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byline: Courtney Mabeus-Brown

Wells Fargo to launch $87M expansion in Roanoke County

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo will spend $87 million to modernize and expand its Roanoke County customer support center, adding 1,100 jobs in a deal that will make the bank the county’s largest employer.

The deal is also the largest project employment announcement in the county’s history, as well as its largest commercial office investment, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a news release announcing the deal Tuesday.  Wells Fargo already employs 1,650 people at the county’s customer service center. With the addition of 1,100 workers, the bank will surpass the county’s public school system, which employs between 2,000 and 2,500 people, Megan Baker, the county’s economic development director, told Virginia Business in an email.

“Wells Fargo’s historic investment and new job creation has far-reaching benefits for Roanoke County, the region and the commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Virginia has established a strong foothold in the fast-growing financial services industry, and we have developed an innovative framework to focus on nurturing and expanding opportunities in this high-growth sector.”

Wells Fargo is the nation’s fourth largest U.S. bank, with about $1.9 trillion in total assets. The bank generated $82.86 billion in revenue for 2022, reporting $13.2 billion in net income and $7 billion in operating losses.

John W. Delaney, Wells Fargo’s head of consumer operations, said in a statement that investments in the Roanoke space will include expanded amenities in food and health as well as expanded collaboration spaces and technology upgrades. The company will be eligible for a custom major employment and investment performance grant of $15 million, subject to approval by the General Assembly. Additional details about the terns of that grant were not immediately available Tuesday.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Roanoke County, the Roanoke Regional Partnership, and the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission to secure the project for Virginia. VEDP will support Wells Fargo’s job creation through either the Virginia Jobs Investment Program or the Virginia Talent Accelerator Program.

Buc-ee’s buys land for second Va. location

A second Buc-ee’s Super Center is coming to Virginia along a busy stretch of highway in Shenandoah Valley near Mount Crawford.

Buc-ee’s Mt. Crawford LLC purchased 21.3 acres located at the intersection of Interstate 81 and Friedens Church Road in Rockingham County from Lispen LLC for $6.6 million, Norfolk-based S.L Nusbaum Realty announced Tuesday.  Plans for the new location were revealed in July when the county posted on its Facebook page that the Texas-based travel center chain had applied for a special-use permit for review and approval of a sign plan.

The location follows another already planned for New Kent County. Buc-ee’s purchased the property for the New Kent County location, expected to open by 2025, in June.

Just like the New Kent location, the Buc-ee’s in Rockingham will feature up to 75,000 square feet of retail space, 120 fueling positions, electric vehicle chargers and parking for more 650 vehicles, including buses.

The Virginia locations are expected to be among the chain’s largest. A total of four centers are planned throughout the state.

S.L. Nusbaum Senior Vice President and Regional Director Nathan Shor and Vice President Larry Agnew represented the buyer in the transaction. Shor is Nathan Buc-ee’s exclusive real estate rep in Virginia.

Founded in 1982 in Lake Jackson, Texas, Buc-ee’s opened its first Texas-sized interstate travel center in 2003 and has since expanded to nearly 60 locations throughout the South.

Dominion offshore wind farm hits next federal benchmark

Dominion Energy’s proposed offshore wind farm on Monday hit another major milestone.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it has completed its environmental assessment of the project, planned 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, a little more than two years after the review began. The nearly 700-page report, which is expected to be published Friday in the Federal Register, starts the clock ticking on a minimum 30-day waiting period before the BOEM issues its final decision on whether to approve the project.

Monday’s announcement means that Dominion’s $9.8 billion, 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is on track to start construction in 2024. The Fortune 500 utility will begin installing 176 turbines, which could power as many as 660,000 homes by 2026, upon the project’s completion.

The project will be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm and aligns with a state mandate that the Richmond-based Dominion go carbon-free by 2045. The Biden administration also has a goal of reaching 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.

“The completion of our environmental review marks another step towards a clean energy future — one that benefits communities and co-exists with other ocean users,” BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein said in a statement. “The best available science and knowledge shared by tribes, other government agencies, local communities, ocean users, industry, environmental organizations and others informed the analyses contained in this document, and we look forward to continued engagement with all of our partners and key stakeholders as we proceed with next steps.”

