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byline: M.J. McAteer

Litehouse purchases Danville’s Sky Valley Foods

The deal was a natural — and almost all-natural, to boot — the coming together of two food-processing companies that pride themselves on the goodness of their products.

In May, Idaho-based Litehouse Inc., the No. 1 refrigerated salad dressing brand in the country, made public its $46 million purchase of Danville-based Sky Valley Foods, which has been selling organic dressings, marinades, condiments and sauces since 2004. At the time of the announcement, Litehouse President Kelly Prior remarked on “the great synergies” between the two companies and the benefits of that mind meld are now expected to flow outward into the economy of the Pittsylvania County area.

Chris Blanford, director of consumer marketing and communications for Litehouse, says his employee-owned company will quadruple Sky Valley’s current workforce of 50 by adding 160 jobs in Danville, ranging from entry-level positions to management posts that will require operational and technical expertise. All openings, he says, will be listed on Litehouse’s website and through the local labor department.

“Our intention and desire is that most of these positions will be filled from the local Danville area,” Blanford says, adding that Litehouse will be offering on-the-job training for many positions.

Litehouse is planning a physical expansion, too. The company is already beginning engineering groundwork to expand Sky Valley’s 132,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Danville’s Airside Industrial Park, with construction expected to begin by year’s end.

First up, however, will be the integration of Litehouse and Sky Valley. Litehouse will continue producing its Sky Valley and Organicville lines under their current labeling, Blanford says, while simultaneously assessing trends to meet changing consumer demands. The plant also will begin to produce Litehouse refrigerated sauces and dressings, making Danville the company’s sixth manufacturing center in the country and the only one on the East Coast.

Sky Valley founder Rachel Kruse, a third-generation vegetarian, is staying on to help oversee her company’s original lines and to develop more of what she calls “better-for-you products.”

Amazon HQ2 may spark hotel, restaurant, retail surge

In its hometown of Seattle, Amazon employs 49,000 people, and its presence is estimated to be directly responsible for the booking of 1,000 hotel rooms a night in that Washington state city — or more than 300,000 bookings annually.

Across the country and across the Potomac River from the other Washington, where Amazon is opening its East Coast HQ2 campus, the local hospitality industry is already doing the math and liking it. If by 2030, Amazon has 25,000 employees in Northern Virginia as promised (and a whopping 38,000 by 2034), that should translate into the booking of 500 rooms a night, says Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association.

Furthermore, the Amazon campus at National Landing, which is the new moniker for the area of Crystal City, Pentagon City in Arlington and parts of Alexandria that Amazon will occupy, is expected to meet only about 30% of on-site restaurant demand. That means the corporate behemoth’s well-heeled workers will be frequently venturing out to eat.

These are happy predictions indeed for an area of NoVa that took a hard hit when the federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission shuttered many sites, leaving lots of empty space behind.

Although Amazon will have just 400 employees in place at HQ2 by the end of this year and only about 1,500 by the end of 2020, Terry is already seeing an uptick in interest and demand. “I am optimistic about the impact on the market building through the next 24 months,” he says, adding that he expects some new hotel development and the expansion and refurbishment of existing properties.

Terry also expects that Amazon will be sending out requests for proposals to local hotels as it seeks to arrange accommodations for people traveling to the area for interviews and training. Vendors, obviously, will need hotel rooms, too.

Arlington Economic Development Director Victor L. Hoskins was heavily involved with the wooing and winning of Amazon. “It is absolutely the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my career,” he says. Effective Aug. 5, Hoskins will become the head of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA). 

Hoskins estimates “in the conservative range” that Amazon will drive 100,000 to 125,000 hotel room bookings annually. “I fully expect that existing hotels and new ones will be including more millennial products,” he says, citing properties such as The Moxy in the District, a boutique hotel that advertises “funk-inspired furniture” and “innovative amenities” appealing to that  demographic.

Already, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Bowlero bowling alley and Mothersauce Partners’  The Freshman restaurant are planning to locate in National Landing, and Hoskins is looking for a “major” surge of restaurants and retailers in the next couple of years.

Amazon, he predicts, is going to be a lot more than just a campus. He thinks it will become a neighborhood in and of itself – and about that, he couldn’t be more pleased.

Richmond tourism industry promotes LGBTQ inclusivity

“LGBTQ+ people want to be treated the same as everyone else,” says Jason Whitt, convention sales manager for Richmond Region Tourism. The problem is that people outside that demographic sim­­­­­­ply are often uncertain about just how to do that.

“We all stumble over our words, not meaning to be rude,” Whitt says. “We just aren’t aware of how to be courteous.”

That is a situation that his agency is determined to change. In a recent effort to promote diversity and inclusivity, Richmond Region Tourism held an educational session about the LGBTQ community for members of the local hospitality and tourism industry. The organization brought in Side by Side, a nonprofit dedicated to creating supportive communities for LGBTQ youths, to conduct the workshop. Side by Side has run similar trainings for major

Virginia-based corporations such as Altria and Dominion Energy.

Nearly 150 people representing downtown Richmond hotels, bars, restaurants and cultural attractions, plus representatives from the city police, attended the workshop, which covered basic information about the LGBTQ community and statistics about LGBTQ travelers and employees. It also covered the evolving terminology used by the group, often the subject of much confusion.

Side by Side Executive Director Ted Lewis trains hospitality professionals to avoid common missteps, such as a hotel clerk not recognizing that a same-sex couple is a couple, or a bartender being flummoxed when a person’s sexual identity does not seem to match the gender on an ID. Side by Side’s Richmond workshop also included suggestions on ways the hospitality industry can be more friendly to the LGBTQ community, such as instituting inclusive employment policies, updating forms and making a point of becoming knowledgeable enough to make informed recommendations for LGBTQ-friendly churches, clubs and local organizations.

