Ballast Point Brewing Co. has opened a tasting room and kitchen in a run-up to the completion of a $48 million East Coast brewing operation in Botetourt County.
The 18,000-square-foot tasting room and kitchen, located at Botetourt Center at Greenfield in Daleville, can accommodate about 200 for lunch and dinner. There’s also a 100-person banquet room and a 14-tap growler filling station. The interior includes a bar area, retail store, merchandise shop and outdoor fire pit patio overlooking Greenfield Lake.
“This is an attractive asset for people who live here and a major draw for tourists,” Jack Leffel, chairman of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors,said in a statement.
Ballast Point, based in San Diego, plans to complete its production facility later this year. It will include 100- and 300-barrel systems that will enable the company to produce more than 50 styles of beer.
The company said 47 people work in the tasting room and kitchen, and it plans to employ about 145 in manufacturing and associated functions once the full production facility opens.
Roslyn Farm Corp. has purchased 203 acres at Rives Road in Prince George County from Richard E. Holland Jr. Properties LLC for $2.2 million.
Nicholas Walker of Rosyln Farm said via email that the company is looking at the property for future commercial and industrial development.
The site is bordered on the east by Interstate 295 and on the west by I-95, with access at Exit 47. Robert E. Porter Jr. of Richmond-based Porter Realty Co. Inc. handled the marketing and sale negotiations on behalf of the seller.
A speculative 284,580-square-foot industrial building has just been completed in Suffolk. While it doesn’t have tenants yet, it was the site for the fourth annual LogistXGames last week, an annual competition for employees in the logistics industry, that was part of the building’s grand opening.
Panattoni Development Co. developed the building, and CBRE Hampton Roads will handle leasing. It’s located in Virginia Regional Commerce Park, which sits at the intersection of Route 58 and U.S. 460, a location near the marine terminals at the Port of Virginia.
According to the city of Suffolk, the building is zoned for office, warehouse and distribution uses, along with light manufacturing. It offers 32-foot ceiling heights, 55 dock doors, trailer storage, column spacing and an ESFR sprinkler system.
VACORP has purchased the former Allstate Building in Roanoke for $4 million and plans to occupy the entire 165,808-square-foot office building.
The Roanoke-based company that provides risk management programs to localities, school divisions and other clients acquired the property on June 12, according to Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group, which represented the seller.
The building, formerly occupied by Allstate Insurance Co., is located in a campus-like setting on more than 20 acres. Amenities on the three-story property include a cafeteria, gym, and abundant parking.
Eric Robison, senior vice president of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group, along with Barry Ward and Price Gutshall of Thalhimer’s Roanoke Office Services Group, completed the sale. Ward said in a statement that the property “represented a great opportunity for a growing Roanoke business to provide their employees a wonderful work environment in a beautiful setting with access to multiple amenities.”
“Cessna NCaravan 101 Charlie Golf requesting departure.”
“Are you ready to taxi? ” inquires the air traffic controller at Richmond International Airport. Within minutes, CoStar Group’s Cessna Grand Caravan is on its way to runway two.
“Cleared for takeoff.”
With that, pilots Mark Beauchamp and Ben Hursa, along with aerial research photographer Amber Surrency, take to the skies for another day of intelligence gathering.
Costar Group Inc., a commercial real estate research firm based in Washington, D.C., that's putting a research operations headquarters in Richmond, has added a new weapon to its high-tech arsenal of information collection. The company bought a plane and mounted a Red Epic Dragon camera on its underside to capture cinema-quality photos and video of buildings.
The result is quicker updates to its massive database of properties. CoStar’s proprietary database is the key to its competitive niche, because brokers and other customers pay subscription fees to access the company’s information. According to the company, about 25 million people visit CoStar’s family of websites in an average month to lease, buy or analyze a wide range of office, industrial, retail or farm properties. The data include everything from photo and video to a building’s address, owner and square footage.
Virginia Business took advantage of opportunity to go up with the aerial research fleet Monday as it shot video of downtown Richmond, the Short Pump corridor and the area around the Richmond Raceway in eastern Henrico County.
The Cessna flies at an altitude of 2,500 feet and a speed of about 138 miles per hour. At this elevation and speed, it’s easy to see the landscape from a window aboard the seven-seat, turbo-prop plane. In fact, buildings look tidy from the sky, as if they have been laid out in neat squares. As the plane swoops over downtown, the white water rapids of the James River are easily visibly as are the heating and air conditioning systems on the tops of the business district’s skyscrapers.
During the trip, Surrency’s job is to upload the high-resolution video to a computer and send the images to the firm’s researchers, who in turn update the photos and video in CoStar’s database.