The lengthy environmental impact statement details the effects the project and its construction could have on physical, biological, socioeconomic and cultural resources, including on marine and other wildlife, vessel traffic and navigation, commercial and recreational fishing and other impacts. It follows a draft impact statement published in December that was followed by a 60-day public comment period. BOEM received 50 comments from federal, tribal, state and local government agencies as well as the public and non-governmental organizations.

“The completion of CVOW’s environmental review is another significant milestone to keep the project on time and on budget. Regulated offshore wind has many benefits for our customers and local economies — it’s fuel free, emissions free and diversifies our fuel mix to maintain the reliability of the grid,” Bob Blue, Dominion Energy’s chair, president and CEO, said in a statement. “Today’s announcement reinforces the confidence that the company, our vendors and our suppliers have in our project’s completion, providing further motivation to maintain focus on delivering on time and on budget knowing we and our government partners continue to meet critical milestones.”

Should the project attain approval, Dominion would still be required to receive BOEM’s final OK for its construction and operations plan, which could occur by February 2024. Dominion spokesperson Jeremy L. Slayton told Virginia Business on Monday that shore-based construction could begin sooner, though off-shore construction must wait until May, when the North Atlantic right whale migration period ends. Virginia’s State Corporation Commission approved the project in August 2022.

Slayton said a Dominion team is reviewing BOEM’s impact statement.

“We are pleased the final EIS confirmed the proposed onshore electric transmission route and wind farm turbine layout,” Slayton said. “We have taken significant steps offshore to minimize impacts to marine life and onshore to design and build an optimized transmission route that limits impacts to natural and cultural resources and surrounding communities to the maximum extent possible.”

Dominion is already operating two wind turbines off the Virginia Beach coast as part of a pilot project. The company said in a news release Monday that more than 750 Virginia-based workers, about 530 of whom are in Hampton Roads, are working on the project or with businesses supporting it.

In Hampton Roads, other work is underway to create a wind energy hub, including a $200 million Siemens Gamesa wind turbine factory under construction in Portsmouth and Fairwinds Landing, a Norfolk property that will serve as a maritime operations and logistics center supporting Hampton Roads’ offshore wind, defense and transportation industries.

Henrico office building sells for $66M

Richmond-based Kinsale Insurance has sold a 291,000-square-foot Class A office building on Staples Mill Road in western Henrico County for $66 million.

The office, located at 2103 Staples Mill Road, was sold to Salus Federal Properties, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based limited liability company, commercial real estate firm Newmark announced. The building is 100% leased to Indianapolis-based Elevance Health, and the company will invest in a full-building renovation, said Will Bradley, Newmark’s executive managing director for capital markets.

The building was built in 2000 for Anthem, which changed its name to Elevance Health in 2022.

Two NoVa companies receive $1.5B DOD tech contract

Two Northern Virginia-based federal contractors have received a five-year contract valued up to $1.5 billion to provide analytic and technical support services to the Department of Defense’s administrative and management organization.

Falls Church-based Analytic Services, known as ANSER, and Alexandria-based Systems Planning & Analysis, known as SPA, will provide acquisition and sustainment, portfolio management, engineering and agile methodologies, policy analysis; business and financial support; international programs and security, legislative support, data governance and technical support to the DoD’s Washington Headquarters Service. Work will be performed at the Pentagon as well as other sites within the Washington, D.C., region. The Pentagon announced the award Sept. 15.

“This contract reaffirms ANSER’s commitment to advancing the mission-critical goals of the DoD,” Tony Francis, ANSER’s vice president of marketing and business development, said in a statement. “We take great pride in bringing our expertise to diverse critical functions, such as legislative and policy analysis, capability portfolio management and data science support, all dedicated to fortifying our nation’s security and defense efforts.”

ANSER was founded in 1958 as a research institute and nonprofit focused on national and homeland security. SPA provides strategic advising, systems engineering, modeling and simulation, advanced analytics, industrial policy and program management solutions to government and defense customers in the United States as well as to its allies. SPA announced earlier this month that it acquired Florida aerospace engineering company PRKK. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Arlington drone company closes deal on AI robotics co.

Arlington County-based AeroVironment, a defense contractor that manufactures unmanned aircraft, has completed its $120 million acquisition of Melbourne, Florida-based Tomahawk Robotics, the company announced Sept. 18.

