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Issues

L to R: Brent Morris, South Hill economic development manager; Teri Newman Walker, South Hill Chamber of Commerce president; South Hill Mayor Dean Marion Photo by Mark Rhodes
Apr 28, 2022

South Hill grant aims to boost business district

South Hill merchants figured out ways to keep business going during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, introducing Facebook Live videos from downtown stores that helped people shop from home, then pick up their treasures curbside. Sometimes featuring a rescue dog named Duncan, the videos have continued even as restrictions are[...]

The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center is one of the many Virginia Beach attractions helping to drive the city’s $1.4 billion annual tourism industry. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Apr 28, 2022

A diversified portfolio

In a city where tourism reigns, nothing could be more welcome than a post-pandemic world. And though we’re not quite there yet, Virginia Beach is licking its chops over the prospect of maskless visitors pouring into town. The city, with fingers crossed in hopes that new coronavirus variants don’t arrive before the tourists d[...]

L to R: Marc Nelson, Roanoke economic development director; Erin Burcham, Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council director; Amy White, Virginia Western Community College dean of Science, Technology and Mathematics; Brett Malone, Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center president and CEO. Photo by Don Petersen
Apr 28, 2022

Biotech industry seeks push forward

With more than $25 million, nearly all taxpayer money, a collaborative partnership of government, business and nonprofit organizations plans to build an accelerator for biotech startups in the Roanoke Valley. Supporters say the initiative will create 250 jobs through 25 new startups over five years, generating $20 million in ann[...]

Photo illustration by Kevin McFadin
Apr 28, 2022

Cyberwar zone

Earlier this year, Kwabena Konadu received a call from one of the small businesses he advises on IT and cybersecurity. The company’s chief financial officer had received an email from a purported ethical hacker — cyberspeak for “good guy” — who had found the official’s username and password for accessing company data[...]

Floating narrow-leaved spatterdock (Nuphar sagittifolia) and emergent common spatterdock (Nuphar advena) on the channel edge of a fresh tidal marsh at Big Marsh Point, along the Chickahominy River in James City County Photo by Gary Fleming, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
Apr 28, 2022

Ways of the water

Back in 2016, Virginia Coastal Zone Management program planners began talking about ways to protect the Lower Chickahominy River watershed. “We’re like, ‘Well, let’s get ahead of this,’” says Jefferson Flood, an appropriately named coastal planner for the CZM, a network of individuals from Virginia agencies and local[...]

Hospitality businesses are optimistic about this summer’s tourism season, says John Zirkle, general manager of the DoubleTree by Hilton Virginia Beach and president of the Virginia Beach Hotel Association. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Apr 28, 2022

Summer dreams

Tournaments at the Virginia Beach Sports Center. Events at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. A busy Oceanfront boardwalk. That was the scene in Virginia Beach during just one weekend in mid-March. And it was the perfect “prelude” to the summer travel season, says John Zirkle, general manager of the DoubleTree by Hilton V[...]

Apr 28, 2022

Executive insights

Leaders from Virginia’s maritime and logistics industries share their thoughts about where their sectors stand amid labor shortages, growing cargo volumes and the pandemic’s lingering impacts. Devon C. Anders President, InterChange Group Inc.; Chair, Virginia Maritime Association Valley Logistics Chapter Harrisonburg VB: How is your company hiring and retaining staff? Anders: We have intensified through […][...]

The 9.9-mile Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project is on course to be finished by November 2025. Photo by Virginia Department of Transportation
Apr 28, 2022

Digging in

As the largest highway construction project in state history, the $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion is without question the most notable road project currently underway in Virginia. Construction began in October 2020, and workers made a lot of progress last year, remaining on track to reach the Virginia Departme[...]

Apr 28, 2022

Top Five: May 2022

The top trending major business stories on VirginiaBusiness.com from March 15 to April 14 were led by news of the death of Fairfax County developer John “Til” Hazel Jr. 1  |  Fairfax County developer John ‘Til’ Hazel Jr. dies at age 91 Hazel was a key figure in the transformation of Tysons from a rural […]

L to R: Petersburg Mayor Samuel Parham, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Stan Benson, site head of Civica Petersburg, tour the nonprofit drugmaker’s new facility. Photo by Kate Andrews
Apr 28, 2022

Civica to produce lower-cost insulin

Civica Rx, a nonprofit generic drug-maker with a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant under construction in Petersburg, plans to produce three forms of insulin priced at $30 per vial beginning in early 2024, a project that dovetails with a bill in Congress that would cap consumers’ out-of-pocket insulin costs. Civica’s 140,000[...]

Newport News Shipbuilding is the only shipyard in the country building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. In the foreground is the Ford-class carrier USS John F. Kennedy, which is about two years from delivery. Photo by Ashley Cowan/Huntington Ingalls Industriesa
Apr 28, 2022

Harder, better, faster, stronger

On March 20, 1922, the U.S. Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier: the USS Langley. A century later, the Navy is hosting centennial events around the country, including in Norfolk, where the USS Langley was converted into the Navy’s first carrier from the USS Jupiter, the Navy’s first electrically propelled ship. The [...]

Smyth County Administrator Shawn Utt is working with Bland and Washington counties to develop an industrial park. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Apr 28, 2022

Counties collaborating on industrial park

In the coming months, the rubble of a demolished furniture factory on a roughly 70-acre property in Chilhowie will be hauled away to make room for an industrial park. Smyth County is teaming up with Bland and Washington counties, forming the Pathway Regional Industrial Facilities Authority to create Pathway Park, which will feat[...]

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