“We fly over large swaths of land, and we cover an entire market in a day or two,” says Surrency. “What we collect today, we can send to the researchers today. It takes about two weeks to get it into the database.” Typically, she sends four photos, showing various angles, of each building that is photographed. The plane canvasses for construction sites, new buildings and other elements of commercial real estate activity that are more readily apparent from the sky than the ground.
Asked why CoStar doesn’t use drones, Surrency responds that drones would only work for small projects. CoStar is looking into them for that purpose, she adds. Yet for large areas, “a drone just doesn’t have the capacity. It can only fly up to about 400 feet.” Plus, there are battery and other issues, she says.
CoStar acquired the Cessna in May 2015. Since then, the plane has been out on data missions nearly every day, six to eight hours per day, racking up 290,000 miles. While originally intended to provide an extra dimension to research in CoStar’s top 35 markets, the company decided to expand the program to cover all 146 markets where it operates in the U.S. and Canada.
According to Surrency, CoStar spends about $1 million a year for the plane and its crews of two full-time aerial research operators, two full-time pilots and several part-time pilots who rotate shifts. Surrency, who lives in Melbourne Fla., and and is a former intelligence analyst for the U. S. Marine Corps, works for 10 days and then has 10 days off. While flying is expensive, “Think about how much data we collect.”
CoStar has uploaded 28,000 images since the program began in 2015, trying to update market photos every 10 months. “Can you imagine driving a vehicle to do a market as large as Dallas?” While Richmond takes a day to research by plane, Dallas takes about 40 hours of flight time, or five days.
The aerial team is part of CoStar’s larger fleet of 1,600 researchers. In 2015, the company says that team made 12 million research calls, drove more than 2 million miles and took nearly 1 million photos of properties. The aerial team canvassed 75 markets.
Surrency says she likes her job, because she gets to see much off the U.S. from the air. She particularly enjoyed checking out markets near the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, buzzing down New York City’s Hudson River and seeing the estate of movie star John Travolta’s in Ocala, Fla. from the air.
“It was interesting,” says Surrency. “He had a private runway with a couple of jets sitting on it.”
Richmond’s popular Scotts Addition area near The Boulevard, which has become a hot spot for millennials flocking to its apartments and restaurants, may soon get a new Class A office building.
Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced the 63,800-square-foot project Thursday. The developers are The Rebkee Co., based in Midlothian, and partners Dan Gecker and Steve Leibovic with Serabi Development in Richmond, the same group that developed the Cookie Factory Lofts, a 180-unit apartment project on The Boulevard. That project converted the old Interbake cookie factory into a modern, multifamily dwelling that overlooks the Washington Redskins summer practice field.
If plans are approved by the city and developers can prelease a substantial portion of the building, the developer would raze the Interbake Foods warehouse at 949 Myers St., where the new three-story office project would be built.
It would be adjacent to the recently announced River City Roll bowling alley and within walking distance rto estaurants such as En Su Boca and Fat Dragon and the BowTie Cinema.
According to Thalhimer, the developer plans a rooftop terrace and balconies for office tenants that would offer views of the Redskins training facility. There would also be a patio with landscaping and bike racks.
“There is a palpable energy in this neighborhood that people want to be a part of… “ Jason Guillot, a broker with Thalhimer who has been retained as the exclusive leasing representative, said in a statement. “The Boulevard and Scott’s Addition has become organically what every large-scale, mixed-use development has tried to achieve and is quickly becoming the new gateway to the city of Richmond. “
Architectural details would include floor-to-ceiling factory windows, high-end interior finishes and build-outs that promote collaborative, creative workspace.
“We are excited to bring the prospect of new Class A office space to Scott’s Addition, which has seen an explosive growth of apartments, restaurants, breweries and commercial space,” Steve Leibovic said in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with forward-thinking office users who want to join a thriving urban residential and commercial hub, attracting everyone from millennials to empty nesters.”
Thalhimer Realty Partners Inc. (TRP), the investment and development subsidiary of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, said Thursday that it has acquired a 75-unit apartment property near Church Hill in Richmond for $9.67 million. The seller was 2001 East Broad LP.
The company said it has closed on the purchase of the 2001 East Apartments at 2001 E. Broad St., at the entrance to the Church Hill Historic District and close to the VCU Health System’s School of Medicine. The property also includes two commercial suites.
The apartments offer a mix of studio, one- and two- bedroom units ranging in size from 550 square feet to 900 square feet. Monthly rental rates begin at $875 and go up to $1,600. Thalhimer’s Residential Property Services will manage the property on behalf of TRP. Catrina Scanlan will serve be the portfolio manager responsible for the oversight of the property’s operations.