Tomahawk develops AI-enabled robotic control and integrated communications systems, including its flagship system, Kinesis, a tactical system used by the U.S. military and others. AeroVironment signed an agreement to purchase Tomahawk in August, and the deal is to be paid in a combination of cash and stock.

The deal will enable AeroVironment to pair its unmanned systems with Tomahawk’s technology to allow warfighters to operate various interconnected robotic solutions on the battlefield and share information between multiple domains and platforms with one common controller.

“Now that the acquisition is finalized, we’re able to further integrate both companies’ technologies and accelerate our implementation of AI and autonomy into AeroVironment’s platforms, enabling us to offer the best solutions for our customers’ operational needs,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment’s chairman, president and CEO.

Tomahawk will become part of the small unmanned aircraft system business unit within AeroVironment’s unmanned systems segment. AeroVironment plans to support all Tomahawk customers and its products will remain platform-, market- and industry-agnostic, the company said in a news release.

Ashley Riser, a spokesperson for AeroVironment, said the company plans to retain all of Tomahawk’s current workforce, which will remain in Florida. Riser declined to say how many employees either company currently employs, but according to AeroVironment’s corporate fact sheet, it employed 1,259 full-time people as of April. AeroVironment moved its headquarters from California to Virginia in 2021 after acquiring Manassas-based Progeny Systems Corp.’s Intelligent Systems Group for $30 million.

Kaine, Warner announce $100M for rail bridge in NoVa

U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine announced $100 million in federal funds Thursday for the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority to build a rail bridge to ease congestion along a busy stretch of railway in Fairfax County.

The money will go toward design and construction of the Franconia-Springfield Bypass, a bridge that will allow Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express trains to cross over two freight rail tracks south of the Franconia-Springfield station. According to a news release, the project will expand service capacity and help thwart delays. CSX, Amtrak and VRE use the tracks, and construction is set to take place between 2024 and 2026.

“Passenger rail is a vital connector for so many Virginians — carrying people to their work, their families and their travel plans,” Warner and Kaine said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to see this funding make rail safer and more efficient for Virginians by addressing a critical chokepoint in a vital location, alleviating congestion for hundreds of Virginians every single day.”

The funding is awarded through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program, and made possible by the bipartisan infrastructure law and the FY2022 government spending bill.

According to a May report, VRE saw 6,233 daily riders across its system in April. The Fredericksburg line, which passes through Franconia-Springfield, saw a little less than 4,000 daily riders during that month.

Henrico shopping center sells for $18.4M

Merchant’s Walk Shopping Center in Henrico County has sold for $18.4 million.

Qi Lin, a local investor who in 2022 purchased the Southpark shopping center in Chesterfield County for $5.4 million, purchased Merchant’s Walk, according to Divaris Real Estate. Located at 7580 W. Broad St., Merchant’s Walk is at the intersection of West Broad Street and Wistar Roads in Henrico’s West End.

The 219,972-square-foot shopping center features 38 retail stores, including anchor tenants Food Lion, AutoZone and a Joann Fabrics and Crafts store. In addition to brokering the sale, Divaris Real Estate will also handle leasing, and Divaris Property Management Corp. will take on property management responsibilities for the 20-acre property.

“A recurring customer is one of the most rewarding parts of the job,” John Madures, a senior vice president for Divaris Real Estate who facilitated the sale, said in a statement. “It has been exciting to be a part of growing this investment portfolio for our buyer, and we are proud to have been selected to lease and manage this property as well.”

Merchant’s Walk has a 97% occupancy rate and had 2.2 million visitors in the last year. Future plans for the shopping center include improvements to the parking lot, landscaping enhancements and new roofing.  Two smaller retail sites are currently available for lease.

Madures is also assisting Lin in the sale of the 7,153-square-foot Broad Rock strip mall on Walmsley Boulevard in South Richmond. Built in 1965, that property’s tenants include Little Caesars and Allied Cash Advance. Additional information about the sale was not immediately available.

John Owendoff of Cushman & Wakefield and Catharine Spangler of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer represented the seller, an affiliate of Hackney Real Estate Partners.

Hotel revenue still up, but shows signs of softening

Virginia’s hotel industry revenues remain above pre-pandemic levels but are beginning to show a softening.

