The Gish Flats Apartments in Lynchburg have been sold for $8.15 million, Colliers announced Tuesday.
The two buildings at 317 5th St. include 66 units. Eight 8 Properties LLC purchased the apartment buildings from Gish Flats LLC.
Gish Flats, near downtown Lynchburg, underwent renovations in 2016, according to Colliers.
Charles Wentworth, Garrison Gore, G.S. “Hank” Hankins and Victoria Pickett handled the transaction on behalf of the seller.
Newport News-based Riverside Health System will start 2023 with a transition to a new CEO, the health care system announced Wednesday.
Bill Downey will step down after 40 years with Riverside, the past 12 years of which he served as CEO. Riverside’s president and chief operating officer, Dr. Michael Dacey, will take over as CEO on Jan. 1, 2023, also retaining his title as president, according to Riverside. Downey will then transition to executive vice chairman and special adviser, roles he will hold until his retirement in 2024, creating a yearlong transition.
“Mike has been an incredible asset to Riverside before and during the pandemic in his role as chief operating officer,” Board of Directors Chairman Gabe Morgan said in a statement. “He and Bill have worked so well together during the past five years, and we know he will take Riverside to even greater success. We want to thank Bill for his almost 40 years of service to Riverside. Bill has worked tirelessly to enhance our team members and community engagement. During his 12-year tenure as president and CEO, Riverside Health System has seen significant growth through expansion, and the use of digital technologies benefiting team members, patients, residents and our communities.”
Before joining Riverside in 2018, Dacey held positions at Care New England, including president, chief medical officer and critical care service life chief. He graduated from Providence College in Rhode Island and George Washington University School of Medicine. Dacey completed an internal medicine residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a critical medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and holds a master’s degree in health care management from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Riverside has 9,000 employees and operates seven hospitals in Newport News, Williamsburg, Hampton, Yorktown, Gloucester and Onancock.
Tysons-based MicroStrategy Inc. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor is being sued by the city of Washington, D.C., which accuses Saylor of engaging in a fraudulent scheme to deprive the city of more than $25 million in income taxes while living in “a luxury penthouse on the Georgetown waterfront” and claiming to be a resident of Virginia or Florida.
The civil lawsuit, filed Aug. 22 by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine in the District of Columbia Superior Court and unsealed Wednesday, also names MicroStrategy as a defendant, alleging that the company and its executives conspired with Saylor to avoid his obligations to pay city income taxes. Under the city’s new False Claims Act, Saylor, who ranks No. 1,818 on Fortune’s list of world billionaires with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, could be found personally liable for more than $75 million in unpaid taxes and penalties if the lawsuit is successful.
“A decade ago, I bought an historic house in Miami Beach and moved my home there from Virginia,” Saylor said in a written statement sent to Virginia Business. “Although MicroStrategy is based in Virginia, Florida is where I live, vote and have reported for jury duty, and it is at the center of my personal and family life. I respectfully disagree with the position of the District of Columbia, and look forward to a fair resolution in the courts.”
In August, Saylor stepped down as CEO of the publicly traded tech company he cofounded in 1989, taking on the position of executive chairman, while MicroStrategy President Phong Le was appointed CEO. The move followed MicroStrategy’s August earnings report, which tallied the company’s $1.98 billion impairment loss on its bitcoin holdings. Saylor has long been a vocal advocate of bitcoin, and the company is best known as the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, having invested nearly $4 billion in the cryptocurrency.
Racine’s office alleges that Saylor avoided paying more than $25 million in taxes “by pretending to be a resident of other states with lower personal income taxes.” The attorney general is seeking to recover unpaid income taxes and penalties from both Saylor and MicroStrategy that could total more than $100 million, according to a release from Racine’s office.
According to the lawsuit, from 2005 to the present, Saylor has lived in “Trigate,” his 7,000-square-foot waterfront D.C. penthouse — where he’s docked “multiple yachts on the District’s Potomac riverfront” — but has claimed to be a Virginia resident. In 2012, according to the lawsuit, Saylor commenced a scheme to “fraudulently misrepresent” himself as a resident of Florida, where he bought a house in Miami Beach. He also obtained a driver’s license in the Sunshine State and registered to vote there.
