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The Branch Group moving into former Roanoke Kroger division HQ
Construction company The Branch Group Inc. is relocating its corporate headquarters to a larger building within Roanoke, the company announced Monday. The company sold its current headquarters for $2.9 million in September. It has purchased the former Kroger Co. mid-Atlantic division’s headquarters, a 58,000-square-foot bu[...]
Larger shovel-ready sites key to success
Workers with Franklin County-based Bowman Excavating Inc. have hauled off 250,000 cubic yards of dirt since beginning work last November on Wood Haven Technology Park in Roanoke County, according to Devin Bowman, company vice president. With 30 acres of trees cleared and load after load of dirt scooped away from the berm next to[...]
Va. Tech launches National Security Institute
Virginia Tech has launched a research institute focused on national security with presences in Blacksburg and the Washington, D.C., metro area, the university announced Tuesday. The Virginia Tech National Security Institute aspires to become “the nation’s preeminent academic organization at the nexus of interdiscipli[...]
Roanoke College president to retire in 2022
Michael C. Maxey, the 11th president of Roanoke College, announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the academic year. Maxey has been with Roanoke College, located in Salem, since 1985 and has served as president since 2007. He has served the longest of any of the college’s presidents, according to a news […]
Va. Tech names real estate program for Blackwoods
Virginia Tech’s real estate program will now be named for the Blackwood family, a familiar name to those in the state’s real estate industry. Willis Blackwood, founder and president of Richmond-based Blackwood Development Co. Inc., his wife, Mary Nolen Blackwood, and their children, Morgan Blackwood Patel and Nolen B[...]
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute taps new executive director
Zachary Doerzaph will become the next executive director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the university’s largest research institute, effective Oct. 1. “Zac Doerzaph is a nationally recognized transportation researcher with extensive leadership experience in large team projects from different sponsors,” Virg[...]
Branch Group HQ in Roanoke sells for $2.9M
The Branch Group Inc. has sold its Roanoke headquarters building for $2.9 million, Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group announced this week. The 39,016-square-foot building at 442 Rutherford Ave. will remain as the company’s headquarters in a sale-leaseback transaction that allows the construction company to be a tenant. The [...]
Nonprofit news site launches to cover SW and Southern Virginia
Cardinal Press, a new nonprofit digital news service covering Southwest and Southern Virginia, will begin publishing stories in late September, with Dwayne Yancey, former editorial page editor for The Roanoke Times, at the helm as its founding editor. Nonprofit organization Cardinal Productions, incorporated in June, created Car[...]
Historic Roanoke building sells for $9.5M
The Elmwood Building in Roanoke sold for $9.5 million, Hall Associates Inc. and buyer Freedom First Credit Union announced Tuesday. Located at 207 Bullitt Ave. SE in Roanoke’s Downtown Historic District, the 4-story, 46,500-square-foot building was built in 1919 and has housed a hardware store, furniture warehouse and Meridium[...]
Roanoke plant still empty after FreightCar America exit
More than two years after FreightCar America left town, eliminating about 200 assembly jobs, the buildings once occupied by the railcar manufacturer in downtown Roanoke remain empty. Chicago-based FreightCar America opened its Roanoke plant in 2005, leasing space at the East End Shops, a locomotive workshop and maintenance compl[...]
A Roanoke reawakening
The Roanoke area is anything but sleepy when it comes to economic development these days. In fact, “the opportunity for Roanoke is greater now than it has been in quite some time,” says John Hull, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, a public-private joint venture that works to attract new business to the [...]
Va. Tech’s College of Business dean to retire
Robert T. Sumichrast, the Richard E. Sorensen Chair and dean of Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business since 2013, announced his retirement Tuesday. Sumichrast will stay through the end of the current academic year. Virginia Tech will start an international search for his successor this fall. He began his academic car[...]
