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byline: Victoria Bourne

PharmaVille

A coalition of public and private sector partners is hoping to write a new chapter for Central Virginia — and ultimately the country — in its mission to fight drug shortages and create low-cost medications.

Anchored by wet labs and research and development in Richmond and manufacturing in Petersburg, the Alliance for Building Better Medicine aims to develop a nucleus of advanced pharmaceutical production to address shortages of critical medications, an issue that impacts health care as well as national security. Members include nonprofits, city governments, pharmaceutical manufacturers and Walmart Inc.

Driven by financial and logistical incentives, cheaper labor and fewer regulatory requirements, pharmaceutical manufacturers started taking their production capabilities abroad decades ago, according to a March staff report from the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Nearly 80% of the key materials used in pharmaceuticals — and generic drugs in particular — are manufactured outside the U.S., primarily in China and India. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed not only vulnerabilities in that medical supply chain but also the risks of relying on suppliers from overseas and especially from a rival superpower like China.

“If we do this correctly, we will become the epicenter for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing in the United States,” says Frank Gupton, CEO of the Medicines for All Institute at VCU’s College of Engineering. Photo by Allen Jones/Virginia Commonwealth University
“If we do this correctly, we will become the epicenter for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing in the United States,” says Frank Gupton, CEO of the Medicines for All Institute at VCU’s College of Engineering. Photo by Allen Jones/Virginia Commonwealth University

Critically needed generic drugs are especially at risk. Sterile injectables used in hospitals and supportive care medications, sedatives and chemotherapy drugs are more than twice as likely to be subject to shortages than oral medications and topical products. More than 130 drug shortages were listed on the Federal Drug Administration’s website in July. Shortages impact patient care, leading to potential errors, the use of less effective drugs, drug rationing or delay of treatments.

“If we do this correctly, we will become the epicenter for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing in the United States,” says Frank Gupton, CEO of the Medicines for All Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Engineering in Richmond, where he is also a professor. Gupton’s work in pharmaceutical manufacturing processes is at the heart of the Alliance’s mission.

The effort has inspired collaboration and attracted significant private and public funding. In September 2022, the Alliance for Building Better Medicine was awarded a $52.9 million grant through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, an initiative from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration intended to spur advanced manufacturing and biotechnology. The Alliance was one of 21 coalitions chosen from 60 finalists nationwide.

The Alliance’s goal is to secure the nation’s supply of quality affordable essential medicines by returning manufacturing to the U.S. while growing the regional economy. The grant money is targeted for six component projects in or around Richmond and Petersburg that will fill fundamental gaps and strengthen existing assets in infrastructure, workforce, supply chain and innovation. Public and private partners committed an additional $13.6 million to the initiative.

Chandra Briggman, president and CEO of Activation Capital, an accelerator arm of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority, calls the grant “transformational.” Activation Capital, an Alliance member, has been an incubator and early investor in the initiative and led the work that went into the Build Back Better award, from which Activation Capital received $15.8 million to build additional lab space in downtown Richmond.

There’s a lot at stake, Alliance members say — and failure is not an option.

The CAMPUS

Located near the intersection of Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 460, a Petersburg industrial park is home base for the manufacturing side of the regional cluster. Later this year, Mayor Samuel Parham says, the park will be rebranded as the Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals in the United States, or CAMPUS, denoting its status as a hub for three pharmaceutical manufacturers: Ampac Fine Pharmaceuticals, Phlow Corp. and Civica Rx.

California-based Ampac was the first pharma company to arrive in Petersburg. In 2019, it reignited a fallow pharmaceutical manufacturing facility that had been closed for five years. Between 2020 and 2022, Ampac doubled production capacity there and tripled its employee base from 50 to nearly 150 workers. Ampac now has three production buildings and 16 manufacturing lines making active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Phlow’s hybrid manufacturing facility in Petersburg, which will produce 40 to 60 metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients annually, should be operational in the first half of 2024. Photo courtesy Phlow Corp.
Phlow’s hybrid manufacturing facility in Petersburg, which will produce 40 to 60 metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients annually, should be operational in the first half of 2024. Photo courtesy Phlow Corp.

Phlow, a Richmond-headquartered public benefit corporation co-founded by Gupton and Dr. Eric Edwards in 2020, has two facilities and a warehouse on the Petersburg campus, according to Robby Demeria, Phlow’s chief corporate affairs officer and the Alliance’s first board chair.
A kilo facility, which can produce 250 to 500 kilograms of medication yearly, is expected to be operational this summer, Demeria says. A hybrid manufacturing facility, which will be able to produce 40 to 60 metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients per year, should be operational in the first half of 2024. Phlow has five manufacturing programs already running, making ingredients that are used in finished treatments such as antibiotics and treatments for septic shock and hypertension.

