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byline: Paula C. Squires

S. L. Nusbaum picks up two shopping centers


S. L. Nusbaum Realty Co. has been named the exclusive leasing and management representative for Towne Place at Greenbrier in Chesapeake and The Shops at Cedar Valley in Williamsburg.

Located in the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake, Towne Place consists of about 77,000 square feet and is home to a variety of retailers and restaurants such as Chico’s, Jos A. Banks, Taste Unlimited, Surf Rider and Cox Communications. Murray Rosenbach will be the leasing agent for the property.

The Shops at Cedar Valley has about 25,000 square feet and is located at Route 199 & Mooretown Road in Williamsburg, just across from the Williamsburg Pottery. Current tenants include Starbuck’s, America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, H & R Block, The UPS Store and Subway. Neal Sadler and Tyler Jacobson will be the leasing agents.

Headquartered in Norfolk and with an office in Richmond,, S.L. manages more than 5.3 million square feet of retail space, more than 16,000 apartment units and 2 million square feet of office and industrial properties.

Professional Business Building sells for $2.9 million in Newport News

 

Municipal Partners II LLC has purchased the Peninsula Professional Building in Oyster Point Business Park in Newport News for $2.9 million.

According to Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, the company bought the 30,000-square-foot, class A office building from Continental Rock Landing LLC as an investment.

Teresa Nettles of Thalhimer handled sale negotiations on behalf of the buyer.  Kenneth Penrose Jr. and Samuel W. Scott, Jr., also with Thalhimer, represented the seller.

Jones Lang LaSalle shortens name to JLL

Jones Lang LaSalle, a professional services and investment firm specializing in real estate, has shortened its name. The company, which is based in Chicago and  has offices in Hampton Roads and Richmond, announced Tuesday that it will go by the name of JLL.

It rolled out a new logo to accompany the change. The new branding, the company said, is more easily recognized, fits its global footprint and is suitable for digital applications and mobile channels.

Charles Doyle, chief marketing and communications fficer at JLL said in a statement,  “JLL is easily pronounced, remembered, visible and representative of our firm wherever we serve our clients around the world.”

The JLL name and logo will be rolled out globally over the next two years. The firm’s legal name, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., and the name of its wholly owned subsidiary, LaSalle Investment Management, will remain unchanged.

Contractors trade group to launch private insurance exchange

The Arlington-based Associated General Contractors of America said Wednesday that it plans to launch a new private insurance exchange this summer in cooperation with Willis North America.

The new exchange, to be called “The AGC Alternative,” will allow the association’s 30,000 member firms to deliver health insurance and related benefits to their employees at a lower cost, officials said.

“This new exchange will make it far easier for member firms to provide top quality health insurance and related benefits for their employees,” Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s CEO, said in a statement. “Our members will now be able to secure the kind of convenient and discounted benefits that a growing number of large employers already enjoy.”

According to Sandherr, the new exchange will offer a broader range of options than typically available to individual firms, so employers and employees will get more benefits that meet their particular needs.

The new exchange also is expected to make it easier for firms to comply with the Affordable Care Act requirements.

Rick Hawkinberry, Willis Construction CEO said, “Willis has been a long-term partner with AGC and while we have previously focused our efforts in the very important area of employee and jobsite safety, we are delighted to work with AGC to bring this new solution to AGC member firms and their employees.”

Once AGC and Willis complete preparations, which includes the securing of a national insurance provider, each member firm will each be able to set up its own private company benefits exchange site for employees, Sandherr said. Participating firms will provide a stipend to their employees, who will use those funds to shop for health insurance and other benefits offered through the exchange.

The national trade association is the largest in the construction industry, representing 95 charter members, including general contractors, specialty contractors and service providers and suppliers.  It announced the new health insurance exchange during its annual convention now underway in Las Vegas.

 

Poll says winter weather puts chill on Virginia’s small businesses

A poll released Tuesday by Small Business Majority says this winter’s extreme cold weather has taken a toll on many of Virginia’s small businesses.

The poll of 505 small business owners, conducted Feb. 7 -10 by Public PolicyPolling, found that nearly that four in 10 (or 39 percent) of small Virginia business owners reported that they had been impacted by the weather, with 87 percent saying they have suffered a  “significant” financial impact.

Many businesses were forced to close temporarily, with 59 percent closing their business for up to a week, and some closing for as long as 14 to 30 days. Nearly one in five said they had laid off workers.

Other business owners reported damages of between $5,000 and $25,000.

“I don’t normally blame weak sales on bad weather, but this winter has been really hard on my business,” Mike Brey, owner of Hobby Works in Fairfax, said in a statement. “We’ve been forced to close because of extreme snowstorms, several of which happened on weekends — our busiest time of the week. The extreme cold also has more people staying indoors, which has cut down on foot traffic. While you expect some snowstorms during this time of year, it’s clear the weather is getting more intense. “

A majority (56 percent) of Virginia small business owners who were polled supported a federal insurance program to help entrepreneurs recover from extreme weather and climate-change related events.

Urban Farmhouse and Market Café celebrating third location in Richmond

 

A grand opening event for Urban Farmhouse and Market Cafe’s new Church Hill location at 310 N. 33rd St. — its third Richmond area restaurant — will be held Saturday, March 8 from 1 to 4 p.m. 