At the same time, Saylor’s conduct — including voting three times in Florida elections using absentee ballots sent to Tysons or D.C., according to the lawsuit — showed that he didn’t intend to abandon the nation’s capital.
During or around 2013, Saylor asked MicroStrategy to begin using his Florida address on Internal Revenue Service forms, the lawsuit alleges, instead of his actual home address in D.C. MicroStrategy was aware that Saylor actually lived in D.C., according to the suit, because the company provided him with a security detail and transportation services such as flights and personal drivers.
About a year later, the company’s then-chief financial officer grew concerned about MicroStrategy’s involvement in the scheme, according to the lawsuit, and counted the days Saylor spent in the District, finding Saylor spent a majority of each year there. When confronted about the scheme to avoid paying D.C. taxes, and Saylor’s possible liability to the company, Saylor agreed to a reduction of salary to $1, but his compensation remained higher because of fringe benefits, including use of the company’s plane, the lawsuit says.
MicroStrategy continued to report Saylor’s Florida address on his W-2s from 2014 through 2021, and failed to withhold D.C. income taxes.
“This was no mere clerical error,” the lawsuit says, alleging that MicroStrategy conspired with Saylor.
MicroStrategy responded to the allegations in a written statement, sent to Virginia Business.
“The case is a personal tax matter involving Mr. Saylor,” the statement said. “The company was not responsible for his day-to-day affairs and did not oversee his individual tax responsibilities. Nor did the company conspire with Mr. Saylor in the discharge of his personal tax responsibilities. The District of Columbia’s claims against the company are false and we will defend aggressively against this overreach.”
Saylor, a well-known “bitcoin whale,” is prolific on Twitter, with more than 2.6 million followers. He made no mention of the lawsuit there Wednesday, instead tweeting about the cryptocurrency.
Saylor has also been known for his lavish parties and for his playboy lifestyle. In 2012, he purchased a waterfront Miami Beach home for $13.1 million, according to a 2014 story in The Washington Post. The 18,000-square-foot mansion, Villa Vecchia, has 13 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms.
That purchase came just after Saylor spent $5 million on custom woodwork for Trigate, which Saylor formed from his purchase of three units at the K Street NW Georgetown building between 2006 and 2008, the lawsuit says. Saylor posted on social media frequently before and during renovations of Trigate, during which Saylor lived on his yachts as well as in another penthouse he owned in the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. The lawsuit cited those posts as evidence that Saylor considered D.C. his home.
The lawsuit is filed under a new D.C. law — the False Claims Act — that encourages whistleblowers to report instances of city residents evading tax laws by misrepresenting where they live. The act allows the court to punish tax evaders by imposing three times the amount of the taxes evaded. If the suit is successful, whistleblowers may be awarded up to 30% of the collected funds .
In Saylor’s case, whistleblowers represented by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft filed an April 2021 lawsuit against Saylor alleging tax fraud between 2014 and 2020, according to a release from Racine’s office. The release also says the whistleblowers’ complaint alleges Saylor openly bragged about evading taxes. That complaint too was unsealed and released publicly Wednesday.
Bon Secours has named Mike Lutes as its new president for the health system’s Richmond market, effective Oct. 10.
He will oversee all Richmond market operations, according to a news release. Lutes replaces Faraaz Yousef, who left Bon Secours in April to become chief operating officer and executive vice president of Pennsylvania-based WellSpan Health.
Lutes joins Bon Secours from Atrium Health, a nonprofit health system in Charlotte, North Carolina, with more than 70,000 employees, 40 hospitals and 1,400 care locations. He spent 15 years there, holding multiple leadership roles and most recently serving as senior vice president and president for its southern market with oversight of five hospitals.
“Mike Lutes is exceptionally skilled with complex health care system operations in diverse markets and has demonstrated a real strength in establishing community partnerships,” Don Kline, Bon Secours Mercy Health chief operating officer, said in a statement. “He is a proven leader who has been successful throughout his career implementing a strategic vision and collaborating with physicians and associates, and we are excited to welcome him to our health care ministry.”