In May 2020, Phlow was awarded a four-year, $354 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), an office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to build the country’s only end-to-end advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing campus producing generic medicines and ingredients, then targeted to treat COVID-19. That contract — which includes a possible extension to a total of $812 million over 10 years — expires in May 2024, Demeria says, adding, “We are on track to meet all of our deliverables by that date.”

A Phlow warehouse on the Petersburg campus is gearing up to be home to a strategic active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) reserve, part of the federal government’s national resiliency and security strategy under the BARDA contract.

“It’s like a fancy Home Depot,” Demeria says of the temperature-controlled building where APIs are stored in racks and a testing room ensures viability. A card catalog-type system shows which API needs to be shipped to which finisher and then on to the Strategic National Stockpile, Demeria says.

According to Demeria, the reserve is the first of its kind. “We hope it’s the first of many,” he says, adding similar facilities located throughout the nation could better respond to needs quickly.

“Having the national stockpile here in Petersburg is something for us to be proud of in a city that hasn’t had a lot of wins in the last few decades,” Parham says of his city, which has clawed its way back from near bankruptcy in 2016.

In April, Phlow closed on a $36.1 million fundraising round to expand its research capabilities and development of advanced manufacturing technologies at lab space it opened in late 2022 at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park.

Civica Rx, a Utah-based nonprofit generic drugmaker founded in 2018 by a coalition of philanthropies and major U.S. health systems, is nearly finished building its $124.5 million, 140,000-square-foot Petersburg facility, which broke ground in 2021. As of late June, Civica was conducting test runs and preparing to produce abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) batches to collect months of data required for FDA approval.

The company will produce sterile, injectable medications, primarily sold in hospitals, including drugs for general and local anesthesia, pain management and antibacterial therapies, from active pharmaceutical ingredients to be made by Ampac and Phlow. It will also manufacture low-cost insulin for retail. “We’re looking at probably late ’24 before our first commercial products will be sold from this facility,” says Civica President and CEO Ned McCoy, who expects the company’s local workforce to double to 200 as production ramps up.

Civica is also building a $27.8 million facility in Chesterfield County, for which the company received $20 million through the Build Back Better grant, plus a $5 million local donation. Located in the county’s Meadowville Technology Park, the planned 60,000-square-foot laboratory will add 50 jobs, primarily chemists.

Water and workforce

A wastewater treatment project targeted for the manufacturing hub is one of the Build Back Better component projects that will not only support the Petersburg campus but residents as well, according to Parham.

Petersburg, a city of roughly 33,000, suffers from aging infrastructure. A new water tower and high-pressure lines will serve the manufacturing facilities, as well as nearby neighborhoods, a business corridor and a hospital. Parham expects the roughly $40 million state- and federally funded project to be completed by 2026.

“This is going to definitely improve health overall for the city by making sure that we have this new technology in the ground and nice, fresh, clean water,” Parham says. Other capital improvements stemming from the campus include road widening and a fire station, Parham says.

The Build Back Better award also cata-lyzed a new partnership between VCU and Petersburg’s Virginia State University by providing a pipeline for students to obtain education, research experience and industry training leading toward careers in advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Gupton says creating opportunities for his students to enhance their marketability was one of his goals at VCU. One way was setting up a dual major in chemistry and chemical engineering that can be completed in four years. Now, he says, VSU students will also be able to earn dual degrees by taking core chemical engineering courses at VCU.

“The idea is to enable the VSU students to have access to the caliber of training that’s already been established and recognized at VCU and elevate the entire region,” Briggman says. “Because VSU is a historically Black college and university, that means that we are thinking about our talent in a very inclusive fashion. … One of the opportunities with the region developing this industry is to create pathways to not only higher paying jobs, but generational wealth.”

Collectively, the pharmaceutical initiative expects to create or retain 640 direct jobs. Salaries can range from $75,000 to $200,000, and a new pharmaceutical manufacturing career studies certificate from Brightpoint Community College could lead to a Civica technician job earning $42,000 annually.

Putting differences aside

Collaboration is rarely easy, and egos had to be put aside for the sake of compromise and a shared mission, some Alliance members say.

“We were asking folks across both those regions to think as one unit, which they had not done before,” Briggman says of Richmond and Petersburg. “But in the end, the only way for us to get the transformational dollars is to present a big vision, a cohesive, well-thought-out strategy that thinks about all the assets in the region as one.”

Despite their proximity — from downtown Richmond to downtown Petersburg is a roughly 25-minute drive — the two cities have traditionally been siloed, Parham says: “They have their world up there and we’re in our world down here.” But the Alliance is changing the dynamics of how business is conducted in the region, he adds.

