Virginia is for coronavirus
Within the first week of coronavirus spreading into Virginia, Lansdowne Resort and Spa in Leesburg saw about 50% of its conferences and events for March and April immediately postponed or canceled. “For now, it’s a short-term event,” says Rich Keurajian, Lansdowne director of sales and marketing. But that may have been[...]
Something in the Water sequel is canceled
Virginia Beach’s annual Something in the Water festival, set to take place in late April, has been canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. It will be back next year on April 23-25, 2021, say organizers. The brainchild of Grammy-winning musician and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams, the first festival in April 2019 [...]
Surf park project in Chesterfield moves forward
Phase one of what is being touted as the “world’s largest surf park” is a go in Chesterfield County, and developers and the county have emerged with environmental permits despite a gap in the state’s regulatory framework. The Lake, a 105-acre, mixed-use development between state Route 288 and Genito Road, is set [...]
Top 50 golf courses in Virginia for 2020
Read more from the golf package: Cascades isn’t par for the course A good walk improved
Cascades isn’t par for the course
For the fourth consecutive year, the Virginia Golf Ratings Panel’s rankings of the commonwealth’s top 50 golf courses is led by the Omni Homestead Resort’s timeless Cascades course. William Flynn’s classic 1923 design in Hot Springs — nestled in the Allegheny Mountains — has both mesmerized and bedevi[...]
Omni Homestead closed temporarily during 2020 pandemic
The Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs announced Friday that it is closing from March 29 until June 1, due to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The global health crisis has hit the hospitality industry swiftly and significantly. Like many hotels, we’ve felt the impact and made the difficult decision to [...]
Colonial Williamsburg closing most hotels, furloughing staff
In response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, Colonial Williamsburg is expanding its closures to include most of its hotels and will furlough most hospitality staff after April 11. The already-financially challenged history tourism foundation has also immediately instituted pay cuts for all employees making more than $50,000 per[...]
More than 23,000 hotel jobs lost so far in Va.
As of Monday, the lodging and hotels industry has lost more than 23,000 jobs in Virginia as a result of the coronavirus crisis, according to Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association. The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) on Monday released the results of a study estimating th[...]
Pharrell’s Something in the Water festival canceled due to coronavirus
Virginia Beach’s Something in the Water 2020 festival has been canceled due to the growing coronavirus crisis. It will return on April 23-25, 2021, according to organizers. The brainchild of Grammy-winning musician and Virginia Beach native Pharrell Williams, the festival premiered in spring 2019, selling 35,000 tickets an[...]
Changing times
Town houses and apartments, storefronts and restaurants, grassy medians, pocket parks, sidewalks everywhere. Doesn’t this look a lot like a downtown? Picking up his mail in slippers and shorts on a brisk January day, Tandy Harris pauses to consider the question. “It does,” he agrees. “It’s got all the bells and[...]
The arena of politics
A historic vote on the biggest economic development proposal in the city of Richmond’s history — the potentially transformative $1.5 billion Navy Hill downtown redevelopment plan that would have included the state’s largest entertainment venue — collapsed in mid-February amid sound and fury as seven of Richmond C[...]
Coronavirus impact — but not the disease — spreads to Virginia
This story will be updated periodically as information is received. The coronavirus, which has spread across China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and other countries, has inevitably spread to the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 59 people in the U.S. have confirmed cases of the flulike illne[...]