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byline: Elizabeth Cooper

Nurturing an inclusive environment

It’s not uncommon to hear dozens of languages spoken on Old Dominion University’s campus in Norfolk.

With 24,375 students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, ODU has become a regional melting pot of academic and cultural diversity. Nearly 90 years after its founding in 1930 as the Norfolk division of the College of William and Mary, ODU has evolved from a two-year commuter school into a major doctoral research institution offering more than 270 academic programs.

“As many as 50 languages are spoken on campus,” says ODU President John R. Broderick, the university’s leader since 2008. “I hear all the time from students who say that one of the critical deciding points for coming to ODU was they wanted to come to a diverse campus that is committed to welcoming all. That has always been a genuine edge for us.”

The university’s commitment to nurturing an inclusive environment sets it apart from other schools, Broderick adds. “It’s a very diverse place, but what makes it special is the inclusivity you see on campus, in the library, in the dining hall and as students walk around,” he says. “We talk about students having to compete in the world, but they also will have to partner with others. How can you partner in the world if you have never been around people from all kinds of points of view?”

Encouraging diversity and inclusivity is an ongoing objective at ODU. “We have to commit to efforts to always take a look at how we can make the campus more welcoming to students, staff and faculty,” Broderick says. “We have to realize that not everybody here is between the ages of 18 and 22, and not everybody here has even been in this country before visiting campus for the first time. There are always opportunities to do some things better.”

Broderick and his wife, Kate, have been driving forces behind making ODU a more welcoming community. In recognition of their efforts, student leaders asked to name the university’s dining hall Broderick Commons in their honor. The facility, which features a variety of cuisines, opened in 2016. 

Kate Broderick, formerly Old Dominion’s director of educational accessibility, joined forces with Pam Kirk, an ODU alumna and member of the board of visitors, to found the university’s Women Initiative Network (WIN) in 2014. The mentorship program pairs women executives with first-generation female students. Mentors regularly meet with students to discuss concerns ranging from preparing for job interviews to managing finances. The network also funds an annual scholarship for a female student with financial needs.  This year, 20 mentors are counseling 23 students. Meeting for lunch, a cup of coffee or dinner, they discuss everything from preparing for job interviews to managing finances.

Kirk says that students who have graduated continue to check in with their mentors for advice and encouragement as they navigate their careers.
“The unique thing about this program is it’s very individualized to each student,” Kirk says. “Students can ask professionals all kinds of questions about anything they need to chart their career path.”

$250 million campaign
One of ODU’s longtime priorities has been supporting students who need extra encouragement to complete their education. More than 33 percent of the university’s students are eligible for Pell grants, and about 70 percent receive some form of financial aid. Broderick notes that the typical ODU student comes up short by $1,700 in paying college expenses.

“We have students who make a choice between books and a week’s worth of food,” he says. “Those are the kind of decisions we don’t think our students should have to make. We want to continue to attract the best and brightest and make sure they have the same opportunities to succeed that they would have at any other institution in the commonwealth.”

Providing support for student scholarships and academic opportunities such as study abroad programs is a primary objective of the university’s $250 million fundraising campaign, which Broderick announced during his State of the University address in August. At least $100 million will be earmarked for scholarships.

“We have been fortunate in the last five to seven years to have made great inroads in philanthropy,” Broderick says. “The time is certainly right for us to do this. It’s another step in our maturation as an institution to go out and do something at this level.”

The campaign’s original goal was set at $200 million, but university officials upped the ante after raising $78 million by December. Previously, the university’s most successful fund-raising campaign, from 2001 to 2006, netted $115 million.

“This is an open-ended campaign, but we want to get it done in five years or less if we can,” says Alonzo Brandon, ODU’s vice president for university advancement. “This whole thing is about giving students opportunities to excel and graduate with less debt and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.”

Money raised through the campaign also will support special projects such as ODU’s research in resiliency. Through its Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resilience, the university has become one of the nation’s leading research institutions in sea-level rise.

“Most of the research has been done with state funds,” Brandon notes, “but what we really want to do is take it nationally and raise money to establish an institute … to cover things outside Virginia.”

Football boost
ODU’s athletics program also will benefit from the campaign. The Old Dominion Athletic Foundation is raising $40 million, including $20 million for athletic scholarships and $20 million toward the $55 million renovation of the school’s football stadium, Foreman Field at S.B. Ballard Stadium.

The university revived its football program in 2009, nearly 70 years after dropping it. Bringing football back to ODU and Foreman Field, which opened in 1936, has benefited the university and Hampton Roads. “Football has been a rallying point for the region and certainly for the campus,” Broderick says, noting that 20,000 people converge on campus for home games six Saturdays each fall. “Football brings people to campus who may not have seen the successful transformation we’ve had here.”

Football also has brought to ODU students who previously might have gone elsewhere. “Football led us to start a marching band [with 165 students],” Broderick notes. “A lot of those students are here because of the ability to participate in a band. We used to lose a lot of students to other schools because we didn’t have a band.”

Barry Art Museum
A growing number of students also are taking advantage of ODU’s burgeoning arts programs showcased in a variety of galleries, theaters and museums on campus. ODU’s role in the region’s arts scene has expanded over the years and will be further magnified with this fall’s opening of the Barry Art Museum. The 24,000-square-foot museum now under construction on Hampton Boulevard is the result of a donation by Hampton Roads philanthropists Richard and Carolyn Barry. The gift is valued over time at more than $35 million, the largest gift in the school’s history. 

Focusing on the American glass art movement, the museum is being heralded as a significant player in Hampton Roads’ fine-arts scene. It will feature items from the Barrys’ personal collection, including glass sculptures and paintings. The collection also includes automatons, 19th-century dolls wound by a clockwork mechanism to perform movements. The museum will be free and open to the public.

“This is going to be a very active place,” says Jutta-Annette Page, the museum’s executive director, who came to ODU last year after serving as senior curator of glass and decorative arts at the Toledo Museum of Art. “It’s a very exciting prospect to be involved on the ground floor of a new museum. It’s a rare opportunity to start out a museum from scratch.”

Page is enthusiastic about the opportunities for the museum to partner with ODU academic programs, including areas such as engineering and science. “There are so many different tie-ins that we can create through the collections,” she says. “The more we can involve other departments, the richer the cultural life of ODU will be. This will be a laboratory of ideas for the future.”

Already, the museum has collaborated with ODU’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center to develop visualization slides using automatons. “We see a lot more tie-ins with robotics,” Page adds. “We think it will be one of the highlights of the museum’s collection.”

The interaction between the arts and other disciplines is just one of the opportunities ODU plans to take advantage of. “I feel very good about the steps forward we’ve taken,” Broderick says of his decade-long tenure as president. “We’ve remained true to our mission and have become not only a leader in Hampton Roads but in the commonwealth.”

Old Dominion University at a glance

Location: Norfolk

History:

1930 – Norfolk Division of The College of William and Mary
1962 – Independent institution
1969 – University status

Enrollment: 24,375 total

Undergraduate: 19,540
Graduate: 4,835
International: 1,013 from 108 countries

Faculty:

Full time: 835
Part time: 676

Student-to-faculty ratio: 18 to 1

Colleges: 7 academic colleges, honors college and graduate school

Degree programs:

70 bachelor's degrees
41 master's degrees
22 doctoral degrees
2 educational specialist degrees


Distance learning: More than 100 online programs available through ODUOnline.


Research: Total external research expenditures in FY2016 were $50.4 million.

 

Niche industry leader

Kimberly Christner has become a driving force in Virginia’s boutique hotel industry, a field that combines two of her passions — restoring historic buildings and helping the economies of small communities.

Boutique hotels have evolved into a popular lodging choice for travelers seeking accommodations that accentuate a region’s history and culture.

“The development of boutique hotels is about creating an experience for guests — one they can’t get someplace else,” Christner says. “One that isn’t a cookie cutter. It has to be authentic and tell a story about the building, the community, the people.”

Christner did not plan to pursue a career in the hospitality industry 27 years ago when she became a front office manager for a Newport News hotel managed by the Williamsburg-based Beck Co. “I fell in love with it and stayed with it,” she says. During nearly two decades with Beck, Christner rose through the ranks to become CEO. In 2012, she joined colleague Craig Larson to form Cornerstone Hospitality, managing branded and boutique hotels.

The following year, they teamed with Craddock Cunningham Architectural Partners and MB Contractors to develop boutique hotels and repurpose historic properties in small communities under the name Creative Boutique Hotels.

With 400 employees, Cornerstone now operates 11 branded and boutique hotels. Next year, the Williamsburg-based company expects to become Virginia’s largest operator of boutique hotels. By 2019, Cornerstone will manage about 20 hotels, with 15 restaurant operations.

