For the Record – April 2016

EASTERN VIRGINIA
   DOMA Technologies LLC    plans to add 100 jobs in Virginia Beach as part of its partnership with Health Net Federal Services. The partnership will primarily support the Department of Veterans Affairs Patient Centered Community Care and VA Choice programs. Virginia Beach-based DOMA provides solutions to help clients manage and secure information online. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

   Emser Tile    plans to invest $16.25 million to establish an East Coast distribution center in Suffolk. The facility in the city’s CenterPoint Intermodal Center is expected to create 98 jobs. Emser is a major designer, marketer and producer of tile and natural stone.  Gov. Terry McAuliffe approved a $250,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Suffolk with the project. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Five businesses have received awards from the Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce. The recipients included:    Bobby’s Auto Service Center   , Small Business of the Year;   Gloucester-Mathews Care Clinic  , Nonprofit Organization of the Year;  Up South , Best New Business; Gary Ward of Olivia’s in the Village an  d Scoot’s BBQ, Professional of  the Year; Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, the LOVE Gloucester Award. (Daily Press)

Lidl, a Germany-based discount grocer, has bought 5.64 acres of land in Newport News for $2 million to use as a site for a store. Lidl is preparing for its entry into the U.S. market. The company announced last year that it is establishing its U.S. headquarters in Arlington and a regional headquarters and distribution center in Spotsylvania County. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Sentara Norfolk General Hospital has begun a $199 million five-year expansion and modernization project. Its parent company, Sentara Healthcare, said the goal is to bring facilities up to modern standards and to enhance the 525-bed hospital’s reputation as a mid-Atlantic referral center.  Construction was scheduled to begin in March, with a projected completion date in 2020.  (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Target is adding 600 jobs to its distribution center in Suffolk. The new jobs primarily are in equipment operations, packaging and shipping as the company turns the warehouse into an upstream distribution center. The distribution center currently employs about 100 people, according to Target spokeswoman Joanna Hjelmeland Hartwell. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SHENANDOAH VALLEY
Specialty blades manufacturer AccuTec Blades Inc. will expand its Augusta County manufacturing operation, creating 53 jobs and retaining 138. The company, which produces specialty, medical and professional blades, will invest $5.37 million. Gov. Terry McAuliffe approved a $125,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund for the project. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

A Dallas company has purchased the Holiday Inn at 1400 E. Market St. in Harrisonburg and plans a major renovation and conversion this year to the DoubleTree by Hilton brand. EH Harrisonburg LLC, a subsidiary of Encore Enterprises Inc., spent $8 million to acquire the 7.1-acre property from Horizon Hospitality LLC and plans to spend another $8 million to overhaul the property. The deal closed in February. (Daily News-Record)

Timberville-based F&M Bank Corp. has been named to the 2016 OTCQX Best 50, an annual ranking of the top 50 U.S. and international companies traded on the OTCQX market. The ranking is calculated based on an equal weighting of one-year total return and average daily dollar volume growth in the previous calendar year. Companies in the 2016 OTCQX Best 50 were ranked based on their performance in 2015. (News release)

Graphic Packaging International plans to expand its operations in Staunton, creating 43 jobs. The company makes packaging for food, beverage and other consumer products companies. Gov. Terry McAuliffe approved a $250,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund for the project. Graphic Packaging’s Staunton facility has more than 170 employees. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. announced an expansion of its Ethernet, dark-fiber, wavelength and Internet services. The areas that will immediately benefit from the expansion include Cumberland, Md.; Morgantown, W.Va., and a number of places in Pennsylvania. Work will continue in and around Staunton, Lexington, Lynchburg and Roanoke. (News Leader)

The Sentara Timber Way Health Center opened in February in the northern end of Rockingham County. The health-care center brings together under one roof medical services previously provided at Sentara RMH’s Springbrook Family Medicine in Broadway, Timberville Health Center and Timberville Imaging and Lab Services. (Daily News-Record)

SOUTHERN VIRGINIA
Centra Danville Medical Center is on schedule to open in the fall and will house primary- care physicians, urgent care services, a laboratory, imaging services, wellness programs, physical therapy, telemedicine capabilities, and medical and surgical specialists, according to a news release from Diane Ludwig, Centra’s manager of media and communications. (Danville Register & Bee)

The national accrediting agency for medical schools has determined that the College of Henricopolis School of Medicine’s proposed medical education program has not demonstrated sufficient planning to warrant the scheduling of a site visit to assess its readiness for preliminary accreditation, and that the program will remain in “applicant status.” The target start date for the private medical school now would be 2018, rather than 2017. (Martinsville Bulletin)

Halifax County Public Schools has been selected to receive a $62,500 grant to implement Virginia CyberCamp during the summer. The grant is part of a $2 million initiative announced by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The goal is to create programs in challenged school divisions to increase awareness of careers in cybersecurity, introduce students and teachers to cybersecurity-related industry credentials and provide students a foundation in which they can pursue a certification during the upcoming school year. (SoVaNow.com)

U.K.-based advanced manufacturing firm Hardide Coatings celebrated the grand opening of its first U.S. plant in Martinsville with a ribbon-cutting in March. About 50 people attended the event, including Hardide CEO Philip Kirkham and Hardide Chairman Robert Goddard. Hardide, Kirkham said, uses a unique, patented process to apply a hard-wearing, flexible coating to metal components. (Martinsville Bulletin)

