Taylor Adams. Photo by Mark Rhodes
The wind farm will require a specialized workforce. Many of those skills are already found among the region’s shipyard workers, but to ramp up the number of qualified workers, the state has created wind-power training programs at several institutions, including the Centura College location in Virginia Beach, and the city is investing $1 million in a similar program at Tidewater Community College.
Smith says the massive offshore wind farm’s job impact will be considerable: around 900 workers for the construction phase, then 1,100 for the farm’s operation and maintenance. Plans call for adding more wind farms in the area, he adds, and analysts project these could create between 5,000 and 6,000 additional jobs.
Virginia Beach’s push to become an East Coast tech hub also includes a mushrooming subsea cable operation in the city’s southeast corner. Three of the world’s fastest data transmission cables land at Telxius’ 25,000-square-foot campus in the Corporate Landing Business Park.
The data cables connect Virginia Beach to Spain, Brazil, Puerto Rico and France. City officials are hoping that as many as 15 more cables will eventually join the party. Canada-based PointOne Development Corp. is building a 40,000-square-foot data center in the business park. Construction on the network access point was paused during the pandemic, but Colin Clish, chief operating officer for PointOne, says it will resume this summer.
Small footprints, big impact
At 249 square miles, Virginia Beach is the state’s third-largest city in geographic size, behind only Suffolk and Chesapeake. A tiny fraction of that real estate — just 77 acres, or less than 1/10th of a square mile — could have an oversized impact on the city’s future.
Three well-known strategic parcels have been in the spotlight for years. All three finally could be on the verge of being reborn: Pembroke Mall, the Dome site and Rudee Loop.
When it opened in 1966, Pembroke was the first shopping center of its kind in the Hampton Roads region — an enclosed mall with more than 20 stores. Since then, it has ridden the typical mall roller coaster of revolving anchors, facelifts and reinventions.
Situated on a 54-acre plot near the city’s geographic center, across Virginia Beach Boulevard from the bustling Town Center complex, Pembroke Mall is destined for a major transformation. Its owner, the Virginia Beach-based Pembroke Realty Group, has proposed a $200 million makeover of the mall into a mixed-use property.
“Malls in general should be renovated every eight to 10 years,” says Pembroke Realty Group President Ramsay Smith. “I did the one here in 2003. When I got here in 2001, it had red brick floors — red brick!”
“Malls … should be renovated every eight to 10 years,” says Ramsay Smith, president of Pembroke Realty Group, which is undertaking a $200 million makeover of Pembroke Mall. Photo by Mark Rhodes
The mall’s new mixed-use plans call for a blend of residential and commercial development. New construction would include a 153-unit senior living facility, a 324-unit apartment building, a 14-story hotel and a public parking garage. The center of the current mall would be demolished but two anchor stores, Kohl’s and Target, would remain, along with several other existing retailers.
The mall redevelopment project’s first phase would be the senior living rental community, with groundbreaking planned for July and the project scheduled for completion by early 2024. The seven-story building will feature 121 independent living units, but also have some assisted living and memory units.
Next will come the apartment building and hotel, with construction to start in early 2023 and both scheduled to open for business around the end of 2024. Smith says a later phase is also planned: a pair of 18- and 22-story office buildings.
Rudee awakening
For decades, one of Virginia Beach’s most challenging tasks has been what to do with the Dome site. Built in 1958, the former concert venue hosted legendary performers such as the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix before its 1994 demolition. For the past three decades, it has been a parking lot and the subject of countless development proposals.
The latest idea could be the one that finally brings life back to the 10-acre site a block off the Oceanfront between 18th and 20th streets. Grammy-winning music icon and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams is partnering with Virginia Beach-based Venture Realty Group on a $325 million public-private partnership to build Atlantic Park, an entertainment and surf park complex, on the site. The centerpiece of the plan is a surf pool that would generate 1,000 waves an hour. The proposal also includes a 3,500-seat concert hall, apartments and retail space.
Virginia Beach has repeatedly bought additional parcels for the project and has seen its stake in the deal rise. Originally approved by City Council in 2021, the project was supposed to break ground during the first quarter of 2022, but supply chain issues and rising construction costs interfered. City Council agreed late last year to extend the developers’ deadline for finalizing financing to June 1.
Mike Culpepper, a managing partner with Venture Realty, says the company won’t comment on the project. Nevertheless, Adams, with city economic development, says a deal is close: “We’re staring at the finish line.”