Christner’s personal passion, though, lies in transforming historic properties into boutique hotels in communities needing an economic boost. “Historic properties are part of the fabric of the community,” Christner says, adding that Cornerstone regularly gets requests to open hotels in small communities with historic downtowns. “We evaluate the market and see if we can impact them. We need it to be revenue producing, but we also want to make sure we help the community.”

In November, Cornerstone will open the $7.76 million Western Front Hotel in St. Paul, a small Southwest Virginia town in the struggling coalfields region. “Coal country needs some other developments and resources to grow and improve this community,” Christner says, noting that the hotel’s name honors St. Paul’s history as a railroad town. “It was nicknamed the Western Front during World War I because the area was seen as more dangerous than being on a battlefield, with its saloons, dance halls and bordellos.”

The 30-room hotel features rustic décor highlighting Clinch Valley’s array of outdoor activities, including canoeing, fishing, hiking, rafting, tubing and cycling. The hotel also will be home to Milton’s, a restaurant led by chef Travis Milton, a Southwest Virginia native and a James Beard Foundation nominee.

Housed in a structure built in the 1920s, the Western Front Hotel received the first $250,000 grant from Virginia’s new Tourism Growth Fund. “In small towns where there are huge risks to do these projects, grants and tax credits are the only way these projects get done,”  Christner notes.

Creativity also is key to develop boutique hotels. “The creative part is coming up with ideas for an experience that’s authentic to the building and the community,” she adds. “We’re all so busy that we’re looking for an experience in travel that’s one of a kind.”

Lynchburg’s Craddock Terry Hotel, for example, serves a complimentary continental breakfast in an old-fashioned, wooden shoeshine box, a tribute to the building’s original use as a Craddock-Terry Shoe Corp. factory.

Decorated with artifacts from the factory, the 44-room hotel was Creative Boutique Hotel’s first property. “It’s the first truly boutique hotel in Virginia,” Christner says.

Opened in 2007, the hotel has helped revitalize downtown Lynchburg. “It was a big risk, but that property is truly a good case study about what taking a risk can do for a community,” she says.  The hotel now is undergoing a $10 million expansion, adding 56 rooms, a 3,000-square-foot rooftop bar and a biergarten. The expansion is scheduled for completion in 2019.

Cornerstone Hospitality also is developing The Virginian in Lynchburg and The Weyanoke in Farmville. Both are set to open next spring. In 2019, the company will open Sessions Hotel in Bristol, Va., the John Randolph in South Boston and the Hotel Danville in Danville.

“We want to give the community something to be proud of and generate a catalyst for growth,” Christner says.

Another renaissance?

The developers of the revamped Waterside District on the Elizabeth River expect it to become “Norfolk’s living room.”

When it opens on May 4 after a $40 million facelift, the venue will include an 8,000-square-foot mixed-use space for weddings and corporate events and a number of restaurants new to Hampton Roads. The site’s focal point, though, will be The Market, a 30,000-square-foot, two-level area featuring a variety of eateries and craft breweries. “We feel that Waterside has a good opportunity to be a destination as well as a local hangout,” says Glenn Sutch, Waterside’s president. 

When it originally opened in 1983, the site, then called Waterside Festival Marketplace, signaled the beginning of a renaissance in downtown Norfolk. Waterside, however, ultimately became a victim of the redevelopment it spurred. Overshadowed by the MacArthur Center mall and Granby Street’s array of fashionable restaurants, Waterside’s fortunes waned. In 2013, city leaders turned to The Cordish Cos. for Waterside’s redevelopment. The Baltimore developer has a track record of successful projects in its hometown and Charleston, S.C.

“We own the property and run it as well,” Sutch says. “We care about how everything is run and oversee every activity and make sure everything is spot on at the end of the day. That is going to be the difference.”

The Waterside District joins a list of big-ticket projects springing up in Hampton Roads. The group includes the $175 million Main Hotel and Conference Center in Norfolk, a proposed $220 million privately owned arena in Virginia Beach and the $450 million Tech Center in Newport News, a 100-acre, mixed-use development that combines research labs with shops, apartments and entertainment. 

These projects signal a wave of investment in Hampton Roads and a new emphasis on diversifying a regional economy long dependent on defense spending.  “We truly are at a strategic turning point,” says Bryan Stephens, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. “Over the next 18 months to two years, you’ll see a juggernaut of economic activity in Hampton Roads. It’s the fruits of a lot of hard labor over the last couple of years. Success begets success and is a harbinger of things to come.”

Stephens believes the big projects will help draw more interest in Hampton Roads. “This is a fabulous place to relocate companies,” he says, noting the region’s efforts to attract industry clusters such as biomedical, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing while continuing to support the military. “We’re leveraging our assets to diversify the economy.”

Still below its jobs peak
Diversification is expected to help stimulate a regional economy that still lags behind comparably sized areas in recovering from the economic downturn that began nearly a decade ago. The Old Dominion University Economic Forecast for 2017 shows Hampton Roads can expect to add 3,800 jobs this year. That gain still would leave the region below its peak of 775,000 jobs in 2007.

Rick L. Weddle, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance, says the region may not return to that peak until the end of 2018.   He attributes the region’s recent sluggish economic pace to its continued dependence on military and federal spending. “About 65 percent of business services are military related. When military and federal spending continues to be down, it restricts growth,” he says. “There’s the notion that if we wait long enough, the military will build up and solve the problem, but that’s not prudent. We have to diversify the economy by identifying sectors that are not military dependent and accelerate their growth.”

HREDA has crafted an ambitious five-year strategy to attract diverse businesses to the region and create 71,000 jobs, including 32,000 higher-wage positions in industries such as corporate, professional and financial services, health care, manufacturing, and maritime and supply chain management.

“We need to get back to the basics and do fundamental economic development — build and improve the workforce, build and improve property and inventory and build and improve the regulatory and tax environment,” Weddle says. “Our challenge is to assemble the resources needed to effectively brand and promote the region.”

Tech Center Research Park
Florence Kingston, Newport News’ economic development director, agrees that Hampton Roads must reduce its reliance on the military. The city already is home to firms such as Canon Virginia and Alion Science & Technology, and construction soon will be underway on the first research building at Tech Center Research Park, a 50-acre site adjacent to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

Emphasizing entrepreneurship, the park, part of the 100-acre Tech Center, will provide 1 million square feet of office and laboratory space for high-tech companies performing advanced research. “We have a good cluster of companies that do advanced manufacturing, and we’re building a welcoming environment of smaller business startups through the Tech Center,” Kingston says.

Meanwhile, Newport News Shipbuilding, the state’s largest industrial employer and sole builder of naval aircraft carriers, plans to add 3,000 employees. The company is expected to benefit from President Donald Trump’s plans to expand the Navy, including adding another aircraft carrier to its current fleet of 11.  “We’ve got to support that,” Kingston says, “but not forget the need to focus on other diversification and growth to balance out military spending.”

Weddle believes Hampton Roads can play off Newport News Shipbuilding’s expansion without becoming further dependent on military dollars. “We need to build on our military strength but not rely on it by marketing the region during more prosperous times and investing in infrastructure, sites and facilities, education and training as the region prepares for non-military dependence,” he says.

ADP and an arena
In addition to the opening of The Main and Waterside, Norfolk is raising its profile with a big jobs boost from New Jersey-based ADP (Automated Data Processing). The human resources company plans to hire 1,800 employees to staff a hub in downtown Norfolk. ADP has invested $32.5 million in revamping 286,000 square feet of a formerly empty office tower. 

Retailers also are attracting interest in Norfolk. The first phase of the long-awaited $75 million Simon’s Norfolk Premium Outlets is set to open this summer, and a 332,000-square-foot Ikea store will open next year.

Next door in Virginia Beach, the city has struck a deal with United States Management to proceed with the 18,000-seat Virginia Beach Arena. If everything falls in place, the privately owned facility could open as soon as 2019. 

A much smaller venue, the 300-seat Zeiders American Dream Theater, is scheduled to open next spring at the city’s bustling Town Center, part of the new phase of development there that will include apartments, retail, restaurants and a public plaza.

As an added boost to the city’s Central Business District, Wegmans Food Markets plans to open its first Hampton Roads store across from Town Center.  It’s a coup for the city since Wegmans only opens three to four stores each year. “We’re very excited about it,” says Rob Hudome, senior project development manager for Virginia Beach’s Economic Development department. “The population of Virginia Beach is centered around the Central Business District and the growth of Town Center. That’s the future downtown of Virginia Beach.”