“This is historical to me because I’ve never seen both localities and all of academia work together for the common good,” Parham says.

The pharma industry hasn’t been as significant in the region since the 1980s, when Richmond-based A.H. Robins Company Inc., then the powerhouse Fortune 500 manufacturer of Chapstick and Robitussin, went into bankruptcy and was acquired amid lawsuits over its disastrous Dalkon Shield birth control device.

Now regional economic development leaders say they’ve set aside past competitiveness for the sake of developing pharmaceutical manufacturing in Central Virginia.

Greater Richmond Partnership President and CEO Jennifer Wakefield calls the collaboration with Keith Boswell, her Petersburg regional counterpart at Virginia’s Gateway Region, unique, adding that they’re sharing leads and information in a manner that hasn’t been done before.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Boswell says, “I would love for everything to happen in the Gateway Region — that’s just nature. But on the other hand, I can celebrate now if something does go somewhere else, because …. we have been able to see the advantage of working together even when it doesn’t necessarily affect us directly.”

Alliance members say the cluster could draw investment from companies providing ancillary goods and services related to the pharma industry, such as label makers, bottle manufacturers, syringe and vial producers, warehousing and cold storage. And it may even spawn startups that could help the industry continue to innovate.

“We are uniquely positioned to do something that hasn’t been done in the United States before,” Gupton says, “But if we don’t do it — and we have all the assets — that’s on us.”  

Growing the talent pool

For tech worker Courtney Proffitt, summer 2020 was a transformative time.

After roughly a decade away from her native Virginia, she found herself in an Airbnb rental on the outskirts of downtown Roanoke. “I was ready to try a new city after 10 years in Charleston,” recalls Proffitt, who earned her master’s degree from the College of Charleston and stayed in South Carolina for work. “I just hadn’t really figured out where.”

Proffitt leads the request for proposals team for Benefitfocus, a Charleston-based software company that focuses on health benefits, enrollment and administration, and is now part of Voya Financial. Moving back to Virginia hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind; Proffitt grew up in Clifton Forge, about an hour north of Roanoke. But the pandemic drove her, like many people, to move closer to family and friends, and as a newly minted remote worker, she had the flexibility to live anywhere.

The Airbnb she chose was one of two renovated apartments in an older building on Campbell Avenue, she says, and she picked it specifically because of its walkability and cost. There was a coffee shop downstairs, a boutique fitness studio across the street and three breweries within three blocks — a stark contrast to the 45-minute commute she had in South Carolina just to meet friends for happy hour after her remote workday was done.

Living in Roanoke felt easy and natural, Proffitt says, and it didn’t take long for her to decide the move would be permanent. After about three months of Airbnb accommodations, Proffitt ended up buying a home in Grandin Village, a historic neighborhood a couple miles west of downtown Roanoke.

“It is the best decision I’ve ever made,” she says of relocating. “I think that I am in this area for good.”

For economic development leaders working to deepen and broaden the talent pool in the Roanoke and New River valleys, as well as the Lynchburg area, boomerang residents like Proffitt — people who grew up in the area who left for school or work and then returned — are valuable assets. They’re also encouraging local college students to stick around and trying to draw remote workers to the region.

“You create a talent pool in your region of available workforce, even if they’re working remote,” says Erin Burcham, executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, a membership organization promoting the region’s emerging tech community. “The possibility that they could roll into a company in your region is so much higher if they physically are located in your region.”

Burcham and other officials are working strategically — and, in many cases, collaboratively — to develop initiatives and programs that not only highlight job opportunities in the region but also lean into a livability narrative that includes proximity to the Blue Ridge Mountains and a lower cost of living compared with larger metropolitan regions.

“We like to say that we’re a unique mix of eclectic small towns and world-class universities,” says Katie Boswell, executive director of Onward New River Valley, a Blacksburg-based public/private regional economic development organization.

State legislators also are trying to pass a law to lure tech workers to the New River and Roanoke valleys and Lynchburg with $10,000 bonuses funded through the state’s GO Virginia economic development initiative. The budget amendment, which passed the House of Delegates, stalled in the Virginia Senate this year, but the idea has worked in other states.

“If you think about it, we’ve been putting together programs like this to attract capital for more than 50 years,” says John Provo, executive director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement, which provides fiduciary oversight and administrative services for GO Virginia Region 2.

“We’ve had that debate in economic development for a long time: ‘Do people follow jobs, do jobs follow people?’” Provo adds. “But I really do think some version of this really is the next big thing.”

Although the $10,000 bonus initiative is still up to the state legislature, Burcham says, the idea has sparked conversations around the state about localities recruiting people, not just companies.