“We’re hoping to make it a regular thing,” Whitt says of the workshop.

Such efforts seem to be  making a difference. In 2017 Richmond scored 42 out of 100 on the nonprofit Human Rights Campaign’s annual Municipal Equality Index of LGBTQ inclusivity. That rating now has improved to 94 out of 100, ranking Richmond first among Virginia cities. That factored into Richmond being selected to host last May’s first-ever Sports Diversity Jubilee, which attracted LGBTQ athletes from around the world. Sponsored by Compete magazine, the event helped draw 30,000 people to last year’s VA PrideFest, an accomplishment the city hopes to repeat at this year’s festival, scheduled to be held Sept. 28.

Richmond-based B Corp. opens office in Tysons

Impact Makers has brought its chartable spirit to Northern Virginia.

The Richmond-based technology and management consulting firm is a Benefit Corporation, or B Corp, meaning that it channels all net profits into effecting positive changes in society.

The best-known B Corp is Connecticut-based Newman’s Own Foundation, founded by the late film star Paul Newman. The company donates all profit from the sale of salad dressing and other organic food stuffs to charity. Newman’s Own has been an adviser to Impact Makers.

Impact Makers’ annual revenues top $20 million, its annual net profits of more than $3 million have gone to its charitable partners, the Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond and Virginia Community Capital. In Northern Virginia, Impact Makers is working with Homestretch, a Falls Church nonprofit that helps families in poverty become self-sufficient.

“In my heart, I’m a philanthropist,” says Andy Wolff, who became Impact Makers’ CEO in October.

Wolff succeeds Michael Pirron, Impact Maker’s co- founder, who departed the company in January 2018. Pirron’s now suing Impact Maker’s saying he was improperly removed as permanent director of the company’s board. Pirron also says an illegitimate sale of the company ultimately jeopardizes the firm’s mission.

“I decided to file a lawsuit because in this current business and political climate, it’s important to stand up against bullying business tactics and conventional business practices,” Pirron said in a statement. “I simply want to maintain the initial mission, values and models of the company that was built.”

However, Wolff, who is listed as one of the defendants in the complaint, says Impact Makers plans to vigorously defend itself against the lawsuit.  “The lawsuit is a culmination of claims and demands we believe have no merit,” Wolff says. The company is excited to build on its positive momentum, including replicating its model in Northern Virginia, Wolff says.

Impact Makers has tapped Senior Vice President Scott Mayo to establish the company’s Northern Virginia outpost in Tysons. The office, which opened in December, has 12 employees, all of whom are local. Mayo says his goal is for the office to be eventually run by a local manager.

Big meetings in small cities

Four of Virginia’s most picturesque municipalities — Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Middleburg and Staunton — once were rather limited in their ability to attract meetings and conventions. The demand wasn’t there, and neither was the capacity.

But in the past 20 years, demand has arrived. Business and leisure travelers alike have developed a big appetite for the kind of local flavor that these communities offer, and that is a trend that shows no sign of abating.

Until recently, however, these communities lacked the facilities to fully leverage their charms, but that, too, now is changing. New hotels have opened, while old ones are expanding and updating in these up-and-coming markets.

In Harrisonburg, the arrival of the 230-room Hotel Madison and Shenandoah Valley Conference Center downtown has given the city’s hospitality industry a big boost. Judy Wilbur, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing, says that since the complex opened last May, the Madison has hosted more than 500 meetings, the largest of which, for the Virginia Benefit Programs Organization, brought in 450 guests. State associations, corporate and academic gatherings fill beds midweek as do weddings and galas on weekends.

Brenda Black, tourism and visitor services manager of Harrisonburg’s Hardesty-Higgins House Visitor Center, says the new Madison prompted the city to emphasize its walkable downtown, accessibility to transportation options and proximity to rural attractions such as wineries.

At the other end of town, the 143-room DoubleTree, under Hilton ownership since September 2017, also has done well in attracting social, military, educational, religious and fraternal groups.

Last year, the hotel hosted about 50 meetings. Occupancy rates reached 69% in 2018’s final quarter, a 9% increase from the last quarter of 2017, says Lorne Taylor, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing.

In this year’s first quarter, business was up again by about the same percentage from the first quarter of 2018. “It’s been a wonderful start to the year,” Taylor says.

Harrisonburg’s transient occupancy taxes support the hotels’ upbeat reports. Karen I. Rose, the city’s commissioner of the revenue, says that sales tax from Harrisonburg hotels was $483.3 million last year, up nearly 10% from $440.1 million the year before.

In Lynchburg, the 40-room Craddock Terry Hotel & Event Center has “had a huge impact on the trajectory of the downtown,” says Anna Bentson, assistant director of the city’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism. The boutique property, which has been open for more than a decade, is housed in a former shoe factory. That quirky ambience helped it attract more than 100 meetings last year, says Kimberly Christner, president and CEO of Williamsburg-based Cornerstone Hospitality, the hotel’s parent company.

The Craddock Terry can handle up to 200 people for a meeting and also hosts many weddings and rehearsal dinners. Its occupancy rate, Christner says, was an enviable 80% last year.

“People want to get out of the concrete jungle and big, mega-hotels,” she says. “Here, they can go downtown and walk and shop. There’s not a lot of branded-franchise stuff.”

Across town, two longtime restoration efforts helping to raise Lynchburg’s profile for visitors came to fruition last year. After many years of fundraising, the Academy Center for the Arts, built in 1905, was able to host events in its restored 800-seat theater. Meanwhile, the Virginian Hotel, a property that dates back to 1913, also opened its doors after a $30 million renovation. The hotel now offers 115 rooms and 8,000 square feet of meeting space, including a ballroom with a sweeping staircase and a 32-foot vaulted ceiling.