Landing point for cables
Virginia Beach also is poised to become an international digital port as the only landing point on the mid-Atlantic coast for transoceanic cables. Facebook, Microsoft and Telefonica have joined forces to build a 4,000-mile undersea cable from Virginia Beach to a data hub in Bilbao, Spain. Projected to be operational by the end of the year, the cable is intended to meet increasing demand for high-speed, reliable connections for cloud and online services. A second fiber cable running from Rio de Janeiro to Virginia Beach should be ready early next year. “It’s the highest-capacity, fastest cable to come across any ocean,” says Hudome.

The new generation of cables creates a need for data centers. First up is Globalinx Data Center’s 10-acre, 138,000-square-foot data center at Corporate Landing Business Park in Virginia Beach. NxtVn, a Dutch firm, also plans to build a data center park off General Booth Boulevard. NxtVn also wants to invest in another cable, Midgardsormen, that would connect Virginia Beach to Eemshaven, Netherlands.  “Virginia Beach is geographically in the right spot,” Hudome notes. “It’s a very desirable place to build a cable landing station and data center.” The industry is expected to lead to significant capital investment and job creation in Hampton Roads and the state. “This is a brand-new industry for us, so we’re still seeing how it’s going to develop, but the closer we get to the cable landing, the more interest we’ll get from data centers,” Hudome adds.

As part of the city’s efforts to expand its bioscience sector, Virginia Beach also is partnering with The Center for Advancing Innovation to create the VABeachBio Innovation Challenge.
Announced by Mayor Will Sessoms at the Virginia Biotechnology Association’s conference in the city in early April, the challenge is designed to bring together entrepreneurs, industry and inventors who will compete to turn inventions into startup companies.

The initial competition will put a big emphasis on aiding veterans.  Inventions will be selected to target and improve veteran health care, and veterans will be given priority in competing to run the companies.

Virginia Wesleyan growing
Hampton Roads colleges, universities and technical institutes are instrumental to the region’s progress as they seek to meet the needs of today’s workforce. This fall, Virginia Wesleyan College will offer its first graduate degree programs — a master’s in education and an online MBA. The private, liberal-arts college also plans to begin an online degree completion program for working adults.

Bordering Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia Wesleyan is involved in a construction boom. The 40,000-square-foot Greer Environmental Sciences Center will open this fall with research labs dedicated to Chesapeake Bay fisheries, geology and hydrology. “It will be second to none,” says Virginia Wesleyan President Scott Miller. “It will give us a niche program in environmental science.” Through a dual-degree program with Duke University, students can earn bachelor’s degrees in environmental science after completing three years at Virginia Wesleyan before pursuing master’s degrees in environmental management at Duke. “We intend to graduate top students who will go out and make a difference in the environment,” Miller says.

Construction is expected to start this fall on apartments for upper-level, graduate and international students and faculty and staff, while ground could be broken on a $14 million performing arts center next year. Meanwhile, applications are up significantly. Miller expects enrollment to jump from 1,400 to 1,700 students during the next three to five years.  The college also plans to become  a university later this year.

“We have a wonderful location,” he says. “The new outlet mall is within walking distance; we’re four and a half miles from the Chesapeake Bay; and there are nearby amenities such as the Virginia Aquarium. We need to use the resources of this wonderful community to grow the college.”

Growing through technology

More than 8,900 students attend Regent University, including nearly 6,500 who can go to class without setting foot on the school’s 70-acre Virginia Beach campus.

They are among Regent’s growing cadre of students enrolled in more than 60 online degree programs. “We’re sensitive to the fact that the higher-education market has changed,” says Gerson Moreno-Riaño, Regent’s executive vice president for academic affairs and dean of its

College of Arts and Sciences. “There is a large market of students who can’t relocate or do not want to relocate to go to school but are looking for an excellent education delivered to them. Technology has transformed the way we live and breathe and do business.”

It’s also helped make Regent a leader in online education and has enhanced the school’s overall reputation. U.S. News & World Report recently gave Regent’s online academic programs high marks. The university’s online bachelor’s and graduate education programs were top-ranked in Virginia. The bachelor’s program also was ranked among the top 11 in the Southeast and the top 36 in the U.S. Meanwhile, Regent’s online non-MBA graduate business program was second in Virginia while its MBA program was fourth.  

Began as CBN University
Those are remarkable accomplishments for a school not yet 40 years old. Founded by Christian broadcaster M.G. “Pat” Robertson, Regent was known as CBN University in 1978 when seven faculty members and 70 graduate students pursuing degrees in communications met in rented space. Today, students from all 50 states and 75 countries are enrolled in more than 95 graduate and undergraduate programs. There are more than 700 faculty members, in addition to 550 other employees. Regent’s 21,000 alumni include Emmy Award-winning actor Tony Hale, Tony-nominated Broadway producer Bruce Long, former U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell (R-2nd) and former Gov. Bob McDonnell (who now teaches at the university).

Those numbers continue to grow, thanks to Regent’s online presence, new academic programs and eight-week courses that allow students to enroll at times other than the traditional fall, spring and summer semesters. The addition of programs in cybersecurity, accounting, marketing and health care has led to 25 percent year-over-year enrollment increases for the past two years.

This year, Regent plans to launch graduate programs in cybersecurity, nursing and nursing administration, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs in health-care management and informatics.  A college of health sciences is on tap for the future. “We’re going to provide more intellectual capital with the development of our health-sciences and cybersecurity programs,” Moreno-Riaño says. “It’s going to be phenomenal — a win-win for our university and Hampton Roads.” 

Regent has been offering bachelor’s programs only since 2005, but Moreno-Riaño says the school’s mission always included undergraduate education. “It was always a matter of timing,” he says, noting that undergraduate retention rates have risen from less than 40 percent to about 80 percent. “That’s amazing. It’s one of the most incredible success stories in American higher education.”

As the undergraduate population grows, the university is adding an athletic program, starting with track and field and cross-country teams competing in the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association. Construction on an athletic center is expected to begin in the next few years. 

All of which sets the stage for more growth, a prospect Regent is ready to tackle, Moreno-Riaño says. “We believe that we can continue to grow at a pace that places us as a very large university over the next five to 10 years while maintaining solid quality.”

First feature film
Graduate education, however, remains Regent’s top draw. Communications, the initial degree program, has evolved into the School of Communications and the Arts. The only Christian university in the world to offer a master’s degree in acting, Regent provides theater students opportunities to hone their craft in six school productions annually, as well as the Tidewater Stage, a professional summer theater. Film students create 30 to 100 short movies a year, with faculty selecting the top 10 to showcase in Regent’s 700-seat theater.

Last year, the school partnered with Home Theater Films to release its first full-length commercial feature movie, “In-Lawfully Yours,” which was filmed throughout Hampton Roads.  “We contributed to the economy of Hampton Roads and brought attention to the whole area with this feature film,” says Mitchell Land, the communications and arts dean. He adds that, while students have been honored in the Student Emmy and Student Academy Awards for short films, they relish the opportunity to assist in the production of a feature-length project.  “Having their names attached to a feature film is just ratcheting up their career opportunities.”

Teacher ties
Although Regent’s mission is global, many alumni opt to remain in Hampton Roads. About 800 Hampton Roads Teachers of the Year have ties to the School of Education, and administrators in all area school divisions have taken courses at Regent. “That’s a big thing as far as impact,” says Don Finn, dean of the School of Education.

About 1,200 graduate students are enrolled in degree and nondegree programs in the School of Education, which recently began offering a master’s program in STEM education.  “We look at trends in the market and various areas of emphasis from the Virginia Department of Education,” Finn says. Regent also partners with school divisions to offer specific programs, including courses focusing on teaching gifted and talented learners and English as a second language.

Most of Regent’s online programs are offered through the School of Education. That’s largely driven by students seeking to align their educational goals with their professional and personal lives, Finn notes. “Within the past seven years, we’ve made an aggressive transition to online programs, which are more in demand by learners. We’ve been pioneers among our peers in that route of going almost exclusively online.” 

Global business perspective
About 500 graduates of Regent’s School of Business and Leadership work in Hampton Roads. “We’re still considered a very young school, but our alumni are maturing in their various professions, and Regent is becoming increasingly known because of the quality education our students receive,” says Doris Gomez, the school’s dean.

A native of Austria, Gomez credits the school’s recent 35 percent year-over-year growth to its diverse faculty who hail from all over the world. Their perspective, she says, gives students insight into the business practices of various cultures, essential knowledge for working in an increasingly global economy. “It’s important our students learn to conduct business, lead and grow an organization across cultural differences.  Even if they don’t leave the U.S., globalization is at our doorstep,” she says.

With 1,200 students and growing, the school is considering adding programs, including a master’s in business analytics, which could begin this year. “Technology is ever increasing. There is so much data out there, but few organizations truly know how to make good use of data,” Gomez says. “This would be an incredible program that we must offer.”

