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Startup resources and local economic development offices
Entrepreneurship continues to grow across Hampton Roads, with many organizations dedicated to helping startups and small businesses expand and thrive. Here is a sample of the many resources available: Local startup resources 504 Capital 504capital.com 757 Accelerate 757accelerate.org 757 Angels 757angels.org 757 Startup Studios [...]
Home improvement
Liberty Military Housing is renovating hundreds of single-family homes and townhomes for Navy families in several Virginia Beach and Norfolk military housing communities, with $120 million in refurbishments that began in 2023 and are scheduled to be completed in 2026. The upgrades range from replacing siding and roofing to updat[...]
A steady breeze
Dominion Energy’s long-anticipated $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is steadily taking shape as gigantic monopile foundations are installed in the ocean floor 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. This past spring, four years after two test turbines began generating power, Dominion installed the first monop[...]
Dropping anchor
LS GreenLink USA spent two years on site selection, scouring much of the East Coast for the right location to build a 750,000-square-foot factory to manufacture subsea cables for offshore wind farms. Then it landed on Chesapeake. Patrick Shim, LS GreenLink’s managing director, cited several reasons for the company’s decision[...]
Growth spurts
Virginia Beach-based law firm Melone Hatley hired its first employee in spring 2021. Three years later, it now has a staff of 50 people and could reach as many as 60 by the end of this year, says Rebecca Melone, the firm’s managing partner. That growth is part of a strategy that Melone and her […]
All aboard in Hampton Roads
Amtrak Virginia — the state-supported Amtrak rail service — has been experiencing record ridership for more than a year, with passengers in Newport News and Norfolk making up the lion’s share of the traffic. In March, with the state recording a high of 123,658 train riders, 79,158 came from Norfolk and Newport News. In June, […]
Flying high
Norfolk International Airport is on track to have the best year since its 1938 opening. In June, the airport reported a 7.5% increase in passenger activity, with 431,637 passengers — up from last June’s figure of 401,517, marking the largest number of June passengers in the airport’s history. During the first six months of[...]
An overview of Hampton Roads
With a population of 1.79 million people in 17 localities, Hampton Roads is the second most populated region of Virginia, just behind Northern Virginia. Virginia Beach, with approximately 457,000 residents, is the commonwealth’s biggest city by population, and neighboring Norfolk has the highest density in the region, with 4,4[...]
Space race
Leaders of a regional engineering firm figured finding office space in the Town Center of Virginia Beach would be a breeze. Newspapers were reporting that demand for offices was down nationally. But that isn’t the case in the Hampton Roads area, where the office vacancy rate was 8.1% for the first quarter of 2023, according [&[...]
A rising tide
The Port of Virginia continues to drive commercial real estate activity in Hampton Roads as shipping and logistics companies seek footholds. The region’s office vacancy rate rose this year — from 8.1% at the end of the first quarter to 8.4% at the end of the second quarter — but is “relatively healthy compared to […]
Executive insights
Virginia Business asked six Hampton Roads leaders to discuss how their organizations are contributing to the region’s success and meeting challenges such as workforce recruitment and inflation. DAWN GLYNN President and chief experience officer, Corporate Services Group, TowneBank, Suffolk How are your customers responding to i[...]
Gazing into the future
The waterways and shorelines that make up Hampton Roads harbor a historic reputation as ideal hosts for commerce, trade, shipbuilding, military installations and government research. Its beaches and historical sites attract millions of visitors, and the region is home to farms, businesses and universities. We know the past and p[...]