Lutes has a bachelor’s in business administration and health care management from Appalachian State University and a master’s of health administration from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Virginia Beach-based Stihl Inc. has named Melody Doleman as its new vice president of human resources, effective Sept. 6.
She will be responsible for overall strategic management of human resources for the chainsaw and outdoor power equipment manufacturer. Stihl employs more than 3,000 workers in the United States and supplies the majority of Stihl products for the U.S. market, as well as components and products for 80 markets around the world.
Stihl Inc. is the largest subsidiary of the global Stihl Group.
Doleman joins Stihl after serving as vice president of human resources for a division of Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. Before joining HII, she was vice president of human resources/operations at B&B Manufacturing Inc.
“We are pleased to welcome Melody to Stihl,” Terry Horan, president and CEO of Stihl Inc., said in a statement. “At the heart of our success as a company is our people, the real people manufacturing, distributing, marketing and selling Stihl equipment. Melody has a keen understanding of the human resource role in developing an employee-oriented company culture that emphasizes employee development and retention, and organizational quality and continuous improvement. She brings to Stihl more than 25 years of experience as a leader and mentor that will greatly benefit our employees here in Virginia Beach, as well as our branches across the country.”
Doleman earned a bachelor of arts in mass communication and media studies from the University of South Carolina.
“Stihl is known for innovation, leadership, and a commitment to their people,” Doleman said in a statement. “I look forward to bringing my passion for building highly engaged and empowered teams to the organization and working together to grow this world-class organization’s tradition of excellence.”
The largest solar project in Charlotte County — and Virginia, according to Dominion Energy Inc. — was approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors in July.
Reston-based utility-scale solar developer SolUnesco LLC received a conditional-use permit to build the $800 million to $1.6 billion Randolph Solar project in the southern part of the county. SolUnesco plans to sell the solar farm to Dominion, which would construct and operate the facility. It is expected to generate 800 megawatts — enough energy to power 200,000 homes. Dominion hopes to break ground in 2025 and bring the project online in 2027.
SolUnesco signed agreements with more than 150 landowners who collectively own more than 1,000 parcels that make up the site of the planned solar farm. About 4,500 of the 21,000 acres will be fenced in, surrounding the solar panels and equipment, which will sit on roughly 3,000 acres.
The project was a topic of debate in Charlotte for the past year. SolUnesco submitted the application for the project in June 2021 and spent the next year working with county officials to make the project more acceptable.
SolUnesco has received approval for seven other solar projects, all of which have been sold to energy companies, including Dominion, which acquired three of the properties. Two of the seven projects SolUnesco previously sold are already operating in Henry and Greensville counties, generating 20 megawatts and 60 megawatts, respectively. The five other solar farms are in various stages of development in Albemarle, Charlotte, Gloucester, Mecklenburg and Orange counties.
Over Randolph Solar’s 35-year lifespan, Charlotte County will receive about $314 million in payments and fees associated with the project, according to County Administrator Daniel Witt. It’s a sizeable amount for a county with a typical annual budget range of $26 million to $38 million, excluding public schools funding.
Randolph Solar won’t be the first solar project in Charlotte. Twitty’s Creek Solar, a 134-acre, 15-megawatt project, has been operating since December 2020. Developed by Holocene Clean Energy, Twitty’s Creek is owned by Alchemy Renewable Energy. Another Holocene project, the 105-acre, 5-megawatt Red House Solar, became operational this summer.
Charlotte has approved three more projects: Moody Creek Solar, a 1,653-acre, 150-megawatt project from SolUnesco; Courthouse Solar, a 1,318-acre, 167-megawatt solar farm; and Tall Pines Solar, a 240-megawatt, 2,086-acre project.
Jonathan Montiel and his business partners, Phillip and Lexi Hughes, bought a building in downtown Hopewell and asked community members what they needed. Their answer: more restaurants.
That’s how City Point Ice Cream & Burgers was born, and the trio think it’s also why they won the $15,000 first prize in the Homegrown for Hopewell business pitch competition — because they showed up to the competition with a solution to a community problem. They plan to use the prize money to purchase some much-needed kitchen equipment.