Moot court victories
Having just celebrated its 30th anniversary, Regent’s law school still may be considered a fledgling, but it holds its own among more venerable institutions. For three years, the Princeton Review has ranked Regent law faculty in the top 10 of all U.S. law schools. Last year, the school’s Moot Court team came in second internationally at the Price Media Law Moot Court Competition Program in Oxford, England. The Moot Court program also placed fifth nationally in the University of Houston Law Center’s annual rankings. 

Such accolades indicate Regent is training lawyers to exhibit the highest degree of ethics and professionalism, says Michael Hernandez, the school’s dean. “The world doesn’t need more lawyers, per se, but it needs more lawyers who are different and committed to the highest standards of the profession. We don’t want to just produce more lawyers but produce lawyers who will practice with integrity.” 

The school also is investigating placing more courses online. “We want to make wise use of all the technology available but maintain and enhance the quality of the program,” Hernandez says. “Our goal is not to just mass produce education but to reach as many people as possible with quality programs.”

A new king in the peanut capital?

The aroma of freshly roasted peanuts still wafts through Suffolk, but the Peanut Capital of the World now gravitates toward a new export. The city’s economy is getting a caffeinated jolt from its flourishing coffee manufacturing and processing industry. 

Coffee beans soon may even overpower the peanuts, as Suffolk ramps up its manufacturing and food and beverage processing industries. In December, Peet’s Coffee announced plans to build a $58 million roastery in Suffolk’s CenterPoint Intermodal Center. The Emeryville, Calif.-based craft-coffee brand expects to hire 135 workers to run the 175,000-square-foot facility, its first on the East Coast.

Suffolk beat out communities in five other mid-Atlantic states to secure the project. Peet’s decision largely was swayed by Suffolk’s proximity to the Port of Virginia plus the city’s skilled workforce, available sites and existing coffee culture. Caffeinated companies — including J.M. Smucker, Massimo Zanetti Beverage, Lipton, Continental Terminals, Pacorini, Vitex Packaging Group, and Crown Cork and Seal — already have established processing, packaging and logistics operations in Suffolk, leading the city to claim a new moniker, “Caffeine Capital of the World.”

Agriculture remains a significant economic driver in Suffolk, but Suffolk’s days as a sleepy farming community are long gone. In addition to food and beverage processing, the city has put out the welcome mat for a multitude of industries, including warehousing, distribution, advanced manufacturing, hospitality, medical services, retail, and modeling and simulation. “It’s a large but realistic list of target industries, and we’ve seen growth and opportunities in them,” says Kevin Hughes, Suffolk’s economic development director.

Suffolk, in fact, is hitting its industrial targets already. In 2015, 91 new and expanding businesses brought nearly 2,000 jobs to the city along with almost $190 million in capital investments. Among them is Target Corp., which added 600 jobs and invested $50 million to expand its distribution center.

Bustling intermodal center
Much of the growth is taking place at CenterPoint Intermodal Center where Peet’s Coffee will build its roastery. The 900-acre logistics center recently became the state’s first certified industrial site, meaning all major infrastructure components are in place. “CIC-Suffolk has not only met all the infrastructure requirements for in-place utilities and roadways but also has the only pad-ready site that can accommodate a 350,000-square-foot building,” says Bob Harbour, CenterPoint’s senior vice president for development. “It sets us aside from other developments around the state and the mid-Atlantic.” 

CenterPoint is about 40 percent full. Ace Hardware, Nexcom and office furniture and equipment manufacturer Friant & Associates have facilities there, while Emser Tile expects to open its East Coast distribution center next month. “We look forward to more growth as the U.S. economy improves and global trade increases in the near future,” Harbour says.

Business expansions lead to residential growth, which in turn attracts more retail development. “Ultimately, the top two business and industry attractors to Suffolk are the city’s steady population increase and location,” Hughes notes. “You can easily move people and product very efficiently.” One of Virginia’s fastest-growing cities, Suffolk has about 90,500 residents, a nearly 40 percent increase since the 2000 census. Another 40 percent surge is expected by 2040.

The influx of new residents has led to a housing boom of sorts, with construction centered on downtown, central and northern Suffolk. Residents have a variety of options, ranging from downtown apartments to single-family homes. Farmland also is available for those preferring a more bucolic lifestyle.

Suffolk’s array of homes, along with growth and the quality of its schools, led consumer advocacy site NerdWallet to rank the city 19th on its 2015 list of the Best Cities for Young Families in the commonwealth. NerdWallet also named Suffolk a top city for veterans in 2015.

Downtown redevelopment
Meanwhile, downtown Suffolk is attracting the attention of developers. The Monument Cos. and Sensei Development, for example, have created more than 150 downtown apartments during the past five years. Specializing in historic rehabs, Monument and Sensei have invested more than $24 million in downtown Suffolk, redeveloping 165,000 square feet of commercial and residential space.

Their projects include Washington Square, which transformed seven buildings along a West Washington Street block into loft apartments and retail space in late 2014. The $9.5 million development marked the largest private reinvestment in downtown Suffolk in 15 years.

“We’re fortunate to find good developers who are breathing new life into vacant and abandoned real estate,” Hughes says. “Downtown has a lot of character. It’s quirky, and there are opportunities for independent retailers to take advantage of that.”

There may even be an opportunity for Franklin-based Paul D. Camp Community College to open a downtown Suffolk campus. That would further stimulate downtown activity, but Hughes says the city and the college are not ready to commit to the idea. To help determine its next course, the city plans to conduct a downtown initiative study. A similar study 15 years ago led to the construction of a Hilton Garden Inn and the renovation of the former Suffolk High School into the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts.

Obici Place
A few miles from downtown, another mixed-use development is under construction at the former Sentara Obici Hospital site. After lying dormant for more than a decade, the 27.5-acre Main Street property is being transformed into Obici Place. Meridian Obici, a 224-unit apartment development by Waverton Associates, opened last summer on part of the site, while eight acres have been set aside for commercial development. Hughes says that will give Obici Place a town center vibe. “There will be a lot of urban-scale pedestrian friendliness themes attached to it, but ultimately, our town center is in the historic downtown.”

Venture Realty Group has contracted to purchase the commercial section at Obici Place, with closing expected early this summer, says Mike Culpepper, the firm’s managing partner. German grocer Aldi is slated to anchor the development, while deals with other businesses are in the works. “We are working on commitments from two users, with a number of prospects looking at these spaces,” he says, adding that the Main Street corridor is “buzzing with new retail.”

The city purchased the Obici property for $4.5 million in 2005 — three years after the hospital opened a new facility on Godwin Boulevard — and sold it the next year to a Norfolk developer who envisioned a mixed-use plan. When that did not happen, in 2008 the developer sold the property back to the city, which conveyed it to the Economic Development Authority in 2013.

A group of residents promoted the idea of turning the site into a park, with hiking trails, benches and a gazebo for concerts. The city, however, ultimately decided a mixed-use development would better meet the needs of its growing population. “We found that people who have jobs in the central part of the city were commuting from Chesapeake or other nearby cities,” Hughes says. “With Obici Place, we’re offering an inventory that we didn’t have before.”

Although a park at Obici Place was a no-go, the city still considers recreational amenities a priority. “There has been a lot of time and effort invested in the quality of life from a recreational standpoint over the last 10 years,” Hughes says, noting the construction of two recreation centers and the conversion of former rail beds into the Suffolk Seaboard Coastline Trail, which will eventually cover more than 11 miles from downtown to the Chesapeake city line.

Harbour View
Meanwhile, retail is flourishing in Northern Suffolk’s Harbour View area. The past few years have seen the mixed-use Hampton Roads Crossing project welcome a 123,000-square-foot Kroger Marketplace. It anchors a shopping center that includes DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse, Ulta Beauty, Michaels, Ross Dress for Less, Petco, Texas Roadhouse and Zaxby’s. The retail center is next to a walkable neighborhood of single-family homes, town homes and apartments. North of Hampton Roads Crossing, the city is preparing a 55-acre site adjacent to the James River. Master plans call for Point at Harbour View to include space for research and development, offices and retail. 

Health care also has made a significant imprint at Harbour View. Last fall, Bon Secours Hampton Roads opened its $20 million Bon Secours Cancer Institute, giving patients a one-stop, central location for care. “Here we are in the middle of a community that is growing, and our patients won’t have to go very far to get care,” says Marylou Anton, director of oncology services for Bon Secours Hampton Roads.  “They can see their doctors and get radiation or chemotherapy here without having to move their car. We’re trying to make it as pleasant as possible and incorporate cancer into their life, not let their life be run by a cancer diagnosis.”