That’s according to a report from Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy released Tuesday. According to the center’s analysis of data from STR, a division of CoStar Group that provides market data on the U.S. hospitality industry, hotel revenues in the commonwealth this year through August were 11.5% higher than the same period during 2019. That’s a change from the 12.3% reported from January through July 2023.

Hotel rooms sold were about 2.1% lower than compared with the same period in 2019. The average daily rate (ADR) for hotel rooms was $130, a 13.9% increase from 2019. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) was $82, up 10% from the same period in 2019.

Northern Virginia accounted for 43% of hotel revenue generated in the state in 2019; it remains 3.4% lower through August 2023 when compared to the same period of 2019. The state’s two other largest markets, Hampton Roads and Richmond, have “more than fully recovered,” ODU said in its report.

Rooms sold through August decreased 11.1% in Northern Virginia, by 10% in the Roanoke market and by 5.8% in the Virginia portion of the Bristol/Kingsport, Tennessee, market, compared with pre-pandemic data.

Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association, told Virginia Business that leisure travel is seeing a softening and that the state is still not seeing a recovery in “corporate, transient business and even some of the government travel that we’d like to see.” Terry attributes that drop in leisure travel to a tightening of wallets rather than to the end of summer and back-to-school.

But, he added that a “bright spot” is on the horizon. On Oct. 1, the federal government will increase its standard per diem rates to $107 for most of the U.S., which “should actually give us a nice boost in the future,” he added. Virginia, because of its proximity to the federal government and military traffic, is one state most likely impacted by that increase, Terry said.

In Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach saw the largest revenue increase at 28% through August compared to 2019. That was followed by Norfolk/Portsmouth and Chesapeake/Suffolk at 26.3% and 25.8%, respectively. Williamsburg had the slowest revenue growth at 8.4%.

When comparing year-to-date data from 2023 to the same time period of 2022, data also show improvement, but a softening. According to ODU’s report, hotel revenues increased 10.5% across the state and rooms sold increased by 3.1% in August, down from July 2023 over July 2022, when revenues were 12.1% across the state and rooms sold saw a 3.8% increase. Northern Virginia saw a 21.86% increase in hotel revenue in August 2023 over the same period of 2022; rooms sold increased by 8%. Bristol, Virginia, saw the second largest revenue increase for that period at 9.4%, and rooms sold were at 1.1%.

Lyon Shipyard to expand, adding 134 jobs

Lyon Shipyard, a 95-year-old family-owned ship repair facility in Norfolk, will spend $8.5 million to expand its operations and add an estimated 134 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday.

The shipyard plans to increase its capacity to work on commercial ships and vessels that will work on offshore wind farm operations. Virginia competed with Maryland and North Carolina for the project.

“Lyon Shipyard has been a leader in marine repair and industrial services in Norfolk for nearly a century, and its new investment will allow the company to service vessels integral to Virginia’s growing offshore wind industry,” Youngkin said in a statement. “We thank Lyon Shipyard for its long-term partnership with the commonwealth and advancing Virginia’s position as a leading state in this emerging sector on the East Coast.”

Established in 1928, Lyon has two facilities in Norfolk located on more than 30 acres along the eastern branch of the Elizabeth River. The company provides marine electronics repair, barge repair and pier side repairs and hauls vessels out of the water for underwater repairs to equipment including propellers, tail shafts and rudders. The company’s commercial customers include tug and barge operators, dredging and marine construction contractors, ferry and cruise ship operators, research vessels and commercial fishing companies. Its government customers include the Navy, Army, Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command and the Maritime Administration.

The company announced a $24.4 million expansion in 2021, during which it added 119 jobs, and it has received several Navy contracts this year, according to Pentagon records, including one for repair, alterations and maintenance for vessels that is valued up to $70 million through September 2027 if all options are exercised. The region is also home to Dominion Energy’s $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“We want to be the change so many other companies just talk about — Lyon Shipyard wants to lead the charge and help transform the socioeconomical landscape for the city of Norfolk and its residents,” Nikole Dunkley, Lyon’s vice president of human resources, said in a statement.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Norfolk and the Hampton Roads Alliance to secure the project for Virginia and will support Lyon Shipyard’s job creation through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides consulting and funding to companies creating jobs to support employee recruitment and training activities.