Colliers International | Richmond & Norfolk has announced that Chris Good has joined its Retail Services Group in Norfolk as vice president. He will work in the Norfolk office.
For more than 12 years, Good focused has on retailer/restaurant tenant representation and landlord/developer representation. According to Colliers, he has been recognized annually as a top producer by the Hampton Roads Commercial Alliance.
Good has represented a range of landlords, developers and tenants including Kotarides Cos., Sansome Pacific Properties, Verdad Real Estate, Foremark, Craftworks Brands, Main Event, Tuesday Morning, Burger King, SuperCuts, Plato’s Closet, Clothes Mentor, and Jenny Craig.
Montgomery County wants to expand its Falling Branch Corporate Park. It announced Wednesday that its Economic Development Authority has entered into a contract with Cox Family Farms LLC to purchase 124 acres adjacent to the county’s corporate park at a cost of $2.5 million, or about $20,161 per acre.
The EDA has about 180 days to perform due diligence on the property. This includes a rezoning request as well as geotechnical and environmental studies. Rezoning applications with both Montgomery County and the town of Christiansburg were filed for the property on May 30, three days after the county entered into the purchase agreement. Before the expiration of the 180-day period, the EDA will decide whether to purchase the property and evaluate the expansion of utilities and a road.
“The Board of Supervisors is committed to keeping Montgomery County a growing and competitive area that continues to attract new businesses,” Chris Tuck, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “Acquiring this property is an important step in expanding our existing corporate park and a decision that will pay dividends in the future by providing the ground work to attract larger commercial businesses to the county.”
Currently, Falling Branch Corporate Park includes 175 acres, with 146 acres occupied by businesses that include Aeroprobe Corporate, Backcountry, Dish Network, Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. Inorganic Ventures, Polymer Solutions Inc. and PreStar Packaging. That leaves 29 acres divided into three separate lots available.
Currently, the county does not have any sites over 16 acres, which makes it difficult to attract prospective business in need of larger areas.
“Having a 100-plus acre site that’s ready for development will allow the vounty to compete for much larger projects. This will allow us to better market the county to attract a wider range of businesses to the New River Valley,” said Charlie Jewell, executive director, New River Valley Economic Development Alliance.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the largest private, nonprofit supporter of U.S. science education, announced Wednesday that two Virginia schools are receiving $1 million each as part of the HHMI’s new Inclusive Excellence initiative.
Radford University and Virginia Tech are among 24 higher-education institutions across the country that were selected for a first round of grant funding in a program that seeks to boost inclusion in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.
“We are honored to be the recipients of this very prestigious grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,” Radford University President Brian O. Hemphill, said in a statement.
The initiative aims to increase the capacity of colleges and universities to engage all students in science practices. HHMI particularly wants to focus on undergraduates who come to college from diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented ethnic minorities, first-generation college students and working adults with families.
“We’re thinking differently about how HHMI can help move science education forward,” the institute’s president, Erin O’Shea, said in a statement. “The challenges this program addresses are important for all of us who care deeply about developing a more inclusive and diverse scientific community.”
The initiative shifts responsibility onto the schools — improving the structure of the curriculum and the way it’s delivered, for example, adjusting school policies and procedures, training faculty and improving the educational climate and culture.
“Too many times we approach diversity with a deficit mindset in which interventions are aimed at ‘fixing the students,’ ” David Asai, senior director for science education at HHMI, said in a statement. Instead, the initiative focuses on making the culture of an institution more inclusive. “We want to change the way schools do business.”
The 2017 Inclusive Excellence awards considered proposals from 511 schools. HHMI is awarding $1 million each to the 24 schools, which all proposed plans for engaging more students in science at their campuses. The awards are part of the first round of the initiative. A second round of the competition is currently underway and results will be announced next spring.
At Radford. the grant will support a newly created program known as REALISE, which was designed to create a welcoming and inclusive learning environment. A large component of the project is the expansion of the university's Maker opportunities focus, especially in entry-level biology, chemistry, physics and other science courses.
Maker is a national movement, commonly practiced at higher education institutions, that encourages creative engagement between faculty and students to solve real-world problems. At Radford, students and faculty have worked on a number of STEM-related projects, including 3D printing, electronics and multimedia, e-textiles and fabrics and programming and microcontrollers.
By targeting introductory-level courses, Radford wants to introduce students early on to STEM fields and direct them toward similar career options.
At Virginia Tech, HHMI said the faculty plan to improve abilities to be inclusive and departments will modify curricula so that students can fully participate in experiential learning opportunities.
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