Bon Secours expects the cancer center to provide 8,000 radiation therapy treatments annually, along with chemotherapy and other advanced cancer services. The American Association for Cancer Research says western Hampton Roads is one of three colon-cancer hot spots in the U.S., while a 2014 Virginia Department of Health report determined that the area has some of the state’s highest cancer morbidity and mortality rates. “With the volume of patients moving here, those rates will continue to grow,” Anton notes. “We’re putting a footprint here to help people as well as work on community education and prevention.”

The cancer center is part of the 23-acre Bon Secours Harbour View Medical Plaza, which includes diagnostic services, two primary-care physician practices, 13 specialist practices ranging from plastic surgery to gynecologic oncology, a weight-loss program and an emergency department. “Harbour View is a significant growth area, and we realize that we can better serve the community by putting resources out there,” says Lynne Zultanky, Bon Secours’ administrative director for marketing and public relations. She adds that the population in the ZIP codes surrounding Harbour View is expected to grow by 7 percent between 2013 and 2020.

More signs of the persistent growth pervade the 430-square-mile city. “We like to say that we’re a fast-growing city that’s home to fast-growing companies,” Hughes adds. “It’s hard not to be excited that people want to live in your community. It says we’re doing something right and that more people want to be a part of it.”

Transformative properties?

The new year will be a big one for Virginia’s hospitality industry in terms of openings.  December saw the much-awaited debut of MGM National Harbor, a $1.4 billion casino and resort in Prince George’s County, Md., across the Potomac River from Alexandria.  Two more properties, The Main in downtown Norfolk and a restored Cavalier on the Hill in Virginia Beach, will open in the spring. All three properties promise the latest in amenities and luxury, and travelers and convention planners are checking them out and making reservations.

From huge swirling fountains to a trio of 60-foot-tall stainless steel sculptures, there is a grandness of scale and Las Vegas glitz at MGM Resort International’s first East Coast property. Yet MGM National Harbor also plays on its proximity to the nation’s capital with plenty of outside terraces with panoramic views of the Potomac and the city skyline. 

The 308-room resort rises 24 stories above the mixed-use National Harbor development. Room rates are adjustable, based on time of stay and type of room. During the holiday season one room ranged from $299 a night right before Christmas to $1,599 on New Year’s Eve.  

Guests staying at the resort are within walking distance of its spa, dining and entertainment venues, upscale shops and a 125,000-square-foot casino with 3,300 slot machines and more than 100 gaming tables.

“We’re confident the MGM National Harbor experience will resonate with guests from all over the globe,” says General Manager Bill Boasberg. “Our intent is to  grow domestic and international visitation to National Harbor, Prince George’s County and across the region.”

The resort’s entertainment options include a 3,000-seat theater. Duran Duran was scheduled to play on New Year’s Eve, and Cher is booked to perform in March. “The venue is intimate and will allow guests to see some of the industry’s top artists up close and personal rather than in a large-scale arena,” Boasberg says.

MGM National Harbor also touts its restaurants, some of which are new to the region. There’s a seafood restaurant led by celebrity chef José Andrés, a sports bar, a pan-Asian eatery and a market offering 10 food venues ranging from Vietnamese sandwiches to Southern fried chicken. Epicureans can top off their meals with a visit to the resort’s European-inspired pastry shop, Bellagio Patisserie, showcased by a 12-foot chocolate fountain.

The resort’s conference center offers 50,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 16,200-square-foot grand ballroom and a 6,000-square-foot outdoor terrace.

The Main

Meanwhile, downtown Norfolk is preparing for an influx of new convention business with the anticipated March opening of a 21-story hotel and convention center, The Main. Bearing the Hilton brand, the 300-room hotel will offer 42,000 square feet of high-tech meeting space as well as an 18,382-square-foot ballroom, touted as the largest hotel ballroom in Virginia.

Other selling points include 11 luxury suites and two presidential suites — with views of the Elizabeth River and downtown Norfolk — a fitness facility, indoor pool and three full-service restaurants. They include Grain, a rooftop beer garden, and the Fruitive, which will offer a vegan menu. The hotel’s public spaces will be tied together by a 100-foot-tall ground-floor glass atrium known as Grand Central Station.

The Main represents Virginia Beach developer Bruce Thompson’s first venture in  Norfolk. The CEO of Gold Key|PHR persuaded the city to invest $86.6 million in the $150 million development, which is expected to generate an estimated $2 million in annual city tax revenues while creating 100 jobs. The city of Norfolk owns The Exchange, the hotel’s conference center.  

About 100 groups have reserved space at The Main between April and 2020, including nearly 70 traveling to Norfolk for the first time. “Combined, that’s over 22,000 individual room nights,” says Michael Woodhead, Gold Key’s vice president of marketing. “What we are offering for the large-scale corporate meeting planner is something you can’t get anywhere else in the state.”

By attracting large groups, he adds, The Main will help fill rooms at nearby hotels, including Norfolk’s Waterside Marriott and the Sheraton. “It stands to reason that if we have more meeting space than guest rooms to accommodate, we are going to overflow into the surrounding hotels. It’s going to have a transformative impact on occupancy rate growth in downtown Norfolk.”

Cavalier on the Hill
At its other property, Gold Key is melding history with modern amenities in restoring Virginia Beach’s Cavalier on the Hill. Built in 1927, the hotel is undergoing a $75 million renovation that Woodhead describes as a renaissance. “We’re taking a historic hotel and preserving what’s special and magical about it and marrying that concept with the contemporary amenities the 21st century traveler expects,” says Woodhead.

On tap to reopen this spring, the Cavalier will be a five-star member of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, the first in Hampton Roads. New design elements, combined with décor reminiscent of the early 20th century, include saltwater swimming pools, enlarged guest rooms, a farm-to-table restaurant, and an onsite vodka and bourbon distillery.

The grand dame of the resort city, the Cavalier has hosted 10 U.S. presidents, as well as numerous celebrities. Gold Key is playing up that history by inviting couples that married or honeymooned at the hotel to submit their love stories. Eighty-five couples will be chosen for an all-inclusive stay during the Cavalier’s grand reopening, including a vow renewal ceremony and champagne brunch.

Born to serve

Research taking place at Eastern Virginia Medical School has global implications, but the school’s primary mission remains educating health-care professionals to serve Hampton Roads.

As one of only a few U.S. medical schools established by a grass-roots effort, EVMS owes its existence to the people of Hampton Roads. In the mid-1960s, community leaders, concerned about the shortage of physicians and the lack of specialized health care in Southeastern Virginia, raised money and lobbied the General Assembly for support in creating a medical school in the region.

EVMS opened in 1973 with 28 students and a mission to address health issues affecting the local population. Today, the school has 1,180 students — 594 in the medical school and 586 in the School of Health Professions.  EVMS also hosts approximately 350 health professionals in 39 residency, fellowship and internship programs.

“But for the creation of EVMS, the quality of medical delivery in Hampton Roads wouldn’t be what it is today,” says Dr. Richard V. Homan, the school’s president, provost and dean. “We were created by community members to serve the community at a time when the need for the health-care workforce was extraordinarily acute, and we have a huge impact in training the next generation of health-care professionals.”

About 150 medical students receive medical degrees from EVMS each year, and many remain in Hampton Roads to perform their residencies and pursue their careers. More than 2,300 Hampton Roads physicians were trained at EVMS, while 75 percent of the region’s physician assistants, surgical assistants and clinical psychologists also are graduates of the school. About 3,500 EVMS alumni practice medicine in Virginia.

The school’s economic impact extends throughout the region. Its 2016 fiscal year budget totaled $237.3 million, including $24.3 million in state appropriations. EVMS’ budget for 2017 is $251.5 million, including $25.3 million from the state. 

Doesn’t own a hospital
Unlike public medical schools in Virginia, EVMS is not affiliated with an undergraduate institution and it does not own a hospital. Instead, the school has working relationships with health-care facilities across the region, as well as teaching affiliations with about 150 private medical practices and 10 clinical facilities. The EVMS Medical Group, which includes 150 physicians at 29 offices in Hampton Roads, sees more than 1,500 patients each day.

EVMS’ research, while leading to breakthroughs that impact people around the world, is rooted in Southeastern Virginia. More than 100 of the school’s 400 faculty members pursue therapies and treatments for diseases that occur at high rates in Hampton Roads, including diabetes, obesity and cancer. Many have received international acclaim. In October, Dr. L.D. Britt, a 30-year faculty member, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, a panel of physicians that advises federal officials and the nation on health issues. Britt, a Suffolk native who heads EVMS’ surgery department, is the first African-American in the country to fill an endowed chair in surgery. 

This fall the school unveiled its CareForward Curriculum, which emphasizes patient safety and cost-conscious care, while continuing EVMS’ focus on community service. Homan describes it as a more contemporary, student-centered instructional approach. “Today’s students learn as groups and use more technology,” he notes. “This provides an opportunity for them to integrate information in ways that are relevant to taking care of patients.”