Erin Burcham, executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, is helping lead regional efforts to build a tech talent pool. Photo by Don Petersen
Erin Burcham, executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, is helping lead regional efforts to build a tech talent pool. Photo by Don Petersen

Meanwhile, economic development leaders are using digital marketing, summer programs and talent ambassadors to help tell the story of the Roanoke and New River valleys in hopes young professionals will come or choose to stay.

Region’s largest export

In March, the Roanoke Regional Partnership launched a jobs board on its Get2KnowNoke website, the organization’s talent attraction arm. It scours the internet for regional employment listings and highlights featured employers. Onward NRV debuted its online cost of living calculator in June 2021, which enables people to compare salaries from several metropolitan areas across the country with what would be comparable in the New River Valley. It includes a comparison of monthly household expenses.

“You may not be making exactly as much as you would be in the D.C. area or something like that,” says Boswell, but “your money goes a lot further here.”

Last year, Proffitt was recruited by the Roanoke Regional Partnership to be a talent ambassador. She’s one of several volunteers selected to be a conduit for anyone interested in relocating to the area. She appreciates the opportunity to not only discuss the benefits of living in Roanoke as a remote worker but to also talk up her hometown in Alleghany County.

“I have a lot of connections there, and they really wanted that perspective from a far-reaching satellite community,” Proffitt says of the regional partnership.

Like many rural areas, western Virginia has experienced a mix of slowed population growth and declining numbers over the past decade, according to the U.S. Census, and its population is getting older. 

“If you look at natural change — that’s births versus deaths — much of our region is in decline,” says John Hull, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership. “But once you factor in migration, the migration is very positive. It’s a growth trend for the region. And so, we need to influence the equation to have even greater positive migration.”

One issue, according to a 2019 study funded by GO Virginia, is that college students simply don’t know what opportunities are available to them post-graduation.

“They assumed that they had to go to Northern Virginia or Raleigh or Atlanta to get that big job out of college,” Burcham says.

Because the area is full of students — not just those who attend Radford University or Virginia Tech, but a total of 25 higher education institutions with local presences — that population is important to reach, local economic development officials say. And some are from other parts of the state, including Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.

“If you go from Blacksburg through Roanoke to Lynchburg, higher education … really is our largest ‘export,’” Provo says.

State legislative efforts to offer tech workers $10,000 bonuses to relocate to the area could be “the next big thing” for regional workforce and economic development, says John Provo with Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement. Photo by Don Petersen

Growing students’ networks

The NRV Experience internship program, a summer initiative launched in 2020, helps broaden college students’ experience in the New River Valley by showing them what it might be like to live and work there after graduation, Boswell says.

Participants meet over the course of seven weeks to network with peers and mentors and go on excursions in Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski counties, which are hosted by local tourism directors and economic developers. Part of the program emphasizes professional communication, networking skills and leadership, Boswell notes.

Get2KnowNoke has taken a new approach toward its eight-week Onboard | ROA summer program, which also offers a blend of career development and livability experiences, by opening it to students and young professionals between the ages of 18 and 25 who are working in the Roanoke region; that includes recent graduates and remote hires, says Julia Boas, director of talent strategies at Roanoke Regional Partnership. The program is not just about encouraging young workers to move to the region, she says, but helping them develop connections there — a key factor in retention.

The region requires more workers to fill jobs in local industries — including manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, higher education and health care — and Burcham says the technology sector is especially primed for new hires. “We are really at a place where we need more talent — more very specialized technology, biotech talent — in order to keep our clusters of technology growing and thriving.”

One example of the area’s evolving technology ecosystem is Blacksburg-based Torc Robotics, a homegrown tech company that produces self-driving vehicles and is now an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG. Torc, which is developing commercialized automated fleets of freight-hauling semi-trucks, expanded to the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg in 2021, a move that was expected to create 350 jobs when it was announced in 2020.

Also, Carilion Clinic, the region’s major health care system, is growing. A new cancer center adjacent to Virginia Tech’s Health Sciences and Technology campus is in the works, and Carilion is converting a downtown Roanoke building into biotechnology incubator labs through a public-private partnership including Virginia Tech, Roanoke city government, Virginia Western Community College and pharma and consumer goods company Johnson & Johnson, which will run its virtual residency program there.

The renovated Jefferson Plaza building is expected to open in late 2024. As part of the $15.7 million grant funding the project, Burcham says, plans are in place to focus on another issue highlighted in the GO Virginia study: employers’ desire for more experienced employees.

“Many of our employers wanted a professional at the magical three- to five-year mark,” Burcham says. “A lot of them just didn’t have the capacity to take on a lot of recent graduates, just because it’s so training-intense.”

The Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council is developing a program aimed at preparing college students and new graduates for hard-to-fill positions by helping place them with local or remote employers and connecting them with peer and professional networks, Burcham says. The first cohort could launch by 2024.

“Our thought is if we can physically keep students on graduation day and nurture them and help them continue to grow in their careers and work in a remote capacity,” Burcham says, “then once our biotech companies and our technology companies need that type of talent, they’ll physically be here.” 

Roanoke/New River Valley at a glance

The Roanoke Valley region, in the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains, includes Alleghany, Botetourt, Franklin and Roanoke counties, the cities of Covington, Roanoke and Salem and the town of Vinton. Part of the Great Appalachian Valley, the New River Valley includes Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski counties, as well as the city of Radford and the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. The combined region is home to Virginia Tech, Hollins University, Roanoke College, Ferrum College and Radford University. 

Population

Roanoke Valley: 329,376

New River Valley: 182,876

New River Valley major employers

Virginia Tech

Volvo Group North America Inc.

Radford University

Roanoke Valley major employers

Carilion Clinic

Wells Fargo Bank

HCA Health System

Major attractions

McAfee Knob Photo courtesy Virginia Tourism Corp.

The largest city along the Appalachian Trail, Roanoke is also convenient to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The neon-lit Roanoke Star and Mill Mountain Zoo are must-sees there, as is the Taubman Museum of Art. While in the area, catch a Salem Red Sox game or take a boat around Smith Mountain Lake. While tailgating at Virginia Tech, make time for a movie at Blacksburg’s 1930s-era Lyric Theatre. And then head to Giles County to re-create scenes from “Dirty Dancing” during themed weekends at Mountain Lake Lodge, where the movie was filmed. You can even stay in Baby’s family cabin.

Top convention hotels

The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center
 300 guest rooms, 63,670 square feet of event space

The Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center
147 guest rooms, 23,705 square feet of flexible meeting space

Mountain Lake Lodge
96 guest rooms, 9,035 square feet of meeting space

Boutique/luxury hotels

The Highlander Hotel Radford,
124 rooms

The Liberty Trust, 54 rooms

Notable restaurants

The River and Rail
Southern, riverandrailrestaurant.com

Fortunato
 Italian, fortunatoroanoke.com

Bloom
 Tapas, bloomrke.com

Alexander’s
 American, Alexandersva.com

Local Roots
 Farm to table, localrootsrestaurant.com

Building momentum

From olive oil to space rockets, 2022 saw a variety of companies seeking to invest — or reinvest — in the Hampton Roads region and Eastern Virginia.

That kind of diversity of industries augurs well for the region’s economy, says Vinod Agarwal, professor of economics at Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business. “In the past, when I looked at many of the announcements, they’re all related to defense, directly or indirectly,” says Agarwal. “This year, we find lots of variation. Defense is an asset, but we can’t just lean on it alone.”

If there was a theme to 2022, says Suffolk Deputy City Manager Kevin Hughes, it was “industrial development with, like, 30 exclamation marks behind it.”

Norfolk saw steady economic growth in 2022, much of it built on state-level relationships, says the city’s interim director of economic development, Sean Washington. And Chesapeake worked to secure more sites for future business investment, according to Chesapeake Director of Economic Development Steven Wright.

Last year was a year for building momentum, says Hampton Roads Alliance President and CEO Doug Smith. Investments leaned into the region’s target industries, including food and beverage, manufacturing and logistics. But at its core, Hampton Roads is a maritime economy, Smith says, which makes the potential exciting for adjacent and emerging industries like offshore wind.

Chesapeake

Celadon Development Corp., a joint venture from Kamine Development Corp. and Nicollet Industries LLC, aims to bring green technology and 210 jobs to a 100-acre site on the west side of the Elizabeth River, but it could be up to two years before ground is broken on the proposed $267 million, 335,000-square-foot facility, Wright says. Celadon will recycle mixed paper and old corrugated cardboard into a reusable and exportable fiber sheet to supply middle-market paper manufacturers in China.

Perdue Agribusiness’ $59 million renovation and expansion in South Norfolk represents a significant equipment investment, Wright says. Modernized facilities will increase production of high protein soybean meal, soybean oil and hulls, providing a greater market for local soybean farmers and strengthening Virginia agribusiness.

Meanwhile, construction is expected to be finished this year on Wisconsin-based defense contractor Fairbanks Morse Defense’s 45,000-square-foot Chesapeake facility. Specializing in naval power and propulsion systems, the company is relocating its Norfolk operations. The $13 million investment, adding 50 jobs, will build a campus that expands its service capabilities and training opportunities.

And Tokyo-based Nakano Warehouse & Transportation Corp. is expected to open its $14 million East Coast logistics center at Greenbrier North Commerce Park in the third quarter of this year, bringing 25 jobs.