City Point and three other businesses won the pitch competition, the Downtown Hopewell Partnership announced in late June. Studio One Salon won a $12,000 prize and leasing incentives; Brain to Box won $10,000 and a property stipulation; and Box 5 Cabaret Theatre, a community dinner theater troupe, won $3,000. Winners also received a yearlong free membership to the Hopewell-Prince George Chamber of Commerce, and ongoing business counseling and technical support from the Hopewell Downtown Partnership.
Funding for the program came from a community business launch grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development and the city of Hopewell.
The competition attracted 109 applicants — half of which completed a virtual business boot camp held at Virginia State University. Twelve ultimately were chosen to compete in the pitch contest, which was held in late May.
Floyd Simmons launched Brain to Box after running into problems accessing an affordable commercial kitchen while trying to scale up his granola-making business. Now, instead of renting a commercial kitchen, he is opening one up and offering access to it to other growing small businesses. He hopes Brain to Box will serve as an incubator for similar businesses.
“I want people to get access to the information I got, so they can begin that journey instead of the four years it took me,” he said. The 4,000-square-foot kitchen building will have room for about four businesses to work simultaneously, and he hopes to rent it to approximately 30 businesses each month.
Heather Lyne, executive director of the Downtown Hopewell Partnership, wants to make the Homegrown program sustainable. “Our board hopes to find innovative ways to build on the Community Business Launch Grant with our partners and keep startup resources flowing into the business community in Hopewell.”
Assistant Editor Katherine Schulte contributed to this story.
Lynne Johnston’s business, All City Cab Co., took a hit from the pandemic. But when the city of Virginia Beach started offering free door-to-door rides in one of her busiest zones — the Oceanfront — during tourist season, it was like another punch to the gut.
This year, Virginia Beach contracted with Miami-based microtransit service Freebee to run a $550,000, yearlong pilot transportation service in the city’s resort area. Freebee’s fleet of five, all-electric Teslas operates daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., providing free on-demand rides via an app, with a model similar to Uber or Lyft.
At the end of the year, the city will evaluate the program’s impact on traffic congestion and decide whether it should be continued. “The goal is to get people to the resort area more efficiently,” says Virginia Beach Parking Manager Rob Fries. “It’s definitely exceeded expectations.”
In June and July, Freebee picked up a total of 16,200 passengers, Fries says.
Johnston estimates she lost about 40% of her Oceanfront business after the city began offering Freebee service. She’s cut back on the number of cabs she sends there. Other local cab companies are also unhappy with the situation, she says.
Some beach business owners, like Kristina and Tim Chastain, owners of contemporary gastropub Esoteric, encourage customers to use Freebee. “It’s an extremely positive thing for Virginia Beach,” Kristina Chastain says. “It’s forward-thinking and nice to be on the cutting edge. Our guests enjoy the experience of it, as well as the utility.”
However, Johnston sees Freebee as direct competition.
“It doesn’t make sense for the city to put a service out there that competes with businesses that are already paying licensing fees to operate transportation services,” she says. It wouldn’t be much different from the city opening a hotel and offering free rooms, she says.
Fries doesn’t see it that way. He says Freebees go short distances, unlike cabs, which he says often go across town. Fries also says that Freebee provides “a level of equity,” being free to any rider, ranging from tourists to “economically disadvantaged” locals.
But Johnston says that by moving out of fixed-route mass transit into point-to-point ride services, the city is now essentially in the cab business, subsidizing a direct competitor.
“They’re literally taking money out of the hands of people who are trying to feed families,” she says.
Elizabeth Cooper contributed to this story.
Suffolk-based TowneBank announced Friday that William “Billy” I. Foster III will become CEO, succeeding J. Morgan Davis, who is retiring.
Foster, the bank’s market president for Central Virginia and the Carolinas, joined TowneBank as a regional president in 2004, leading the bank’s expansion into the Norfolk area. Before that, he was eastern region president for Central Fidelity Bank.
Davis will step down as CEO on Dec. 31 but will remain with the bank until March 31, 2023, to assist with the transition. He will also continue serving on TowneBank’s board of directors and as an executive consultant focused on mergers and acquisitions, member relations and other special projects.