Students begin serving the community within days of starting class each August. During community impact day, they clean classrooms and pack backpacks with school supplies at a Norfolk elementary school located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the U.S. “Our students are immediately exposed to one of the most vulnerable communities that we’re trying to save,” says Dr. Cynthia Romero, director of the M. Foscue Brock Institute for Community and Global Health. “It helps them become community oriented and learn to recognize all the social determinants of health beyond health-care delivery, including housing, income and education.”

Established in 2012 with a $3 million gift from Dollar Tree Chairman Macon Brock and his wife, Joan, the Brock Institute takes medical students outside of the classroom and lab and into the community. With EVMS’ Office of Education, the institute has launched a service-learning curriculum, a four-year program in which students select a community service track, such as teaching CPR, working with older adults, learning to communicate with patients who speak primarily Spanish and increasing awareness of stroke symptoms.  “All medical students participate in the service learning program,” Romero adds. “EVMS helps align and introduce them to so many more health opportunities that may pique their interests.”

A 1993 EVMS graduate, Romero returned to her alma mater after serving as Virginia state health commissioner, a job she says opened her eyes to the region’s health issues — including infant mortality rates, breast cancer deaths and sexually transmitted diseases — and  disparities in health care.  “When I saw such significant health-care gaps, I wanted to bring what I had learned at the state level back here to Hampton Roads,” she says.

School health center
To close some of those gaps, EVMS joined forces with Norfolk Public Schools, the city of Norfolk, United for Children and the United Way of South Hampton Roads to operate a student health center at Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington High School. Funded by a grant from Optima Health, the center is the first of its kind in the region. “It helps address health-care needs so students can stay in school,” Romero says. “This type of connection is a signature characteristic and part of the DNA at EVMS to be so heavily involved in the community.”

EVMS’ community involvement extends to the region’s workforce, augmented in large part by the School of Health Professions. In response to workforce needs, the school developed 10 new programs during the past decade. Health-care workers can attain advanced degrees in 20 programs such as art therapy, public health, physician’s assistant and clinical psychology.

Next year, the school plans to offer a doctorate in health sciences and a master’s degree in health-care delivery sciences.   “We will continue to grow in health professions to meet the market’s needs,” says C. Donald Combs, vice president and dean of the School of Health Professions.  “We look at what capabilities are needed in the workforce and how we can design a program to meet those needs.”

Endocrinologists treat patients at the EVMS Strelitz Diabetes Center and through Sentara Norfolk General Hospital’s diabetes and endocrinology program, which U.S. News & World Report recently ranked 24th among the nation’s top 50 hospital-based programs. “In large measure, that’s as a result of the Strelitz Diabetes Center,” Homan says. “We’re developing new medicines and theories about the cause of Type I diabetes. Those things lead to improvements in diabetes care not just in Hampton Roads but in the nation and around the world.”

Hampton Roads has one of the state’s highest rates of diabetes, particularly in Portsmouth and western Tidewater, notes Dr. Jerry Nadler, who holds the Harry H. Mansbach endowed chair in internal medicine and is vice dean of research. Nadler’s research has established a link be­­tween diabetes and heart, kidney and nerve damage. “Hampton Roads is a large population center with a lot of diabetes and metabolic disease and related complications,” he says. “EVMS is the only academic center in the region training future endocrinologists.”  

Named Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist for 2016, Nadler came to EVMS in 2008 after serving as the chair of endocrinology and metabolism in the University of Virginia School of Medicine. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to develop research here, and there are a lot of opportunities to really make an impact,” he says.

Using health data
Nadler and other EVMS researchers are excited about the impact data mined through the new EVMS Sentara Healthcare Analytics and Delivery Science Institute will have on local medical care. Launched last January, the institute builds on Sentara’s patient data repositories to help address health disparities in Hampton Roads. “Sentara and EVMS are working together to pull data from electronic records and understand the best treatments,” Nadler says. “It’s a very exciting opportunity to not only do research on that data but to have the next generation of students use the data to improve health.”

EVMS and Sentara also are developing a biorepository. “It will be a bank of centralized specimens with de-identified personal data to discover new biomarkers for different diseases,” Nadler explains. “We’d like to make this a state resource and link it to other universities in Virginia. Wonderful institutions and health systems are made stronger when we work together.”

In addition to working with Sentara, EVMS has formed relationships with other area hospitals, the military, and colleges and universities. EVMS formed the National Center for Collaboration in Modeling and Simulation with ODU in 2001, and in 2014, launched a joint MD-MBA degree with the College of William and Mary to give future doctors insight into finance and public policy. “It’s important for physicians to understand finances because many will be leaders of health systems in the future,” Homan says.

EVMS teamed up with ODU to offer a master’s of public health and with both ODU and Norfolk State University on a doctoral program in psychology. “Independence has provided opportunities for us to be partners with many institutions,” Homan notes. “We want to be good partners with the academic institutions in the region.”

The school is also a founding member of the IBM Watson Health medical imaging collaborative. Launched in June, the global endeavor will use “Watson,” IBM’s computing system known for beating “Jeopardy!” champions, to search member organizations’ medical imaging, electronic health records, lab, radiology and pathology reports and other data to find connections, identify patterns and predict outcomes.

The Watson collaborative will complement EVMS’ research on the automation of ultrasound examinations. “The ultrasound research we are doing in maternal-fetal medicine is among the most advanced in the world,” notes Dr. Alfred Abuhamad, EVMS’ chair of obstetrics and gynecology and an internationally recognized expert in ultrasound.  Three years ago, EVMS became one of the first U.S. medical schools to completely incorporate ultrasound into its curriculum.

Just one more sign that as the school approaches its 50th anniversary, it will continue to grow and innovate, especially when it comes to meeting Hampton Roads’ health-care needs.  “We’re looking to continue to identify ways to meet the community’s needs,” Homan says. “It’s a very exciting time here at EVMS.”

Revitalization and innovation

Shoppers in Newport News’ Southeast Community are finding an abundance of fresh fruits, crisp vegetables and choice meats at Jim’s Local Market.

But just as important, the grocery store is providing jobs plus nutritional and financial guidance to residents of the economically depressed neighborhood, helping to boost their community pride. Bayport Credit Union has a branch in the store, giving many residents their first access to banking services, and it will offer financial literacy classes in the store’s community room. Bon Secours Virginia Health System meanwhile is teaming up with the store to promote good nutrition. Eighty to 85 percent of the store’s employees live in the Southeast Community. 

Florence Kingston, Newport News’ economic development director, says those added touches are important to the city’s efforts to revitalize a neighborhood where the unemployment rate hovers around 20 percent and half of the residents live below the poverty line.  “It’s using resources to build the social capital of the residents in the community,” Kingston says.

Opened in May, Jim’s Local Market ends a period of nearly two years during which the Southeast Community had no full-service grocery, designating the neighborhood as a “food desert,” an area where affordable, nutritious food is difficult to obtain. Former grocery store executive Jim Scanlon came up with the idea for the market as a way to provide healthy, affordable groceries to areas with limited food access.

Scanlon spent four decades in the industry, including a stint running an inner-city store in Albany, N.Y., before retiring as regional vice president for Martin’s Food Markets in Richmond.  “Newport News was one of the few municipalities that came to the plate early on in recognizing the issue with food access,” he says. “They came to me to put a solution together to provide fresher, high-quality products that people can purchase locally.” Scanlon next plans to open stores in food deserts in Richmond and Hampton.

Newport News’ Economic Development Authority owns the building, leasing it to Scanlon, who’s gradually building a clientele.  “It’s been a little slow out of the gate, but it’s growing every day. It’s just a matter of getting people’s habits changed,” he says.

New life in community
Jim’s Local Market anchors the shopping center in the mixed-use Brooks Crossing development, a revitalization endeavor encompassing the Southeast Community.  The city is investing up to $18.3 million in the development, which is a partnership between Aaron Brooks, a former NFL quarterback who is a Newport News native, and Virginia Beach-based developer Armada Hoffler.

In all, the city has put about $50 million into the Southeast Community and the area surrounding it, including improvements to landscaping, streets and infrastructure.  “It’s been a labor-intensive effort to get community buy-in,” Kingston says. “We’re investing in educational resources, neighborhood services, business activity and housing.”

The $500,000 Choice Neighborhood Grant the city recently received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is expected to help improve schools and safety and convert public housing into mixed-income homes in the community. Still, Kingston cautions the process is not a quick fix. “It’s taken a while for the community to decline, so it will take a while to bring it back.”

Investing in the community will benefit the entire city, says Debra Ramey, a Newport News-based partner with The Shopping Center Group, a national, privately owned real estate advisory firm. “It’s exciting to see the efforts being made. There is nothing but positives for the city by strengthening the weaker areas.”