Another undeveloped 11-acre parcel a few blocks south of the proposed Atlantic Park site is also attractive — and more up in the air. Rudee Loop sits on the southern tip of the Virginia Beach Oceanfront that ends at Rudee Inlet, separating the tourism strand from residential Croatan Beach.
A prime piece of real estate, Rudee Loop has been in flux for almost two decades, ever since the city purchased the once-legendary Lighthouse Restaurant that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. Before that, the city had been buying up pieces of Rudee Loop for years, with initial intentions for the property to be developed commercially.
Music superstar and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams is partnering with Venture Realty Group on the proposed $325 million Atlantic Park entertainment and surf complex. Rendering courtesy Venture Realty Group
A variety of proposals have been floated for the spot, including two from NFL Hall of Famer Bruce Smith, a Norfolk native who was also a star football player for Virginia Tech. The city has held numerous public forums, and its latest plan in 2019, which called for a mix of open space and commercial development, caused such a furor that a “Save Rudee Loop” movement was formed.
A contentious battle ensued over what to do with the property: Should it be for commercial use or dedicated as green space? Public sentiment quickly shifted against private development. An online poll came out strongly against a hotel, restaurants or the like. Instead, the poll showed support for recreational amenities such as a skate park and public art.
The city is hoping to decide soon which way to go. Adams declined to say much about the status of the project but adds that he’s trying to gauge what interest there might be in the market for developing the site.
On the other end of the spectrum, Virginia Beach is trying to awaken the potential of a sleeping giant: Naval Air Station Oceana. The sprawling air base sits on nearly 7,000 acres, and while it’s already a strong driver of the economy, it also taunts developers with its empty fields buffering the airstrips.
The Virginia Beach Development Authority has begun working with the Navy on exploring partnership opportunities. Adams says that in March, the two sides agreed to their first work order for a specific, though undisclosed, plot of land.
“We think that some of these parcels are of appropriate size and location for industrial and distribution uses,” Adams says.
In April, the development authority and NAS Oceana took another step forward by hosting Future Base Design Industry Day, in which the two groups gave presentations focused on development possibilities for Oceana’s former horse stables, a 113-acre plot less than a mile from the Oceanfront.
Drawn by the Blue Ridge’s “blue-collar atmosphere,” a new bank has set up shop in the Roanoke region. Ridge View Bank, a division of Pennsylvania-based CNB Bank, opened for business in October 2021 and plans to be headquartered in the city of Roanoke next year.
“We’re not ready to disclose the exact location yet,” says Ridge View President Carrie McConnell, “but the headquarters building will be two-story and around 15,000 square feet. We hope to have it up and running by the first quarter of 2023.”
Ridge View currently has two loan production offices — one in Roanoke; the other at Smith Mountain Lake. McConnell says the bank has eight employees now and expects to have at least 20 by year’s end.
The new bank has ambitious expansion plans. McConnell says the bank’s first full-service branch will be in neighboring Salem, opening by October. The goal: six branches in the region and 60 to 70 employees within five years.
Although backed by CNB, Ridge View will be independent from its parent company, McConnell says. “We will have our own budget, our own headquarters, everything here locally.”
Ridge View will be CNB’s fifth division and its first in the South. The others are in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Buffalo, New York.
“They researched this market heavily for three years,” McConnell says. “They like midsized cities that are growing, and Roanoke is growing.”
Although some area counties have seen population declines, the Roanoke region overall has seen steady growth in each of the last four U.S. Census counts.
McConnell says CNB “looks for places where a community bank is a good fit. They liked the blue-collar atmosphere of this area.”
McConnell knows about startups. She was one of HomeTown Bank’s first hires when that Roanoke-based bank was founded in 2005. HomeTown was acquired by American National Bank in 2018, part of a decadeslong trend of banking consolidations.
“We still have several smaller community banks in the area, but there’s been so much transition,” says Jill Loope, director of economic development for Roanoke County. “This definitely brings a diversity of offerings to the business community.”
McConnell was the one who gave Ridge View its name.
“I thought it was representative of what we’re surrounded by,” she says. “And we want to expand into other areas of the region, so we didn’t want just a Roanoke-based name.”
EDITOR’S NOTE:This story has been corrected since its original publication. An earlier version of the story incorrectly identified Ridge View President Carrie McConnell in the photo caption and also incorrectly stated that the bank would be locating its headquarters in downtown Roanoke.
History and academic prestige spring to mind when people mention William & Mary, the second-oldest university in the United States, created when its British monarch namesakes signed its charter nearly 329 years ago.
However, “research” is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when people think about the public ivy in historic Williamsburg, and William & Mary would like to change that. The state-funded research university is ramping up that part of its game, with a goal of better positioning students for the ultra-competitive job market awaiting after graduation.