“Billy’s extraordinary leadership style is deeply rooted in the Towne culture of caring that serves as the foundation of our long-term success,” TowneBank Executive Chairman G. Robert Aston Jr. said in a statement. “His stellar record of achievement throughout his career stands as tribute to his warm, welcoming nature that is a hallmark of great community bankers. Rest assured, the future strategic direction of our company will be to maintain a steady, conservative course while reaching for new and exciting horizons.”
A Virginia Beach resident, Foster earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Old Dominion University and he also holds an MBA from William & Mary.
Davis has served as CEO since March 2018. Before that, he had served as president from 2011 until he relinquished his position as president in July 2021. From 2011 through 2018, he was also chief banking officer. From 2005 to 2011, he served as president of Towne Financial Services Group, which oversees TowneBank’s nonbanking businesses, which include mortgage, insurance and real estate brokerage. From 1999 to 2005, Davis was president of TowneBank Virginia Beach.
Before joining TowneBank, Davis was founding president of Princess Anne Commercial Bank for 13 years, before becoming a founding member of TowneBank in 1998.
On Aug. 18, TowneBank announced it would acquire Windsor-based Farmers Bankshares Inc., the parent company of Farmers Bank.
Chesterfield County-based payment and invoice automation company Paymerang LLC will expand its operations to Southwest Virginia, creating 50 jobs in Wise, the company announced Thursday.
The move follows a previous expansion of its Chesterfield County headquarters. In Wise, employees will work in software development, cloud engineering and payment operations.
Paymerang is the second company to join Project Fuse, an economic development initiative developed by the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority and InvestSWVA that launched in February. The initiative aims to make Southwest Virginia the location of choice for remote employment and includes Norton and Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties
The space Paymerang is taking is an expansion of Big Stone Gap’s downtown coworking space in the basement of the former Mutual Pharmacy building. Paymerang has been in discussions about the expansion for 14 months.
Paymerang CEO Nasser Chanda said he got to know Wise because his daughters went to the University of Virginia at Wise for a year. No incentives were provided for the project, and Chanda said the company wanted to invest in the area.
“We need access to great talent,” he said. “We saw that here and said, ‘Let’s put a portion of what we’re creating here.'”
He also sees potential business opportunities in the region, where the town government of Big Stone Gap is already a client.
“We are fully committed to an expansion strategy that includes a distributed workforce, because it enables us to sustain our on-site operations in Chesterfield County while benefiting from an expanded team location to bolster business continuity. Southwest Virginia is the perfect location for us to test and refine this strategy, and we are thrilled to be part of the region’s economic story,” Chanda said in a statement.
The 50 jobs being created will fit into three categories, Chanda said: operations, software development and cloud engineering. He expects to be competitive in all three.
Aldrich Capital Partners invested in Paymerang in 2018 and it has grown from 27 to 200 employees since then.
“Four years ago, we invested $26 million in Paymerang, our largest investment in a Virginia company at that time, and last year, we invested another $10 million,” Mirza Baig, managing partner of Aldrich Capital Partners, said in a statement. “We are most pleased that both Paymerang and eHealth Technologies, also a member of our portfolio, are finding success in business expansion to the Southwest Virginia region. As the entrepreneur behind the entrepreneurs, Aldrich Capital Partners is delighted to help grow companies like Paymerang, to the benefit of all stakeholders, including our friends and neighbors in Virginia’s Southwest.”
Will Payne, who leads InvestSWVA, said Paymerang’s expansion signifies traction in establishing the region as a haven for companies expanding their workforces in rural locations. Paymerang “validates the model and will inspire other companies to root here, too,” he wrote in an email.
Paymerang is using a distributed workforce model in its expanded space to draw talent not just in Wise but from all over the region, and plans for the coworking space to be a hub for that.
The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission previously awarded the town of Big Stone Gap a $250,263 grant in 2019 to develop the town’s coworking space in what was the Mutual Pharmacy Building.
“Paymerang joins a constellation of companies that sees the strengths of building a presence in rural America,” State Sen. Todd Pillion, co-chair of InvestSWVA, said in a statement. “It is important to note that as a technology firm, Paymerang is on the cutting edge of helping its clients perform better and more securely, freeing employees to focus on relationships, not just tasks. This is the story of Virginia’s Southwest, too: pioneering new solutions to business challenges while supporting quality of life.”
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