Newport News

Canadian seafood processing company High Liner Foods USA announced in June 2022 it will spend more than $30 million over the next four years modernizing facilities and adding 30 positions to its existing 230 jobs there.

Oakland Industrial Park will see new activity with announcements from Italian olive oil manufacturer Certified Origins USA Inc. investing $25 million and creating 30 jobs; Canadian home goods manufacturer and wholesaler Mercana Furniture and Décor investing $8.5 million and creating 26 jobs; and tech company Mühlbauer Inc. investing $9 million and creating 34 jobs.

Norfolk

During his 2022 State of the City address, Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander announced that Fairfax-based defense contractor WR Systems Ltd., which replaces and repairs naval navigation systems, plans an expansion that includes a light assembly lab and adding several hundred positions to its existing 320 jobs in Norfolk.

A $100 million project aiming to turn the Norfolk Southern Corp.-owned site at Lambert’s Point into Fairwinds Landing, a maritime operations and logistics center to support the local offshore wind, defense and transportation industries, got a boost in August 2022 when The Miller Group signed a lease for the 122-acre property.

And the clock on the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s forthcoming $500 million HeadWaters Resort & Casino reset after regulatory issues resulted in developers shifting their plans for a 45,000-square-foot temporary casino. Instead of opening inside Norfolk’s Harbor Park baseball stadium as originally planned, the temporary casino will be located in the stadium parking lot, on a portion of the site where the permanent casino will be built. The temporary facility could be up and running this year, Washington says. The permanent resort casino is expected to open in 2024, with plans to generate 2,500 permanent jobs.

Also last year in Norfolk, Embody Inc., a medical device company developing novel collagen-based technology for soft tissue injury and repair, announced a $5 million, 10,000-square-foot expansion of its headquarters, along with 92 new hires.

Portsmouth

Speaking of casinos, the $340 million, 250,000-square-foot Rivers Casino Portsmouth opened Jan. 23, with thousands of patrons coming by to get a glimpse of the first permanent casino to open in Virginia.

The casino, which expects to generate $16.3 million in tax revenue annually, had hired more than 1,100 of its planned 1,300 permanent workers as of December 2022. Rivers Casino Portsmouth’s estimated annual payroll will be $62 million.

With casinos being exempt from Virginia’s indoor smoking laws, some patrons initially complained about cigarette smoke, prompting Rivers Casino Portsmouth to adjust its smoking policy and designate half of its 90,000-square-foot main gaming floor as nonsmoking.

The casino’s offerings include restaurants, 1,446 slot machines, 57 game tables and a sportsbook with a 12-foot-by-62-foot-wide viewing wall that can simultaneously display dozens of televised sports events. The casino also has a 25,000-square-foot multipurpose event space.

Suffolk

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos. Inc. expects to open a $75 million coastal distribution center at the 932-acre Virginia Port Logistics Park by the end of this year, creating 100 jobs. The Mooresville, North Carolina-based Fortune 500 company’s facility will receive imported goods through the Port of Virginia to supply regional distribution facilities and help supply the 69 Lowe’s locations across the state.

Last June, Italian coffee company Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA announced it would invest $29.1 million and create 79 jobs as it consolidates and expands operations at its Wilroy Industrial Park roasting facility. The company is relocating its current roasting operations from New Jersey to Suffolk in an expected two-year transition.

Birdsong Peanuts, a more than century- old peanut processing company, is modernizing its existing shelling facility to the tune of $25 million. Updates include refurbishing and automating production lines. The facility is expected to be fully operational by this spring.

And California-based flooring, counter-top, wall tile and hardscaping products supplier M S International Inc. (MSI) plans to invest $61.6 million establishing its East Coast distribution facility, creating 80 jobs. The 548,000-square-foot facility will be at Westport Commerce Park, a 247-acre master-planned industrial park located on Route 58.

Virginia Beach

In August 2022, Virginia Beach-based DroneUp LLC held a news conference in Richmond with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, announcing that the aerial drone company is adding 655 jobs as part of a $27 million expansion. (See related story.)

And a few months later, German chainsaw and outdoor power equipment manufacturer Stihl Inc. announced a $49 million expansion, adding 26,000 square feet to its 60,000-square-foot facility. Stihl, which established its U.S. headquarters in Virginia Beach in 1974, plans to increase its capacity to manufacture chainsaw guide bars by a third, creating 15 jobs.

Eastern Shore

Virginia could be inching closer to having its own Florida-like space coast on the Eastern Shore, according to David Bowles, executive director of the Virginia Institute for Spaceflight & Autonomy at Old Dominion University.