A key part of the strategy is getting undergrads working on research projects with businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. Those efforts have ranged from partnering with U.S. intelligence agencies on satellite imagery projects to teaming with environmental groups to study the diamondback turtle.
“You don’t do research to become a researcher,” says Dan Cristol, a biology professor and director of faculty-mentored undergraduate research at W&M. “Think of research as a form of job preparation.”
Cristol and others want to sharpen students’ skills beyond the results achieved from individual research projects. Perhaps the most valuable skill to prospective employers is the ability to solve problems.
Ardine Williams, vice president for workforce development at Amazon.com Inc. and a member of W&M’s board of visitors, says techniques learned from research projects give those students a leg up during their job searches.
“Amazon looks for people who are critical thinkers — people who roll up their sleeves to solve problems for customers,” she says. “We find that interns and new graduates with real-world research experience bring excellent problem-solving skills. They’ve had experience working toward a solution when there is not a clear path. Those who work in research are comfortable with that ambiguity.”
Exposing younger classes of students to the challenges of research means success is not always the initial outcome. And that can have a silver lining.
“Undergraduate [research] is often a constant stream of failures,” Cristol says. “Equipment fails, data don’t look like you expected, someone else beats you to the punch. Sometimes these are the first real obstacles our students have had to overcome. That’s preparation for life and careers, not just more research.”
W&M junior Olivia Hettinger is the director of the student-run geoLab, founded in 2017 by Dan Runfola, an assistant professor of applied science. Photo by Mark Rhodes.
New kids on campus
W&M is still best known as a liberal arts school and boasts the distinction of being just one of eight “public ivy” universities — an informal title bestowed upon state universities that have similar experiences and standards as their private Ivy League counterparts. It regularly ranks in the nation’s top 10 for best value among public schools and for faculty-to-student ratio (12-to-1).
But lately, W&M is starting to get noticed for its research as well. Forbes ranked it No. 41 among American research universities in 2021. About 80% of undergraduates participate in research at William & Mary, according to Forbes.
Much of that work is taking place in W&M’s Integrated Science Center. Opened in 2008, the 230,000-square-foot center has, like most structures on campus, a traditional brick exterior. But this one’s a bit different, starting with a courtyard that features a set of “aquatic mesocosms” — ponds that contain a variety of miniature ecosystems, with plants, goldfish and maybe even a frog or two.
Halls are wallpapered with project posters, data charts and peer-reviewed work co-authored by undergrads — including some written in the almost-foreign language of science. One paper focuses on fish peptides with anti-cancer properties.
Not everything in the center requires translation, but many of the center’s innovative research programs do need explaining — such as its projects for iGEM, which stands for International Genetically Engineered Machine and is a worldwide annual competition focusing on research projects in the field of synthetic biology.
W&M has performed well in the iGEM competition, sometimes called the World Cup of Science, winning in 2015 and placing second in 2017. In November, the undergraduate team won a gold medal and was nominated for an award at the iGEM Giant Jamboree. The team’s projects involve biology, chemistry, engineering and math.
Asked how he’d describe the projects for the synthetic biology competition to an outsider, iGEM team member Justin Berg, a sophomore from Connecticut, says: “We design sequences of DNA that tell bacteria to do certain things, which means when we insert the DNA into bacteria, we can use those bacteria to solve real-world problems. For example, you could design bacteria that are able to break down plastic waste.”
The term “real world” is frequently heard in the W&M research community because the faculty want students to tackle projects that, as Cristol puts it, are more “professional” than “amateur.”
“Student research can be done in two ways,” he explains, “either with the real possibility of generating new knowledge for the world, which is what professional researchers do, or solely as an educational experience for the student.
“Both are extremely valuable. At William & Mary, students often do professional-level research and publish the results if they create new knowledge. At many liberal arts institutions, student research is purely an educational experience.”
The end result, ideally, is for students to make an impact on the world with their research, not just in classroom settings.
William & Mary’s undergrad team won a gold medal in this year’s global iGEM research competition. Photo courtesy William & Mary
Leadership and teamwork
Another program spawned by W&M’s focus on research is the university’s Global Research Institute. Founded in 2008, the multidisciplinary research hub recently earned international praise for a project revealing a “debt trap” China has created by using loans as leverage against foreign countries and companies. AidData, a research lab that’s part of the Global Research Institute, revealed findings last year outlining $843 billion in overseas development financing tied to China.