Although these venues have not been open long enough to measure their effect on Lynchburg’s economy, their arrival already has begun paying dividends, Bentson says. For example, by joining forces, the Craddock Terry and Virginian hotels, the downtown Holiday Inn and the arts center were able to accommodate the Virginia Association of Museums, which brought 500 people to town for four days in March.

In Middleburg, the 168-room Salamander Resort and Spa has been a game-changer for a town that traditionally has been long on hunt country charisma and short on accommodations. The resort is on a scale not seen in Middleburg before it opened in 2015. The Salamander has 20,000 square feet of indoor meeting space — including a 4,500-square-foot ballroom — with additional space available outdoors.

Unlike the other burgeoning hospitality markets in Virginia, which are largely regional, the Salamander has a national and international client base, thanks, in part, to its proximity to the Dulles corridor. The Salamander’s profile was raised even higher when Forbes Travel Guide awarded the resort its top rating, five stars. The Forbes honorrecognizes “very distinguished service,” says general manager Reggie Cooper. Only 210 properties worldwide have earned the five-star distinction, and in Virginia, only three have qualified by scoring 90% or better on a list of 900 criteria — the Salamander, Keswick Hall and Golf Club and the Inn at Little Washington.

Cooper says that in 2018, the resort hosted 200 meetings and 75 weddings, including five that took over the entire property. He declined to share more specifics other than to say it was a record year for the Salamander and this year looks strong.

Referring to inn owner Sheila Johnson he says, “Ms. Johnson’s intention was that the Salamander would be the best of the best. … Our setting and our structures, and our very personalized service are what separates us from the crowd.”

In Staunton, Sheryl Wagner, the city’s director of tourism, says that meeting planners are choosing her city because of its walkability, and its ability to offer unusual experiences, such as seminars and presentations at the American Shakespeare Center. Partly in response to this rising level of interest from event organizers, three hotels opened in the city last year — The Blackburn Inn, Tru by Hilton and Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott — while  a fourth, the Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center, underwent extensive renovations.

These properties added 237 rooms to the city’s inventory, and the metrics reflect that increase. From fiscal year 2017 to FY ’18, Staunton’s lodging taxes rose 5.8%, and the average daily rate increased by 4.5%. The city’s revenue per available room grew 5%, far outpacing the average growth for the nation (2.9%) and Virginia (1.3%).

Guests at the Blackburn, housed in a renovated building dating back to 1828, “embrace the history” of the 80-acre property, says Lacy Peterson, the inn’s general manager. Right now, the 49-room inn, which opened last June, has meeting space for only about 45 people, and its clientele is mostly corporate, academic and religious groups, with retreats being popular as well. Peterson says that when a second phase of renovations is completed in 2021, the Blackburn will be able to accommodate meetings as large as 150 people.

Damon Strickland, general manager of the 124-room Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center, says that his property’s historic ambience also has been crucial to its ability to attract corporate guests, government agencies and associations. Group bookings account, on average, for about a third of the hotel’s revenue and almost three-quarters of its food and beverage income.

Both Staunton properties are proud of the amenities they have on site, yet a look at their marketing strategies shows how avidly they promote not just their own bona fides, but also the attractions outside their doors.

That split focus is equally true for the hotels in all four communities. The old chestnut about location, location, location is not limited to residential properties anymore.

Wanted: distinctive local experiences

In 2018 Virginia’s meeting and convention planners say that venues offering easy access, flexible space and high connectivity are in big demand. After making sure they nail down these basics, planners then look for a space with a strong personality.

“The same old setup, the same old food, isn’t cutting it anymore,” says Rick Eisenman, who owns a meeting planning business in Richmond. “More and more clients want venues with something to do nearby.”

“Planners are looking for more of an experience, more local,” says Joni Johnson, national sales manager of domestic sales for the Virginia Tourism Corp., “and they have a lot more options these days.”

These options include venues that have opened recently or are scheduled to open soon. The most visible would be The Cavalier, the Virginia Beach landmark hotel, which reopened in March.

A local development partnership, which included Gold Key|PHR, spent four years and $81 million on renovations as it strove to preserve the 91-year-old hotel’s vintage good looks while adding a slew of amenities. Today the hotel — which nearly was sold at auction after falling into disrepair — offers 85 rooms (down from the original 195), an infinity saltwater pool, an on-site distillery, two high-end restaurants, a sunken garden and a 6,200-square-foot spa with a Himalayan salt room and a blow-dry bar. Guests also have access to a beach club across the street that is slated to open over Memorial Day weekend.

Given the hotel’s level of luxury and grace, Christopher Salyer, the hotel’s sales director, expects that business guests will be mostly “niche groups,” such as corporate boards and legal groups. With 6,600 square feet of meeting space, however, The Cavalier can accommodate a conference with as many as 200 participants.

The dowager hotel, part of Marriott’s upscale Autograph Collection, eventually will be coordinating with a 300-room Marriott across the street. It broke ground in February and is projected to open in 2020.

That $125 million, 20-story oceanfront hotel will have a 10,000-square-foot ballroom and accommodations for 700 guests, along with its own amenities, such as a beach bar. Long-range plans for an Embassy Suites by Hilton to be built nearby will give the complex the capacity to host large conferences.

Two hundred miles west in Lynchburg, another historic property also had hit rock bottom and faced possible destruction. The once grand Virginian went out of business in the 1960s and subsequently did stints as a college dormitory and as low-income housing before being shuttered in 2014.

Like The Cavalier, local developers — Blair Godsey and George Stanley — came to the rescue of The Virginian. They obtained a $5 million loan from the Lynchburg Economic Development Authority, which helped finance nearly $30 million in renovations. According to Godsey, the 105-year-old, 115-room hotel will be ready to open by early May under the Hilton flag. The Virginian will be part of Hilton’s Curio Collection. Its centerpiece is a 2,800-square-foot, two-story ballroom with imposing columns and a sweeping staircase with ornate railings.