Economic jolts
Newport News bills itself as the center of business, retail, technology and transportation for the Peninsula, a strip of land with 600,000 residents, bounded by the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads and the York and James rivers.

“There’s more innovation going on in Newport News than people are aware of,” Kingston says. She points to the reinvigorated City Center at Oyster Point, the new Tech Center mixed-used development, expansion at Newport News Shipbuilding and the long-awaited widening of Interstate 64. All are touted as a much-needed economic jolt for the city and its 183,000 residents.

Pointe Hope, a local investment group led by former Newport News Mayor Joseph C. Ritchie and Hampton attorney Robert E. Long, this summer closed a $64 million deal to purchase nine buildings in City Center.  Under out-of-town investors, the mixed-use development never lived up to city leaders’ vision as the center of Newport News. “This group has a better handle on the pulse of what’s going on in the community and will take City Center to where it needs to be,” Ramey says. 

Long wants to see City Center host festivals, concerts and other events, making use of the development’s centerpiece fountain. “City Center is the downtown of the Peninsula,” he adds. “It’s surrounded by the biggest law firms, accounting firms and defense contractors on the entire Peninsula, but we want to make it more successful.”

City Center’s success could hinge on filling the dozen or so vacant storefronts with local businesses. “I like to see local restaurants and local merchants,” Long says. “All my life, I’ve done business with my neighbors. I’ve found that the Peninsula is best served by people from the Peninsula.”

At the nearby Tech Center, national retailers, such as Mellow Mushroom and Whole Foods Market, are staking their claim on the Peninsula.  The retail phase is complete, the first phase of upscale apartments are set to open this fall, and construction is expected to start on the signature research park early next year. Set on 50 acres adjacent to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the center will give high-tech companies a place to perform advanced research. 

That’s crucial for the city’s economic diversification efforts, says Kingston. “Newport News always envisioned a research park that could take some of the technology coming out of the research at the Jefferson Lab and capitalize on that. Tech Center will allow us to grow small businesses, entrepreneurial businesses and diverse businesses.”

The Jefferson Lab is one of only two facilities in the running for a $1 billion electron-ion collider, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility that the city expects would have a $4 billion economic impact on the region.  A collider is used by researchers to understand what lies inside a nucleus and what holds it together. A decision on the site is expected within the next three years.

Aiding these development plans is a 21-mile, $144 million project widening I-64 from four to six lanes.  Construction on the first of the project’s three phases — a 5.6 mile segment in Newport News — is expected to be finished by late 2017. “It’s long overdue,” Kingston notes. “This is important not just for Newport News but for the whole Hampton Roads region.”

Shipyard expansion
Newport News’ advanced machinery corridor is also growing with the expansions of Canon Virginia Inc., Continental Corp. and Liebherr Mining Equipment. Virginia’s largest industrial employer, Newport News Shipbuilding, plans to add 1,000 jobs, along with new facilities and equipment to enhance construction on aircraft carriers and Virginia-class submarines. Newport News City Council agreed to provide up to $46 million to help the shipbuilder fund the $750 million investment in new facilities and equipment. The General Assembly approved similar funding during the last legislative session. “That’s really a very strategic investment by the shipyard that will carry it for generations to come,” Kingston says.

New jobs and expanded facilities are also on tap for Newport News Industrial Corp., which like Newport News Shipbuilding is a subsidiary of city-based Huntington Ingalls Industries. The 50-year-old company is adding 52,000 square feet of production space at its Oakland Industrial Park site to supply steel modules for nuclear power plants manufacturer Westinghouse. Newport News Industrial now employs about 400 workers but will hire about 125 additional welders, inspectors and quality assurance personnel starting in early next year. 

“We will be part of the global supply network for Westinghouse, which is building dozens of nuclear power plants around the world,” explains the company’s president, Pete Diakun. “As the power plants that Westinghouse is selling worldwide are procured by different countries and sales grow, so does our growth.”

Newport News Industrial could expand its reach into partnerships with other nuclear power plant providers. “We’re excited about these opportunities,” Diakun adds. “It’s a mechanism by which we can diversify into the commercial nuclear space. For us, it’s a way to show the industry that we have a lot to offer.”

Another major Newport News employer, Ferguson Enterprises Inc., continues to grow.  In fiscal year 2016, it bought 13 companies in markets that showed high potential or where the company had limited presence.  Ferguson, which has annual revenue of $13 billion, employs 22,000 people, including 2,500 in Virginia.

Career pathways program
New businesses and corporate expansions require highly skilled workers, a need Newport News Public Schools strives to meet through the district’s Career Pathways program, which introduces students as young as kindergartners to a variety of careers. Students learn about job fields throughout elementary and middle school. The program culminates in high school with job shadowing or hands-on training in areas such as architecture and construction, arts, education, government, health science, aviation, business, and audio-visual technology and communication. Career fields are selected based on student interest and regional job needs.

“You’ve got options in Newport News schools,” says Chief Academic Officer Brian Nichols. “Whatever your interest is, we’ve got something for you.” 

Since launching Career Pathways, Newport News’ graduation rate has jumped from 72.9 percent in 2008 to 89.5 percent last year. Many students graduate with either college credits or industry certifications. “That’s nothing short of amazing,” Nichols adds. “The kids are being engaged.”

Local companies, including Newport News Shipbuilding, Langley Federal Credit Union and Riverside Regional Medical Center, have partnered with the school system, providing students with internships and networking opportunities.  “Our community has really stepped up to be partners,” Nichols says. “It shows our kids that we have jobs right here in our community. They don’t have to go anywhere else.” 

Popular career pathways include health sciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas. The aviation academy at Denbigh High School attracts students seeking to follow in the flight paths of astronauts who trained at the nearby Langley Air Force Base, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. “Students are building real planes that will fly someday,” Nichols notes. “They will be able to go to a job interview and say that as a junior or senior they built a plane.”

Just one more reason that the Shopping Center Group’s Ramey emphasizes the growing momentum in Newport News. “I get excited,” she says. “So much can happen. This is the place to be.”

Multifamily leader

She’s not demonstrating layups or running plays, but in some ways Janet Riddlebarger has realized her high school dream of becoming a basketball coach.    

As senior vice president for apartment living for real estate developer HHHunt, Riddlebarger is constantly jumping through hoops — at least figuratively. She oversees operations for 15 apartment communities throughout Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. She also helps develop new multifamily communities, including three currently under construction and two scheduled to break ground in 2017.

One of the things she likes most about her job is coaching younger colleagues. “When you work with people, you have opportunities to develop them as leaders, and coaching is part of that,” she says. “Devoting time to values-based leadership is part of coaching, but instead of athletics, it’s everyday life.”

Riddlebarger joined Blacksburg-based HHHunt in 1983, eight years after graduating from Virginia Tech with a degree in political science. She had spent five years as executive director of the Virginia Safety Association in Richmond before deciding to switch gears. Returning to Blacksburg, Riddlebarger enrolled in business courses at

New River Community College and Virginia Tech. “I knew I wanted to do something different and needed to understand finance, accounting and economics,” she recalls.

Riddlebarger was living at Foxridge Apartment Homes in Blacksburg — HHHunt’s largest apartment community — when she learned Foxridge was looking for a leasing agent, so she applied. “I needed to support myself, and it had a little bit of everything — sales, marketing and management.”

From leasing apartments, Riddlebarger worked her way up to regional manager, director of operations, vice president and senior vice president, a position she has held for the past 16 years. “What we try to do every day in housing is truly remarkable, and I get to be a leader in that — making a difference in someone’s life by providing a home.”

Founded by Harry H. Hunt III in 1966, the company initially provided housing for Virginia Tech faculty and students.  As its apartment living division grew, HHHunt expanded into single-family homes, town homes and senior living communities. “We can house you from the time you are in college until you are in your golden years,” says Riddlebarger.

Riddlebarger relates to apartment residents, having lived in a multifamily community until she was in her 40s. Then she bought a house in Christiansburg with a fenced-in yard for her Labrador retriever.

Apartment dwellers generally range from college students to retirees, with most between 24 and 40 years old.  “More people are renting apartments in the U.S. than ever, and the demographics point to more renters in our country over the next few years,” notes Riddlebarger. “The millennial generation is the biggest renter group, and that group is growing and continuing to look for apartments.”

To stay on target with consumer trends, HHHunt regularly surveys residents to determine amenity trends, such as resort-style swimming pools, fitness centers and nature trails. The company also encourages employees to become involved in their communities.