Also formed in 2008, William & Mary’s Center for Geospatial Analysis focuses on analyzing data and mapping the results. Students in the program have been known to have some fun with their work: While chasing down a rumor that 25% of W&M students marry someone else from the university, one group of researchers mapped out where couples might meet and fall in love on campus.
One of the university’s newest initiatives, launched earlier this year, is the Institute for Integrative Conservation, which pairs students with internships at conservation nonprofits.
Then there’s the geoLab, founded in 2017 by Dan Runfola, an assistant professor of applied science and director of graduate studies. The lab’s main objective is “leadership,” Runfola says. “Rather than focus on research as an outcome, we focus on it as a process. Students learn how to lead a research project, rather than how to conduct research as an individual.”
In the geoLab, Runfola says, students mostly run the show.
“Our core consideration before taking on nearly any project is if students can take on ownership,” he says, “i.e., for the success or failure to be dependent on the decisions that our undergraduate leaders make.
“This strategy is fundamentally different from other models I have seen in academia. Normally, students are kept a step away from the real decisions, and thus students don’t truly ‘own’ the project.”
In the past five years, students in the geoLab have partnered with NASA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Runfola says the lab’s students represent a wide range of majors — from data science to international relations, linguistics, English and art history — and have landed jobs at Intel Corp., Google, Capital One Financial Corp., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and Deloitte.
Olivia Hettinger, a junior from Memphis, Tennessee, is the lab’s current director. When she arrived at W&M, Hettinger recalls, she was surprised by the reach of the school’s research programs. “I ended up getting involved in research my first semester,” she says, “but I had no idea how much in-depth experience undergraduate students get here. I also thought that because I was planning to be an economics major that research wasn’t accessible to me, but we do research in every department.”
Jason Lin, a senior from Richmond, has worked extensively with satellite imagery and has a software engineering job waiting for him after graduation. During a recent internship, he says, his managers were impressed with the advanced level of research he’d already done: “One of them asked if I was a Ph.D. or graduate student.”
Opened in 2008, William & Mary’s Integrated Science Center is home to numerous research programs with undergraduate participation. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Job readiness
Cristol has two offices on campus; his favorite is on the second floor of the Murray House. The white, wooden building stands in sharp contrast to the brick and glass of the Integrated Science Center a couple of blocks away.
Checking the computer at his standing desk, Cristol rattles off statistics about the rate of research involvement by W&M undergrads and their postgraduation successes. Adding an unscientific opinion, Cristol says he thinks the W&M brand appeals to a special “flavor” of student, which serves them well in getting ahead.
“William & Mary tends to attract students who are not afraid to admit that they work hard and want to make a real difference in the world,” he says. “They get so much more career preparation out of their college years than a student who only attends classes and joins clubs.”
Another point of emphasis is the ability to communicate clearly — especially when trying to land that first job out of school.
“Employers are looking for graduates who can articulate their accomplishments, can bounce back after failing at risky projects [and] can use critical-thinking skills to solve novel problems,” Cristol says. “And this is exactly what undergraduate researchers do.”
Sidonie Horn, a senior from California, has worked on several projects involving conservation groups — including one with a research partner in Mongolia. Horn already has a job lined up as an analyst with a New York company.
“All of my projects involved some form of presentation, which has taught me how to communicate technical information to a nontechnical audience,” she says. “These are things I brought up during job interviews.”
Amazon’s Williams says W&M’s reputation as a liberal arts school is a plus when it comes to blending that mission with research: “When you combine the depth and breadth of a liberal arts education and the disciplined exploration and innovation of a global research university, you are preparing graduates to be agile and successful in a rapidly changing workforce.”
At a glance
Founded
The second-oldest university in the United States, William & Mary was established in 1693 under a royal charter signed by King William III and Queen Mary II of England, Ireland and Scotland. It became a public university in 1906.
Campus
Stretching across 1,200 acres in downtown Williamsburg, William & Mary’s campus includes the Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheatre, Lake Matoaka and College Woods. Its circa-1695 Wren Building is the oldest U.S. university building still in use.
Enrollment (fall 2021)
Undergraduate: 6,543
Graduate: 2,974
Students
Female: 58%
Male: 42%
Minority students: 30%
International students: 6%
Virginia residents: 66%
Employees
The largest employer in Williamsburg, William & Mary employs more than 2,700 people.
Faculty
687 full-time and 165 part-time faculty
Tuition, fees, housing and
financial aid
In-state tuition and fees: $23,812
Out-of-state tuition and fees: $47,038
Room and board: $13,332
Average financial aid awarded to full-time, in-state freshmen seeking assistance: $27,426
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