Lisa K. Meriwether, tourism sales manager for Lynchburg’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism, says the ballroom is part of 8,000 square feet of meeting space at the boutique hotel. In conjunction with other downtown hotels, such as the historic Craddock Terry, Lynchburg now should be able to attract larger conferences that once passed it by because of a lack of capacity.  

Meriwether predicts The Virginian will be hosting many state association groups. It already has booked the Virginia Association of Museums, the state branch of the Meeting Professionals International and the Virginia Society of Association Executives.

New Valley conference center
Even farther west is the Hotel Madison and Shenandoah Valley Conference Center in Harrisonburg, scheduled to open May 18. It will have 230 rooms and 21,000 square feet of meeting space.

Eddie Bumbaugh, the center’s director of sales and marketing, says the complex is filling a need for larger meeting space in a region where such space has not been available. Even before officially opening its doors, bookings extend into 2021 and include groups such as the Virginia Association of Science Teachers and the College and University Auditors of Virginia.

Bumbaugh calls the Hotel Madison’s ambience “rustically elegant” and says it is located close to the city’s arts and cultural district and James Madison University. 

That emphasis on location, location, location remains a selling point for some of the state’s tried-and-true meeting places as well. Despite the new competition, Colonial Williamsburg and the Hotel Roanoke, among others, still are thriving by becoming more creative in their offerings. Colonial Williamsburg picked up a new marketing edge earlier this year when the venerable Williamsburg Inn received the coveted AAA Five Diamond rating for the first time.

Meanwhile, the historic Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center in Staunton unveiled a refresh of its guest rooms and public spaces in April, including the conference center. At the Greater Richmond Convention Center, a new lactation room for nursing mothers is expected to be an appreciated amenity. The Virginia Homeschool Convention is coming to the center in June, and the center also has landed  Jehovah’s Witnesses meetings for six weekends this summer.

Jack Berry, president and CEO of Richmond Region Tourism, says business at the convention center was up 5 percent last year and is projected to do the same this year, thanks in part to bookings like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Those meetings typically bring 6,000 people to the convention center on each of those six weekends.

Richmond has been making a lot of top 10 travel lists lately, and the convention center’s marketing strategy pointedly emphasizes its proximity to the city’s trendy downtown. 

Like Richmond’s convention center, The Main, which opened to much excitement about a year ago in Norfolk, is busy and will be hosting some big meetings this year. By combining forces with the nearby Marriott and Sheraton hotels, The Main, a Hilton property, can host huge groups, like the 1,000-strong Southern Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials,  which is coming in August. The Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance hasn’t met in Norfolk in a decade, Eisenman says, but it will bring about 900 people to The Main in 2019.

Justin Beale, director of sales and marketing for the hotel, says business “has exceeded all expectations.” During its first year, 34 percent of The Main’s customers were corporate, and he projects that number will increase this year. The Main is located close to a lively entertainment area, including Granby Street and the Waterside District, attractions the hotel points out to planners.

Meeting goers like being able to walk to dining, entertainment and cultural attractions. Planners like it, too, but Eisenman maintains that one of the most important amenities — free internet service — is lacking too often. In this highly connected world, he says, free internet really is more of a necessity than just another nice-to-have amenity, but it is still no sure thing at too many Virginia venues.

“You drive by a Day’s Inn, and it is advertising free internet, but some hotels are still charging outrageous internet costs,” he says. “That’s akin to paying for air conditioning. This is a big issue that needs to be figured out.”

Big-deal additions

George Mason University has been a go-getter since the get-go. Although it has been around for only about 60 years, in that time, it has transformed itself from being an extension of the University of Virginia, so modest in size that its classes met in high schools and churches, to the commonwealth’s largest public university in terms of total full-time and part-time enrollment. It has three campuses in Northern Virginia (in Arlington, Fairfax and Manassas) and a budget of $1 billion.

Wanting to become bigger and better seems to be built into Mason’s DNA, and it continually seeks to add breadth to its academic and research portfolios. In recent months, it has added several notable programs and facilities.

Homeland Security site
Last August, after what College of Science Dean Peggy Agouris called a “grueling” national competition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chose Mason as a Center of Excellence for Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis.

Since the program launched in 2002, Homeland Security has created fewer than 10 of these centers of excellence, each devoted to a different, high-priority security problem. So, being chosen to lead this one — to be known by the acronym CINA — “was a big deal for Mason,” the dean says. The DHS designation also comes with a $38.5 million grant spread across 10 years.

Agouris believes that Mason prevailed over other universities because of its belief in cross-disciplinary study, as well as in the value of tapping into expertise beyond its walls. Those practices were a good fit for the fight DHS wants CINA to lead against criminals who operate in cyberspace and across borders. They include drug traffickers, human traffickers, organ traffickers, smugglers, money launderers and gangs. The CINA attack will have to be launched on three fronts — physical, cyber and social — and, Agouris says, Mason’s proposal had all three covered.

Six Mason colleges and eight other universities — including Notre Dame, Michigan State, Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Tech — will be part of the CINA effort. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies will be part of the push, too, along with Homeland Security, of course. But, it will be Mason guiding the ship.

Anthony Stefanidis, a professor of geography and geoinformation science at Mason, is CINA’s director. Outreach and organization have occupied the first few months, he says. In May, though, CINA will conduct a symposium to begin to drill down into the four areas for the assault: criminal network analysis, dynamic patterns of criminal activity, forensics and criminal investigative processes.

“We feel insulated, but we are all connected,” Stefanidis says. “Eventually you do start to realize how close they [CINA’s criminal quarries] come to touching your life.”