As the number of apartment communities increases, so does the demand for property managers. Virginia Tech offers a degree program in property management and a minor in residential property management, one of only a few offered in the U.S. Riddlebarger chairs the program’s advisory board. “There’s a diverse mixture of men and women in this field, and there are great opportunities,” she says. “Students graduating in our program are virtually guaranteed a job.”    

Years in the industry: 33
Where did you grow up?  Brookneal, Va.
Family: Mom (94 years young), three brothers and their families, 7-year-old yellow Lab named Otter.
Hobbies: Riddlebarger describes herself as an avid sports fan. She also collects Pez dispensers and “anything Notre Dame.”
Favorite app or mobile site: ESPN
Favorite reads: Anything by David Baldacci, John Grisham or Janet Evanovich
On the bucket list: Meet Pope Francis, Tom Brokaw and Coach K. See the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Visit Normandy, Ireland and Germany. Travel the U.S. and be a season ticket holder for Notre Dame football.

Local focus, global standing

Located within minutes of the world’s largest naval base, the Atlantic coast, the Port of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Old Dominion University parlays its setting into a variety of research activities.

Research that brings acclaim and additional funding to the Norfolk-based university, while transcending the boundaries of Hampton Roads, reflects the mantra of the university’s Office of Research. It urges the more than 700 ODU researchers to “Innovate Locally, Transform Globally.”
“We take advantage of our proximity to physical things like the Jefferson Lab or our location near the coast,” says Morris Foster, ODU’s vice president of research. He points to the university’s studies on port and logistics and coastal resilience, as well as its two-decade collaboration with the Jefferson Lab, a relationship that has attracted Old Dominion faculty involved in accelerator physics. “We’re looking for unique things that allow the university to focus on a particular area and make it ODU’s niche.”

Research has long played a prominent role at Old Dominion, which gained university status in 1969. The stakes were raised when John R. Broderick became president in 2008. Broderick set a goal of transforming the university into a research-intensive incubator known worldwide for “innovative discoveries, insightful scholarship and inspiring action over a range of disciplines.”

Today, ODU researchers generate $88 million in annual funding through more than 400 projects at the university’s 26 research centers. Foster believes Broderick’s goal is close to being met. “In some areas, we’re already there,” he says, noting research in modeling and simulation, physics, bioelectrical engineering and oceanography.

Faculty members initiate much of ODU’s research by bringing their projects — and funding dollars — to the university.  “We hire them because they have very good scholarship and are very good faculty who create their own research paths,” Foster says. In addition to time in the laboratory or in the field, all faculty researchers maintain course loads in their departments.

Their research assistants include master’s and doctoral candidates as well as a growing number of undergraduates. “It enriches their education and has a halo effect on their degrees,” Foster says of the undergraduates. “Research gives them the real-world experience many companies are looking for.” 

Marine engineering
As founding director of ODU’s Naval Engineering and Marine Systems Institute (NEMSI), Jennifer Michaeli conducts pioneering research while whetting engineering students’ appetites  for careers in marine engineering, currently offered as a minor in ODU’s Batten College of Engineering and Technology.  “There’s a strong demand for marine engineering,” she says, noting that only 15 universities in the U.S. produce graduates in the field. “That’s only a fraction of what’s demanded for the engineering profession.”

Michaeli’s research focuses on shipboard power systems. She was one of 225 university researchers in the U.S. and the only one from ODU to receive $67.8 million in research instrumentation awards from the U.S. Department of Defense, which supports the purchase of equipment for defense-related research. Using a grant from the Office of Naval Research, Michaeli and her colleagues, Paul Moses, assistant professor of engineering technology, and Gene Hou, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, study shipboard power systems as they develop a real-time, power-hardware-in-the-loop simulator for naval power systems.

The shipboard environment is replicated in ODU’s marine dynamics and marine electrical power systems labs. “That allows us to be in a safe environment to simulate the entire electrical system on a ship to do cutting-edge research for the Navy and teach students,” Michaeli says, adding that in the future, ships will have more sophisticated electrical demands. “We can bring in physical hardware, including pump generators and electronic weapons such as lasers. We have to be the best we can be to produce students that are well qualified, because we really need the next generation of engineers to be very competent in their ability to work with electrical systems.” 

Late last year, the university signed a memorandum of understanding with Newport News Shipbuilding to collaborate on research, design, testing and experimentation.  “Through this partnership, we can bring our faculty and research capabilities to them, and it allows our faculty to better understand the needs of the shipyard,” Michaeli says.

Marine engineering and shipbuilding are natural fits for Michaeli. Her great-grandfather came to Hampton Roads from England to build ships at Newport News Shipbuilding, while her grandfather rose through the ranks at the shipyard to become vice president of operations. Her father, uncles and cousins also worked at Newport News Shipbuilding.  “It’s in my blood,” she says. Michaeli received her doctorate in mechanical engineering from ODU in 2010 and returned to the university two years later as a faculty member. “I saw a great faculty here who are doing innovative research.” 

Plasma’s effects on cancer
Resembling a miniature version of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Star Wars light saber, a plasma pencil developed by Mounir Laroussi is used to kill bacteria and sterilize surfaces and could one day become the go-to treatment to kill cancer cells. In 2005, Laroussi, director of ODU’s Plasma Engineering and Medicine Institute and professor of electrical and computer engineering, designed the hand-held device that emits a stream of cool plasma. An ODU faculty member since 1999, Laroussi specializes in plasma that can be created at room temperature and used for medicinal purposes, including dental and wound treatment.

Known as one of the four states of matter along with solids, liquids and gases, plasma is produced when gas is heated or subjected to a strong electromagnetic field. “Plasma is usually generated inside an enclosed chamber,” Laroussi explains. “We wanted to get it in the air, and this [pencil] design allowed for that. We can shoot a beam of plasma that’s safe to the touch and apply it on tissues, wounds and use it to sterilize surfaces.”

Laroussi began investigating plasma’s effects on cancer cells in 2010. It’s a brand-new field, with most researchers building scientific knowledge, while a group in Germany has begun doing clinical trials on head and neck cancer patients. “We’re trying to understand what plasma does to cancer cells so we can optimize the process and make it more efficient,” he says. “We’re getting very, very encouraging results where plasma kills cancer cells without hurting healthy cells.”  Laroussi and his research team found that more than 90 percent of leukemia cells were wiped out when they came in contact with plasma. “It’s still in the scientific development stage, but hopefully in the future, plasma will be one of the therapies people use for cancer.”

Sea-level rise
With the local sea level rising nearly two inches each decade, ODU researchers are looking at how Hampton Roads can adapt to increased flooding, as well as the impact of climate change on public health and disaster preparedness. Joshua Behr, research associate professor at ODU’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, is studying the socioeconomic impacts of sea-level rise and how vulnerable populations can prepare for and respond to severe storms.

“If we can understand the hurdles people have, we will be able to design interventions for some of the most vulnerable populations,” says Behr, a political scientist. “People think recurrent flooding is a nuisance, but the accumulated impacts are huge. Everyone feels the impact of recurrent flooding in Hampton Roads, but low- to moderate-income levels feel the brunt of it. The economic burden falls more heavily upon them in terms of missed work, missed school, missed doctors’ appointments, and vehicle and home damage.” 

Earlier this year, Behr’s work helped Virginia and three Hampton Roads localities win a $120.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help combat the effects of recurrent flooding in the region. ODU coordinated the proposal, which was submitted to HUD by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development on behalf of Norfolk, Chesapeake and Newport News.

Behr is developing models for HUD that project storm recovery using Portsmouth and Norfolk as prototypes. “We want to generate tools that provide decisive support for planners and help them make better policy decisions by generating a bigger picture view of things,” he says. “That gives planners a better perspective of how policy choices ripple.” 

Behr’s background is in voting rights litigation, but for the past dozen years, he has used spatial mapping to measure disparities in health conditions and access among cities and neighborhoods in Hampton Roads. “It was eye opening,” he says. “I couldn’t believe there were such disparities and chasms between populations.”

Finding ways to combat sea-level rise and recurrent flooding while redefining land uses will make Hampton Roads more resilient and livable, Behr says. Characterizing the region as a “system of systems”  including transportation, communications and water infrastructures, as well as social, economic and health systems, he builds models of those systems, testing where localities can get the most bang for their bucks.

“Municipalities should invest in their systems before disaster strikes,” he adds. “If you put $1 million in this system versus somewhere else, what gives you the biggest return as far as pain, suffering, longevity. That information helps guide planners and decision makers in prioritizing certain policies.”

During the past decade, Hampton Roads cities and counties have begun seeing themselves as part of a broader regional system, Behr says. Ultimately, the region could export lessons learned to other areas dealing with similar climate issues. “It’s been gradual, but we’re headed in the right direction. We’re ahead of the curve, and we’re in the right place in Hampton Roads to be leading the pack.”