Festivities will include live local music and a farmer’s market, in keeping with Urban Farmhouse’s focus on local food, artisans and musicians.  

The hours for the Church Hill restaurant are 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p. m. on Sunday.  Urban Hill’s other locations are in Shockoe Bottom and Midlothian.

Two new tenants take space in Alexandria office building

 

5 Star Life Insurance Co. and Edgesource Corp. have signed two leases totaling more than 16,000 square feet at 909 N. Washington St, bringing the 105,000-square-foot property to full occupancy. 

Scott Rabin, a regional manager for Edge Commercial Real Estate, represented the landlord, the Armed Forces Benefit Association, in completing the two leases.

Edge became the building’s leasing agent about three years ago, when the building had a lot of vacancy and deferred maintenance.

Since then, the owner invested significant capital to enhance common areas and replace a majority of the building’s infrastructure systems. Those renovations, Rabin said in a statement, helped reposition the property and make it more energy efficient.

Bethesda-based Edge Commercial Real Estate, which has an office in Tysons Corner, is a commercial real estate advisory, investment and management company. It manages more than 8.4 million square feet of commercial space throughout the Washington, D.C., region.

KCG moves corporate headquarters to larger facility

Knowledge Consulting Group (KCG), one of the largest privately held cyber security services firms in the U.S., has relocated its corporate headquarters to a 17,500-square-foot office in Reston.

The company stayed in Reston, moving from the Plaza American Tower II building to 2000 Edmund Halley Drive on March 1.

“Relocating our office to a larger facility marks an important milestone for KCG,” Dusty Wince, the company’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “The company has experienced significant growth over the past 13 years, and this new space will better accommodate our plans for expansion while enabling us to better serve our customers.”

The new location offers a more open and collaborative environment and enhanced meeting facilities to coordinate with customers.About 115 employees will be able to work from the space, compared to 65 at the old location. 

The company said it is expanding its focus to include more commercial work, while it continues to serve the government market with major contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

Construction spending in January posts biggest year-over-year increase since 2006

Total construction spending in January posted the steepest year-over-year increase since 2006, with growth in public construction as well as private residential and nonresidential spending, according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Arlington-based Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).


“Overall construction spending increased in January compared with both December and January 2013 despite uncommonly adverse weather conditions,” Ken Simonson, the association's chief economist, said in a statement.  “The monthly gains were limited to homebuilding and multifamily residential construction, although private nonresidential work should rebound in the next few months. Public construction is up for now on a year-over-year basis, but funding remains questionable.”


Construction put in place totaled $943 billion in January, 9.3 percent higher than in January 2013, the fastest rate of growth for total construction spending since May 2006.


Private residential construction spending increased by 1.1 percent in January and jumped 15 percent in 12 months. Private nonresidential spending slipped 0.2 percent for the month, but rose 9.7 percent compared to January 2013. Public construction spending dropped 0.8 percent for the month but increased 2.5 percent from a year earlier.


“Contractors are clearly more optimistic about the outlook for private nonresidential markets this year … “ Simonson said. .“In addition, apartment construction is still very strong in much of the country, and homebuilding should remain positive.”

Simonson added that the Census Bureau estimates for January and December may not accurately reflect the impact of severe winter weather because the agency relies in part on models as well as field reports.

Association officials cited highway and street construction as an example of a category that may be revised. The preliminary data show spending soared 3.7 percent in January and 15 percent year-over-year. But they cautioned that federal highway funding could decline abruptly as early as this summer if the federal highway trust fund runs out of money as predicted.

“Letting highway investments lapse will only hurt overall economic growth and put more construction jobs at risk,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s CEO.

Positive developments help state maintain high rankings

Economic development in Virginia entered 2014 with wind beneath its sails. With a federal budget deal passed, the squeeze from sequestration in military-dependent Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads has eased.  Plus, there’s money set aside for transportation projects, and the housing market has stabilized.
These are positive developments as Virginia strives to stay on top of national rankings as one of the best states to do business. In 2013, Forbes.com returned Virginia to the top of the pile in its national rankings.

On the jobs front, professional and technical services, along with food products and data processing, were the big generators during the past year.  Northern Virginia’s strong IT community helped the region snag the headquarters of Amazon Web Services along with 500 jobs.

Manufacturers, particularly in the food and beverage sector, also are choosing Virginia for new locations.  The Luxembourg-based Ardagh Group is spending $93.5 million to open a metal can factory in Roanoke County that will create nearly 100 jobs.

On the investment side, data centers are stealing the show. Data processing, hosting and related services sparked $1.4 billion in new investment in the state last year, according to preliminary figures from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

Companies including Microsoft Corp., Corporate Office Properties Trust and Digital Realty Trust are spending millions of dollars as they build new data centers in Loudoun County where 5 million square feet of data center space is expected to come online during the next three years.

Another welcome development? Expansions by existing manufacturers.  Lipton Tea was one of several companies that decided to stay put.  After regional and state economic development officials worked with the company and offered incentives, Lipton decided to invest $96 million in an agreement that saved 300 jobs.

Since Lipton imports loose tea from various countries, one of the advantages of staying in Suffolk was its proximity to the Port of Virginia. Charts on imports and exports tell readers what travels in and out of Virginia.

Barring the rough waters of another government sequestration, Virginia’s economic development ship should continue to sail along.

Economic Development charts