Mason has no plans to stop at its CINA coup. Provost and Executive Vice President S. David Wu says the university already has entered  “the incubator phase” of a proposal for a second DHS center of excellence, this one to be dedicated to the opioid problem. 

Hayden Center
CINA may have been “a big deal” for Mason, but it certainly wasn’t the only one of late.

Last fall, Michael V. Hayden, a retired four-star Air Force general  and former director of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, opened a center for intelligence, policy and international security at the Schar School of Policy and Government.

Like CINA, the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security will be simultaneously academic and outward looking.

“It is an important public service to project research and analysis back out into the community,” says Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell. “We want to try to make a difference in policy debate.”

Hayden’s clout was evident at the center’s opening last October at the National Press Club. Distinguished panelists from academia, law enforcement and the media, including James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, spoke to an audience of 400 on a topic that will be a yearlong focus — how to defend fact-based institutions in a post-truth world.

In his opening remarks at the gathering, Hayden explained that his vision was for “a space in which people can, in a nonaccusatory way, talk about the things that are important to American espionage.

“Rarely,” he said, “has something so essential to American safety and liberty been so mis- or un-understood by the population that it serves.”

While still only months old, the Hayden Center’s calendar is busy with workshops, webinars, lectures and symposiums. Director Larry Pfeiffer says another public forum is planned for April, again at the National Press Club. The topic this time will be the intersection of security, intelligence and culture. Hayden is an adviser on the TV spy thriller “Homeland,” so the panel is expected to feature principals from the show, including its co-star, Mandy Patinkin.

Eventually, the Hayden Center will produce policy papers, raise money for scholarships and take its programs on the road. Meanwhile, Rozell says, Schar’s master’s degree program in international security studies, which includes 100 students, “connects nicely” with the work being done there.

Spot-on political polls
Another win for Mason, and the Schar School in particular, has been its partnership with The Washington Post to conduct public opinion polls. The pollsters thus far have called three races, Rozell says.

First, they predicted Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in Virginia by 5 percentage points. Spot on. Then, they chose Ralph Northam over Ed Gillespie for Virginia governor. Right again.

Lastly, they picked Doug Jones over Roy Moore for U.S. Senate in Alabama. The Post-Schar Poll’s performance on that highly publicized race was especially sweet. Other than Fox News, no other poll even picked Jones to win, and Fox had Jones by 10 points.

Post-Schar’s prediction? Jones at 50 percent; Moore at 47. Actual outcome? Jones, 50 percent; Moore, 48. “We nailed it,” Rozell says.

Capital improvements
Mason’s expanding ways extend to bricks and mortar, with a fiscal year 2017 capital budget of $58.4 million and an FY ’18 budget of $60 million.

Significant projects include a $32 million 50,000-square-foot science center that opened on the Occoquan River in October and an $8.5 million, 14,000-square-foot addition to the Hylton Performing Arts Center on the Manassas Science and Technology Campus that is scheduled for completion this year.

The CINA equivalent in capital outlay, however, would be the just-completed $71 million home for the College of Health and Human Services and the Volgenau School of Engineering’s Department of Bioengineering. The Peterson Family Health Science Hall, located on the Fairfax campus, is Mason’s second-largest facility. A ribbon-cutting is slated for May.

Wu, GMU’s provost, says that in addition to classrooms and labs, the building will feature a nearly $2 million MRI suite. True to Mason’s mission to do targeted and partnered research, the university’s students and researchers and Inova Health System will be collaborating on the use of the high-tech machine to advance the study and treatment of brain diseases.

The MRI, like other Mason research projects, was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. In FY’18, sponsored funding makes up more than $200 million of the university’s $1 billion budget, a figure that has held steady during the past four years.

Philanthropic support
While Mason has been relieved that federal money for its research has remained consistent, given the overall lack of increases and even reductions in federal support, its philanthropic support of late is something to crow about.

The Schar School, for example, is named for homebuilder Dwight Schar, who in 2016 gave the fledgling college an unrestricted gift of $10 million. Also, the name of the health sciences center on the Fairfax campus acknowledges a $10 million donation from local developer Milt Peterson and his wife, Carolyn. (The gift includes $8 million for the facility.) Overall, private giving went up 33.3 percent last year. That represents a $15 million bump, for a total of $60 million in donations.

The GMU official budget summary for 2017-2018 called such a boost in private giving  “astonishing,” and, certainly, it would be for most schools. But as Mason bustles into the future, it doesn’t really seem that surprising for this one.

A designing duo

What would you have been if you hadn’t become an architect?
Rohit: a professional cricket player
Smita: a foreign-service officer.

What’s on the bucket list?
Rohit: helping people build their careers
Smita: seeing the Northern Lights.

What’s on the nightstand?
Rohit: The Wall Street Journal
Smita: “All the Light We Cannot See.”

As principals of a large architectural firm, Rohit and Smita Anand of the Tysons office of KTGY have their fingerprints on lots of projects. The impact of their firm can be spotted from the Washington suburbs to a new development in Reston.

In the multifamily sector alone, Rohit Anand estimates that he has built more than 20,000 rental units during his long career.

The husband and wife team are central players in KTGY, an international architectural firm with about 400 employees and offices as far-flung as Denver and Pune, India. KTGY has won hundreds of awards, including the Great American Living Awards for Best Design and Architecture in 2016 for developments in Stafford, Manassas, and the Potomac Yard district of Alexandria.

The Anands strive to bring a fresh vision to the firm’s designs. “A lot of stuff looks and feels the same,” says Rohit, whose focus is multifamily dwellings. “But an apartment is not a commodity, a product. It has to work in a particular location for a particular tenant. It has to be meaningful.”