In January, California-based Rocket Lab USA Inc. made its first launch from U.S. soil at Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, successfully deploying three satellites into low Earth orbit for Herndon-based satellite analytics company HawkEye 360. The mission is the first of three planned with HawkEye 360 through 2024.

Rocket Lab broke ground in April 2022 on a launch pad and 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility for Rocket Lab’s Neutron reusable rocket, which will be built adjacent to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Accomack County. Rocket Lab is expected to ultimately create 250 jobs at the facility.

DroneUp takes off

Virginia Beach’s DroneUp LLC is riding the leading edge of the unmanned aerial vehicle industry wave.

Founded in 2016, the company, which specializes in commercial drone delivery, flight services and software, has grown its ranks from three to 530 employees. Retail giant Walmart Inc. is a new partner, and DroneUp is close to completing a $7 million expansion at its headquarters.

In an August 2022 news conference with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, DroneUp announced it was taking off in a big way, adding 655 jobs as part of an expansion that will include establishing a $20 million drone testing, training and research and development center at Richard Bland College in Dinwiddie County. DroneUp plans to add 510 jobs in Virginia Beach and 145 positions at the Richard Bland center.

“Virginia is extremely fortunate that we have DroneUp here because they have really put the industry on the map as far as the drone technology goes and package delivery,” says Tracy Tynan, director of the Unmanned Systems Center at Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp., a state- affiliated nonprofit that supports emerging companies and technologies in the commonwealth through grant programs and strategic initiatives.

DroneUp’s “growth has been amazing,” says David Bowles, executive director of the Virginia Institute for Spaceflight & Autonomy at Old Dominion University. “They’re a model, I think, of what you can do.”

DroneUp CEO Tom Walker says the pandemic was one factor in DroneUp’s recent growth. During lockdown, when people couldn’t congregate or travel, drones offered a remote solution for ongoing needs.

“When COVID-19 first hit, it was a very, very unfortunate thing for society and for the nation, but it was a very positive thing for our industry,” he says. “We still needed to do roof inspections and cell tower inspections and infrastructure inspections. … We were able to deploy drones to do those inspections that traditionally they’d not used them for.”

DroneUp’s recently inked deal with Walmart is another contributing factor to the company’s growth, Walker says. A contract to build out Walmart’s drone delivery network was announced in December 2021 and package delivery was offered at three Walmart locations in the retailer’s home state of Arkansas. In May 2022, DroneUp and Walmart announced plans to expand drone delivery services to reach 4 million homes across six states with drone hubs operating from 34 U.S. Walmart sites. Three hubs are located at Virginia Beach Walmart locations, with a 1-mile delivery range for up to 10-pound packages. Walmart has a minority stake in DroneUp, as well as two seats on DroneUp’s board.

The DroneUp Flight Academy at Richard Bland College is already preparing the next generations of the company’s flight engineers. As of December 2022, Richard Bland had trained 170 full-time DroneUp employees.

Richard Bland President Debbie Sydow says she’s excited the college is part of DroneUp’s workforce development pipeline. Trainees are not only prepped to make deliveries for DroneUp but they also earn 12 college credits in courses such as  Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems I and II, Components & Maintenance, and Remote Pilot Ground School.

“These students are getting prepared to do a specific job, but they’re also accruing college credit and hopefully continuing to build their list of credentials that allow them to continue to grow in this field,” Sydow says.

The college’s rural location offers plenty of open sky for drone training, Walker says, as well as available classroom space and student housing. “It had all of the facilities we needed.”

A delivery hub has been set up at the school and 1,000 workers are expected to graduate by the end of this year.

Sydow says having DroneUp on campus aligns with similar partnerships the school already has with advanced manufacturers. Walker says it has also created an opportunity to expose currently enrolled students to a new industry. Discussions are underway on how to expand DroneUp’s training program to existing college students.

“We’re looking at all those ways that we can really turn this into a major resource [for Virginia] that will go well beyond the kinds of uses that are part of what DroneUp is doing now,” Sydow says. “And DroneUp is fully supportive of that.”

Supporting the ‘shining star’

Artwork adorns almost every wall of Joan Brock’s immaculate and welcoming Oceanfront home. It’s in the powder room and big, open kitchen. It takes pride of place in a downstairs office and over a fireplace mantle. Large, framed pieces dominate a bright stairwell landing and cozy upstairs sitting room.

It’s the accumulation of a passion for collecting that she and her late husband, Macon F. Brock Jr., co-founder of Dollar Tree Stores Inc., shared — one that began modestly with the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show and street vendor purchases from trips abroad and blossomed into a gallery-worthy display befitting her early 20th-century home.

Brock wanted to ensure the pieces would have a home beyond hers. Norfolk’s Chrysler Museum of Art, which she and her husband had long supported, was always her first choice. 