In March the SoVA Center of Manufacturing Excellence began offering an accelerated training program, which leads to an industry-recognized mechatronics certification. “Mechatronics” encompasses a range of technical disciplines including mechanics, electronics, control systems and computer terms. According to Scarlett Brandon, SoVA CME Program/Marketing Coordinator, individuals in these careers enjoy salaries ranging from $35,000 to $55,000, depending on the locality and size of the industry. (Work It, SoVa)

SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA
In an effort to spur economic growth, Botetourt County will lease about 600 acres in the Greenfield industrial park to the county’s economic development authority. County officials say the lease will give the authority more flexibility in promoting the property, while also allowing for grading, boring and other activities that can make it more attractive to potential tenants. (The Roanoke Times)

The town of Boones Mill will get $600,000 from the state Industrial Revitalization Fund to support its effort to turn a long vacant two-story building into an industrial park. The money will go toward renovating the building, a remnant of the defunct North American Housing manufacturing complex the town purchased in 2011. (The Roanoke Times)

Established by the Boxley family in Roanoke in 1906, Boxley Materials has signed an agreement to sell the company to Summit Materials, an international, publicly held company based in Denver. Both companies’ product lines include ready-mixed concrete, crushed stone, concrete, asphalt and other construction materials. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (The Roanoke Times)

Carilion Clinic opened its newest Carilion Children’s Pediatric Medicine clinic in February in Rocky Mount. The new location will fill a community need since Rocky Mount’s only pediatric clinic closed more than a year ago when its pediatrician retired. The clinic is located at 490 S. Main St. in Rocky Mount. (News release) 

Pittsburgh-based CONSOL Energy Inc. — one of the largest diversified energy companies in the U.S. — says it has entered into an agreement to sell its Buchanan coal mine in Southwest Virginia and certain other coal reserves in the commonwealth, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, to Coronado IV LLC for $420 million, including $398 million cash payable at the closing. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality fined Associated Asphalt of Roanoke $18,000 after one of its tanker trucks overturned and spilled nearly 5,000 gallons of liquid asphalt into a Rockbridge County creek. Once the consent order becomes final, Associated Asphalt will have 30 days to submit a plan detailing how it will repair and stabilize the contaminated area. (The Roanoke Times)

NORTHERN VIRGINIA
    Computer Sciences Corp.     plans to move its headquarters from Falls Church to Tysons Corner. CSC has signed a lease at 1775 Tysons Boulevard in The Corporate Office Centre at Tysons II. CSC initially will occupy 61,678 square feet on two floors of the building this spring. CSC’s new home, 1775 Tysons, is a 476,000-square-foot 17-story office tower, currently under construction. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

McLean-based     Hilton Worldwide     announced plans to spin off its real estate and its timeshare businesses as separate publicly traded companies. The move will result in the creation of three corporations. The company plans to file registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission during the second quarter and to complete the spinoffs by the end of the year. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Six Virginia companies have made Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. McLean-based     Hilton Worldwide     is ranked on the list for the first time. The Virginia companies are:    Navy Federal Credit Union   , Vienna, No. 44;   Hilton Worldwide  , McLean, No. 56;  CustomInk , Fairfax, No. 58; CarMax, Richmon  d, No. 85; Capita  l One Financial, McLean, No. 88 and Mars, McLean, No. 99. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Fairfax-based ICF International Inc., a provider of consulting and technology services, has launched ICF Olson, a full-service marketing agency. ICF said the agency will rank as one of the top 50 in the world in terms of revenues. ICF Olson was built through a series of acquisitions beginning in 2012. It has more than 800 employees in 14 offices in the United States, Canada and India. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Reston-based Maximus, a worldwide provider of government services, has completed the acquisition of Tennessee-based Ascend, which offers specialized health assessments and data management tools to government agencies in the U.S. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Herndon-based XO Communications said it will sell its fiber-optic network business to New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. for about $1.8 billion. The transaction would provide Verizon access to XO’s fiber-based IP and Ethernet networks. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the first half of 2017. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

CENTRAL VIRGINIA
About 421,900 Virginians signed up for health insurance this year through the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace. That’s more than the number that signed up for 2015 and also exceeds the 400,000 goal set by the state. The number reflects people that signed up through the end of the most recent open enrollment period, which closed Jan. 31. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Draper Aden Associates received an award for the top engineering project in Virginia in 2015. The American Council of Engineering Companies of Virginia awarded its highest honor, the Pinnacle Award, to DAA for the End Theater redevelopment in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Jemison Metals has purchased O’Neal Steel in Madison Heights, according to Amherst County’s Economic Development Authority. The purchase price was not disclosed. The purchase will help retain 15 jobs at O’Neal Steel. Jemison Metals also will hire 20 employees and invest approximately $2 million in new machinery over the next three years. (News release)

Keswick Vineyards was named the 2016 Governor’s Cup winner at a February gala at the Residences at the John Marshall in Richmond. A cab franc won for only the third time in the 33 years the award has been presented. Keswick’s Estate Reserve was named 2016’s best of 432 entries of red and white wines from 95 state wineries. The Governor’s Cup was the third for Keswick winemaker Stephen Barnard. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Richmond-based menswear company Ledbury announced plans to open a store in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., this spring. The expansion will mark Ledbury’s first store opening outside of Richmond, where it currently operates two stores. Ledbury was founded six years ago and has hosted four pop-ups shops in Georgetown, its second-largest market. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Chesterfield-based Uphoff Ventures has acquired Dion Oil Co. of Key West and Homestead, Fla. Through the acquisition, Uphoff Ventures bought 11 convenience stores, including one site currently under construction in Key West. The deal also includes the acquisition of various dealer-served fuel sites and a Citgo bulk oil and lubes business. (News release)