Smita tries “to push boundaries,” too, she says in plans for single-family residences. She views town houses and stand-alone homes as a “stage, a setting in which different events happen.”

The Aperture in Reston is an example of the Anands’ approach. Rohit envisioned the 421-unit luxury apartment building as a home for older millennials, now hitting their 30s, and younger Generation X’ers in their 40s, and he made sure that it checked all the boxes to attract those age groups.  

The Aperture has easy transit access, sitting across the street from the Wiehle-Reston East stop on Metro’s Silver line. It brims with trendy amenities, such as an outdoor kitchen, dog park and the kind of open gathering spaces where millennials expect to mingle. A striking lobby with a bronze and stainless-steel sculpture and a dramatic double elliptical staircase gives the project flair. Like many developments near mass transit, plans for this area of Reston include 1.3 million square feet of mixed uses that will eventually include office buildings, restaurants, shops and a hotel. 

Smita’s new town houses at Crown Farm in Gaithersburg, Md., catch the eye as well. With their off-center windows and mix of heights and surfaces, they resemble a playful jumble of children’s blocks. In another recent project, The Brownstones at Chevy Chase Lake in Chevy Chase, Md., Smita tries to incorporate “the notion of wellness,” she says, by including ground-floor bedrooms for aging in place, spa baths and exercise rooms, and integrated indoor and outdoor spaces.

Jeff Kayce, senior vice president and managing director of the Bozzuto Group, a Maryland-based real estate development company that has worked with KTGY on The Aperture and other developments, has high praise for the firm’s Tysons office.  “Rohit’s team believes in great design and that has proven out in a variety of projects.”

Natives of India, the Anands met as undergraduates at the Indian Institute of Technology. Both then pursued master’s degrees in architecture in the U.S. – Rohit at Virginia Tech, and Smita at UCLA. The couple has two children, ages 19 and 24.

Running a busy architectural firm doesn’t leave a lot of leisure time. When they aren’t working, Smita enjoys hiking and trying new restaurants, while Rohit is passionate about golf and tennis and watches a lot of cricket on TV.  

Being together at the office as well as at home might be a strain on some marriages, but the Anands seem to have it figured out.

“Over the years, we have built up a degree of honesty,” Rohit says. “We can be professionally critical about the work without fear of offending.”

For this pair of architects, that development has to be as satisfying as any they have crafted out of bricks and mortar. 

Moving into the big leagues?

What do Dollar Tree, Ferguson Enterprises and The World Congress on Electroporation have in common?  

They’re all meeting this year at The Main, Virginia’s newest luxury hotel and conference center. The $175 million, Hilton-branded property in downtown Norfolk opened April 3, and industry officials say it will help Virginia recruit larger conventions and new customers.

The 22-story, 300-room property offers the largest ballroom in Virginia at 18,500 square feet, more than 70,000 square feet of flexible function space and the latest in technology — amenities that will help Virginia compete for convention business with the likes of New York City, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

“The Main is very fresh, youthful — not at all a standard,” says Jeff Schmid, president of the Virginia chapter of Meeting Professionals International. “It’s not just about square feet of space. It’s about what kind of space.”

“The Main is one of the best examples I have ever seen of a true convention hotel,” echoes Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association. “This is a game-changer for us in the state.”  

New properties increase capacity and generate buzz, but they’re not the only reason meeting planners will consider an area they might have previously passed over. As meeting times gradually have been pared back — many to just one or two days — planners’ priorities include ease of access as well as leading edge technology. Hampton Roads is positioning itself to deliver all three.   

Although still in its early days, The Main is attracting attention. “At least half my clients have already booked there,” says Rick Eisenman, president and CEO of Eisenman & Associates Inc., an association management and meetings consulting company in Richmond. “That’s pretty amazing,” he explains, considering that they made their commitment before the hotel had even opened.

A sampling of businesses and organizations already booked includes Dollar Tree, a national discount retailer; Ferguson Enterprises, the country’s  largest distributor of residential and commercial plumbing supplies; and the aforementioned World Congress on Electroporation and Pulsed Electric Fields in Biology, Medicine and Food & Environmental Technologies, the tongue-twisting name for a group that will bring in 300 to 500 participants in September.

The Medical Society of Virginia and a contingent of the National Association of Black Accountants arrive in October. The Transportation Lawyers Association is booked for November, and the International Society for BioProcess Technology for December.  The Association of Individual Hospitality Professionals, which met at The Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif., this year, has booked The Main for its 2018 summit.

Kurt J. Krause, the managing director of the 500,000-square-foot complex located a block off Norfolk’s waterfront, says that 80 percent of these groups have never met in the area or haven’t visited Hampton Roads in at least five years.

Not surprisingly, Krause shares in the widespread excitement about the new facility. He has been in the hospitality business all his life. His father was a meeting planner, and his grandparents ran a hotel.

Still, he has never worked in a property as grand as The Main. It has three high-end restaurants, a dramatic glass atrium and “technology that any university would envy,” says Krause.

The Exchange, the 50,000-square-foot, city-owned conference center, is equipped with a 90-seat tiered meeting room and the latest in tech support. It enjoys an elite IACC (International Association of Conference Centres) certification held by a minority of venues. The certification tells meeting planners that the property conforms to a set of quality standards in meeting room design and food and beverage service.

The Main itself can handle as many as 1,000 meeting-goers. Yet, by collaborating with other venues, it, and the Hampton Roads region as a whole, is gunning for not only more conventions but larger ones. In August, for example, the Southern Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (SASHTO), which brought about 1,000 members to the Greenbrier in West Virginia in 2016, will occupy both The Main and the adjacent Norfolk Waterside Marriott.

Although capacity is crucial, Virginia tourist officials say it alone cannot move Virginia into the big leagues in terms of conventions. Conference destinations need to be readily accessible. Hampton Roads is within a day’s drive of two-thirds of all Americans, but it is known for congestion around its water crossing tunnels.