“It’s an educational hub,” Brock says. “And as a philanthropist, the main thing that Macon and I have always pushed is education. … If you go to the Chrysler Museum, you’re going to come away from there learning something.”

“The Album,” by William Paxton McGregor

As an economic boost to the community, Brock calls the Chrysler “our shining star.” 

Museums in the U.S. receive little federal or state funding. Grants can help fund special exhibitions and conservation projects, and recently approved Norfolk and Virginia Beach city budgets include support for their respective art institutions. But to grow, nonprofit art museums rely on the generosity of donors and philanthropic giving.

“They are our lifeblood,” says Erik Neil, the Chrysler Museum’s director and CEO. The museum has endowed funds for art acquisitions, but not enough to buy a lot of it, he says. And “artwork that is important and adds to our collection, it doesn’t come cheap.” 

Announced in May, Brock’s $34 million gift to the Chrysler includes 40 pieces of American art spanning from the post-Civil War period to the mid-20th century and created by the likes of John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase and Charles Ephraim Burchfield. At least 15 artists’ works are new to the museum. All will help the Chrysler tell a better, more complete story of art in America, Neil says.      

A selection will be exhibited in the winter of 2023-24, along with a printed catalog about the artists and their works.

Brock’s gift also endowed two positions at the museum, covering salary, benefits and work-related travel. One is the post Neil has held since 2014, now retitled as the Chrysler’s Macon and Joan Brock Director, as well as a newly created curatorial assistant position.

Supporting the Chrysler’s curators was especially important to Brock. “Your curators are your ambassadors. They’re the ones that go out into the field, looking for art, looking for shows, espousing the benefits of the Chrysler Museum,” she says. “The staff does a fabulous job of running the museum. The curators are the ones that bring life to it.”

The Chrysler has five endowed positions. That helps free up money for other areas of the museum’s operations, Neil says.

In addition, Brock’s gift supports an expansion of the Chrysler’s Perry Glass Studio, the primary focus of a $50 million capital campaign launched in June that seeks to improve accessibility to the permanent collection, increase learning through art and sustain the financial strength of the museum.

Charlotte Potter Kasic, executive director of the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, says a gift this year of 165 works in 20th-century and contemporary glass sculpture from the Leah and Richard Waitzer Foundation has inspired ODU to add more glassblowing classes, offered in partnership with the Perry Glass Studio.

“[We’re] really trying to increase the students’ awareness now that they have a larger collection to pull from and be inspired by,” Kasic says. A recently established bachelor’s degree in fine arts in glass was also created through philanthropic support.

Between the Chrysler, the Barry and the Glass Light Hotel & Gallery, which opened in 2019 downtown, “Norfolk has the largest collection of glass to be viewed for free in the world,” says Kurt Krause, president and CEO of VisitNorfolk. The Glass Light features the collection of Patricia and Douglas Perry, local philanthropists who have been a driving force behind much of the creative development seen in downtown Norfolk, including the Chrysler’s glass studio that bears their name. “When you look at all the different pieces of what makes us unique and special, that drives business of all kinds into our city,” Krause says.

The Chrysler and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Virginia Beach both anchor districts featuring eclectic mixes of eateries, shops and public art where developers have invested millions.

“At Her Ease,”
by William Merritt Chase

Kate Pittman, executive director of the ViBe Creative District, says Virginia MOCA features work by world-class artists that her arts district couldn’t attract on its own.

As a noncollecting museum — one that doesn’t maintain a standing collection but rather reinvents itself through changing exhibitions — Virginia MOCA doesn’t receive gifts of artwork, nor does it currently have endowment support, according to Director and CEO Gary Ryan. But it shares many of the same supporters as the Chrysler, she says, adding that individual giving has grown 150% and noting the MOCA’s recently created $10,000-and-above donor level.

The ViBe and Virginia MOCA share a symbiotic relationship that Pittman and Ryan say creates opportunities for unique partnerships. A recent fundraiser for the museum featured original designs by noted New York artist Ryan McGinness, a Virginia Beach native and MOCA board member, on limited-edition surfboards, skate decks and hand-painted T-shirts that were produced and sold by ViBe-based surf shop Wave Riding Vehicles.

Pittman says the museum and arts district’s community leaders are connected in support of a similar mission: to show how culture is vital to a healthy economy. An economic impact study released in 2017 by Americans for the Arts found that nonprofit arts and culture was a $87.7 million industry in Virginia Beach, supporting 2,875 full-time equivalent jobs annually. An updated study on the arts’ impact on the South Hampton Roads region is expected in September 2023. It’s being conducted by the Norfolk-based Arts Alliance in partnership with Americans for the Arts.

Says Pittman: “Art and economy, they go together, but they both thrive.”