Interstate 64 in Newport News is in the midst of a road-widening project, and the area’s Midtown Tunnel recently added a new tube. The state also working to secure federal permits required to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.  Norfolk’s international airport offers nearly 200 flights a day. However, as many local officials will point out, the airport needs more direct flights to reduce travel time.

The region’s venues also compare favorably on costs with other East Coast meeting sites.  “The price is there,” says Eisenman.  While a midweek night at The Main or the Marriott across the street might run $165 or $175, a stay in a comparable hotel in New York City might be more than $450, he says. A $60 gallon of coffee in Virginia might cost $200 in the Big Apple, while a deli lunch of about $30 could run $120.

Hampton Roads’ cultural and recreational opportunities are still another marketing point. SASHTO, for example, will take advantage of both by holding its CEO dinner at Norfolk’s Chrysler Museum of Art and its golf tournament at the Bay Creek Resort & Club in Cape Charles.

These resources have helped put the region’s convention industry on the upswing. Todd Bertka, vice president for convention sales and marketing for the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors  Bureau, says that in FY 2015-2016, convention traffic generated $54 million in attendee spending and $9.7 million in direct and indirect revenue for his city. He is optimistic about posting even fatter figures in the future.

For example, when the venerable Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach reopens after a $75 million restoration, the venue will contribute 35,000 square feet of function space to the resort city’s meeting capacity. In addition, it will offer a one-of-a-kind, five-star destination that can provide the local color that has become so important to convention-goers.

The ability to offer the most advanced connectivity also will be critical to the region’s quest to play a bigger role on the national stage. Virginia Beach was recently named among the nation’s top 20 cities for meetings, according to financial technology company Smart­Asset. In surveying 102 of the largest U.S. cities, SmartAsset looked at such factors as availability of hotels, room rates and proximity to major airports. It noted that more than 7,000 hotel rooms are within three miles of the Virginia Beach Convention Center, located close to the city’s oceanfront area.

The center’s already high-tech IQ is expected to get even better. Microsoft and Facebook, in partnership with Telefónica of Spain, have picked Virginia Beach as their first destination for a transatlantic, fiber-optic cable that should provide the convention center with lightning-fast Internet service, possibly by year’s end.

Elsewhere in the region, Colonial Williamsburg also is making improvements. This winter, it made extensive renovations to the Williamsburg Inn and the Williamsburg Lodge, the latter of which will be rebranded as part of Marriott’s Autograph collection, a portfolio of boutique hotels.  

The lodge, says Shaun Coleman, executive director of sales and marketing in the hospitality division of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, has been updated with nods to modernity that include better Wi-Fi, a meeting concierge and guest rooms with plentiful plugs, since the average visitor has 2.4 electronic devices.

To provide local flavor, Williamsburg can offer meeting-goers fife-and-drum escorts to dinner and speakers who appear as historical characters, such as Thomas Jefferson lecturing about early American banking practices to a meeting of financiers.

History, though, doesn’t appear to be as big of a draw as it once was. Earlier this year, Colonial Williamsburg laid off about 40 employees to cut costs, with officials noting that historic sites around the country have experienced declined visitation in recent years.

Caroline Logan, director of communications for the Virginia Tourism Corp., expects the lodge and other new and improved venues to make Virginia a popular tourism destination. She cites the diverse product that the commonwealth can offer travelers, from the vibrant vibe of downtown Richmond to the natural splendors of rural St. Paul. “Business is booming,” Logan says. “This looks like another record-breaking year.”

 

Conference hotels

  Hotel Location Phone Website Meeting rooms Banquet capacity Guest rooms Meeting space1
1 The National Conference Center Lansdowne (703) 729-8000 conferencecenter.com 250 1,150 917 265,000
2 The Omni Homestead Hot Springs (888) 796-5838 omnihotels.com/thehomestead 26 1,000 483 72,000
3 Norfolk Waterside Marriott Norfolk (757) 627-4200 marriott.com/orfws 26 1,400 405 68,000
4 The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, Curio Collection by Hilton Roanoke (540) 985-5900 hotelroanoke.com 36 1,200 331 63,000
5 Hilton Alexandria Mark Center Alexandria (703) 845-1010 alexandria.hilton.com 33 960 496 55,000
6 Lansdowne Resort Leesburg (703) 729-8400 lansdowneresort.com 37 720 296 55,000
7 Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport Arlington (703) 418-1234 crystalcity.hyatt.com 26 1,060 686 53,000
8 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Williamsburg Williamsburg (757) 220-2500 williamsburg.doubletree.com 41 1,000 295 48,000
9 Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel Norfolk (757) 622-6664 sheraton.com/norfolk 16 1,200 468 46,000
10 Sheraton Tysons Hotel Vienna (703) 448-1234 sheratontysonscorner.com 27 1,240 449 45,000
11 Williamsburg Lodge, Autograph Collection Williamsburg (800) 822-9127 colonialwilliamsburg.com 28 1,000 323 45,000
12 Hilton Norfolk The Main Norfolk (757) 763-6200 themainnorfolk.com 39 1,200 300 42,000
13 Wintergreen Resort Wintergreen (800) 273-3390 wintergreenresort.com 18 500 230 40,000
14 Crystal Gateway Marriott Arlington (703) 920-3230 crystalgatewaymarriott.com 28 1,300 697 38,000
15 Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Washington D.C. – Crystal City Arlington (703) 416-4100 doubletreecrystalcity.com 25 600 627 34,000
16 Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles Chantilly (703) 818-0300 westfieldsmarriott.com 20 550 336 33,000
17 Hyatt Regency Reston Reston (703) 709-1234 reston.hyatt.com 35 950 518 32,000
18 The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner McLean (703) 506-4300 ritzcarlton.com/tysons 13 1,120 398 31,000
19 Wyndham Virginia Crossings Hotel and Conference Center Glen Allen (804) 727-1400 wyndhamvirginiacrossings.com 26 300 183 28,000
20 Hilton McLean Tysons Corner McLean (703) 847-5000 hiltonmclean.com 16 920 458 27,000
21 Richmond Marriott Richmond (804) 643-3400 richmondmarriott.com 40 1,120 410 26,000
22 Fort Magruder Hotel and Conference Center Williamsburg (757) 220-2250 fortmagruderhotel.com 18 500 303 26,000
23 Doubletree by Hilton Richmond – Midlothian Richmond (804) 379-3800 richmondmidlothian.doubletree.com 20 700 237 26,000
24 The Jefferson Richmond (804) 788-8000 jeffersonhotel.com 19 420 181 26,000
25 Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel Arlington (703) 521-1900 sheratonpentagoncity.com 21 650 416 25,000
26 The Founders Inn & Spa Virginia Beach (757) 366-5716 foundersinn.com 20 1,000 240 25,000
27 Renaissance Portsmouth-Norfolk Waterfront Hotel Portsmouth (757) 673-3000 marriott.com/orfpt 23 875 249 24,000
28 The Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center Blacksburg (877) 200-3360 innatvirginiatech.com 11 700 147 23,705
29 Hilton Richmond Hotel & Spa/Short Pump Richmond (804) 364-3600 hiltonrichmond.com 11 795 254 23,000
30 Holiday Inn Virginia Beach Norfolk Hotel & Conference Center Virginia Beach (757) 499-4400 hivabeachnorfolk.com 16 450 307 22,000
31 Sheraton Reston Hotel Reston (703) 620-9000 sheraton.com/reston 19 400 298 22,000
32 Boar's Head Charlottesville (434) 972-2224 boarsheadinn.com 19 450 175 22,000
33 Newport News Marriott at City Center Newport News (757) 873-9299 mariott.com/phfoy 23 840 256 20,659

1 In square feet                                 Source: Individual hotels

In his blood

Whether nature or nurture is more crucial to the development of a child is a moot point in the case of real estate developer Robert C. Kettler. In him, the two elements perfectly align.

By nature, Kettler likes all aspects of the real estate development business, from the first conception of a project —“the envisioning part gets me up in the morning,” he says — to the “granular work” required to turn his vision into bricks-and-mortar reality.

By nurture, Kettler was destined to be a developer. His grandfather built apartments back in the 1920s, and his father and uncle were both residential developers. While still in college at George Washington University in the 1970s, this third-generation entrepreneur already was remodeling apartments.

Now, 40 years later, the Northern Virginia resident is one of the pre-eminent developers of residential and multi-use properties in the Washington capital region, and his company ranks as the 16th largest multifamily developer in the country. Kettler Inc., which employs about 1,000 people, also has built numerous shopping centers and golf courses.

From the beginning Kettler thought big. As a result, many of his projects have been of landscape-altering dimensions. For example, more than 11,000 people now live in the Loudoun County suburb of Cascades, which was open farmland before Kettler began constructing more than 6,000 homes there in the late ’80s. Some of his more ambitious projects have included the 1.3 million-square-foot, multi-use Leesburg Village and 1,000 units of high-rise apartments at Reston Town Center, the latter of which he calls “the most iconic, transformational project we’ve done.” 

In all, the busy builder has been responsible for the creation of more than 45,000 homes and 25 planned communities in the metropolitan Washington region. In addition, the management arm of Kettler handles 30,000 units.

Kettler has received numerous awards for his voluminous work, including recognition for lifetime achievement from the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association.

Lacy Rice, who co-owns some apartment complexes with him, credits the developer’s success to his abundant energy, persistence and eye for value.  In addition, Rice, the managing partner of Federal Capital Partners, says Kettler has been able to adjust as the commercial real estate market has become more structured. “Lots of family companies reach their zenith with the patriarch, but Bob is continuing to evolve into a multigenerational company.”

Yet all of Kettler’s many accomplishments soon could be dwarfed by his current involvement in what he calls “the biggest redevelopment story in the country – the metamorphosis of what was 2,000 acres of office space into a suburban city known as Tysons.  “The place is on fire,” he says of Tysons. “All pins on a map end up there.” 

In addition to building 395 units of midrise apartments at Tysons called Highgate at the Mile, Kettler is working with the Meridian Group on a massive undertaking called the Boro, located near the Greensboro station of Metro’s new Silver Line. The first phase, now in progress, includes 750 residences, 443,000 square feet of office space and 252,000 square feet of retail, including a Whole Foods supermarket. Eventually, the Boro should encompass 4.2 million square feet spread across 18 acres.

Kettler admits that even as he continues to build, the NoVa housing market has “a slight oversupply.” Nevertheless, he is confident that the situation is temporary.

“Millennials,” he says, “are not al­­ways going to spend all their money on 450-square-foot apartments and takeout. They can’t live that way forever.”  If past is prologue, Kettler will be there for them when they are ready for grown-up housing.

Years in the industry: Kettler co-founded his first company, Kettler & Scott, in 1977.
Where he grew up: Washington, D.C.
Family: Wife of “about” 35 years, Charlotte – a 13th-generation Virginian who traces her lineage to Pocahontas. Four children; two of them work for his company. Two grandchildren.
Hobbies: Retreating to his farm on the Eastern Shore and going boating. “I like having no schedule, like one day a year.”
Most recent read: “The Obsidian Chamber,” the 16th installment in a series of fantasy thrillers by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. 
Bucket list: A trip to Antarctica. He already has logged an “incredible” trip to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America.