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Regional business news from around Virginia
Regional business news from around Virginia
Virginia Business// July 30, 2024//
Tobacco giant Altria Group, headquartered in Henrico County, will be allowed to market four different menthol-flavored e-cigarettes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said June 21. The announcement came two months after the Biden administration controversially delayed a decision on banning menthol cigarette sales. Marketed under Altria’s NJOY brand, the products are the first e-cigarettes to be approved that aren’t tobacco flavored. The FDA decided the public health benefits of smokers switching to menthol e-cigarettes from regular cigarettes were greater than the risks posed to teens by the increased appeal of minty e-cigarettes, according to an agency news release. (Bloomberg)
Switzerland-based Condair Group, a manufacturer of commercial and industrial humidification systems, will invest $57.2 million to establish a new production facility in Chesterfield County that is expected to create 180 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced June 18. The company will convert a pre-existing warehouse facility on 1410 Willis Road into a manufacturing facility, according to Horace Wynn, chief operating officer for Condair’s North American operations. The 400,000-square-foot plant is expected to open in early 2025. Condair plans to transfer its current production operations from Center, Texas, to Richmond by 2026. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Dominion Energy announced July 10 that it had issued an RFP to develop a small modular reactor at the Fortune 500 utility’s North Anna nuclear power plant in Louisa County. Dominion officials said they were issuing a request for proposals for the SMR from nuclear technology companies, stressing that it was not a commitment to build an SMR at North Anna, but the first step in evaluating the feasibility of doing so. Dominion Energy Chair, President and CEO Robert M. Blue said that Dominion hopes to develop the SMR at North Anna in the 2030s, noting that a new state law caps SMR development cost recovery at $1.40 per month for a typical residential customer. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Henrico County is getting a fifth Fortune 500 company. Global health care logistics and supply company Owens & Minor is moving from Hanover County to a new headquarters in Henrico’s Innsbrook Corporate Center. The company is leasing the fourth floor of the Highwoods One building at 10900 Nuckols Road. In April, commercial real estate company Newmark announced it had secured the $33.5 million sale of Owens & Minor’s 160,000-square-foot headquarters in Mechanicsville to the Virginia Department of Transportation, which plans to move to Hanover in summer 2025. Henrico’s other Fortune 500 companies are Altria Group, Markel Group, Genworth Financial and Arko. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
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Chandra Briggman left her position as president and CEO of Richmond tech incubator Activation Capital on July 12. Briggman joined the accelerator arm of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority in May 2020. She played significant roles in raising $31 million to build an innovation center in the Virginia Bio+Tech Park, launching the Alliance for Building Better Medicine, and winning a $53 million federal grant in the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Briggman planned to “pursue new opportunities to build innovation ecosystems and drive economic development,” but her specific plans were not disclosed. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
The City of Richmond named Matthew Welch its acting director of economic development in mid-June, following the departure of Leonard Sledge, who left to head Hampton’s economic development. Welch is expected to serve through the remainder of Mayor Levar Stoney’s term, which ends in January, and city leaders will then decide on a permanent director. Welch has worked for the city since 2011 and is a senior policy adviser in its department of economic development. He leads the real estate strategies office, which conveys surplus city-owned land for mixed-use developments and affordable housing. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Virginia inspectors have levied $1.9 million in fines against Chesapeake-based Dollar Tree and Family Dollar in the past 10 years for health and safety violations. Between 2014 and 2024, state and federal regulators cited nearly 600 Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores and warehouses across the U.S. for unsafe and hazardous conditions, according to inspection data. Advocates say that overstacked storage rooms, blocked safety exits and rodent and insect infestations create unsafe and unhealthy environments for many of the chain’s roughly 200,000 workers. (Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO)
Dominion Energy Virginia agreed in July to acquire the 40,000-acre Kitty Hawk North Wind offshore wind lease off North Carolina’s Outer Banks for $160 million from Avangrid, a Connecticut-based sustainable energy company. The project will be rebranded as CVOW-South, a nod to Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project under development
27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. Expected to close by the end of 2024, the transaction includes $117 million for lease acquisition and $43 million to reimburse development costs. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Firefly Aerospace has picked Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island as a new launch site for its two-stage orbital Alpha rocket, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in June. A small launch vehicle, the Alpha serves commercial, civil and national security clients and can carry 2,200 pounds to low earth orbit. Founded in 2017, the Texas-headquartered Firefly has launched the Alpha four times from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company plans to begin launching Alpha from Virginia in 2025. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Liebherr Mining Equipment will invest $72.3 million to expand a manufacturing plant at the border of Newport News and Hampton, creating an estimated 175 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in late June. Founded in 1995, the Newport News subsidiary of Liebherr Group manufactures industrial-scale mining trucks used to transport material at open-cast mining operations and has more than 550 employees. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
LS GreenLink USA, a U.S. subsidiary of a South Korean cable manufacturer, announced in July plans to build a $681 million, 750,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Chesapeake, expected to create 338 jobs. The plant will produce high-voltage, direct-current submarine cables used for offshore wind farms — the first such facility in the nation. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
The Hampton Roads area could soon see new Navy housing that would provide beds for about 8,000 sailors, Vice Adm. Christopher “Scotty” Gray, commander of the Navy Installations Command, said in July. During a roundtable discussion between the Navy and a bipartisan group of state and local elected officials, Gray said he expects 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers will be housed in Newport News, out of 8,000 new beds in Hampton Roads. (The Virginian-Pilot)
Rivers Casino Portsmouth has again agreed to pay a hefty fine following a slew of violations the Virginia Lottery spotted last year and earlier this year. The casino was fined $545,000 in two settlements. One was reached in September 2023 and resulted in a $40,000 fine, and the other was reached in May at a cost of $505,000. Violations included the presence of underaged individuals on the gaming floor in August 2023 — the same offense for which Rivers Casino Portsmouth was fined last year for $275,000.
(The Virginian-Pilot)
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After serving as commander of the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic for a little over a year, Navy Rear Adm. Wesley “Wes” McCall announced his retirement July 3 and Rear Adm. Carl A. Lahti succeeded him in the position. Lahti now oversees 13 installations from Illinois to North Carolina and is stationed at the world’s largest Navy base, Naval Station Norfolk. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Two Fairfax-based credit unions that have been around since the 1950s agreed to combine in June. Apple Federal Credit Union, with $4.4 billion in assets, and $532 million-asset NextMark Credit Union announced their intent to merge by November, with Apple FCU being the surviving institution. The seventh largest credit union based in the greater Washington area by total assets, Apple FCU will continue to be led by President and CEO Andy Grimm after it absorbs NextMark. (Washington Business Journal)
Nine homeowners in Arlington County have sued the county over a landmark zoning change in 2023 that tossed out rules that allowed only single-family houses to be built in certain neighborhoods. The change meant owners could replace their houses with buildings containing multiple small apartments. A July bench trial in Arlington Circuit Court considers the homeowners’ argument that county officials failed to adequately study the impacts of the plan before approving it. (The Washington Post)
In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the federal government over two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019, in a last-minute deal reached with the Justice Department. The Arlington County-based aerospace and defense contractor agreed to pay a $487.2 million fine and invest at least $455 million over the next three years to strengthen its compliance and safety programs. The criminal probe was prompted by the January midair blowout of a door plug on a Boeing plane. Also, Boeing entered into an agreement in July to reacquire Spirit Aerosystems in a $4.7 billion stock transaction, also assuming Spirit’s net debt in a deal totaling $8.3 billion. (The New York Times; VirginiaBusiness.com)
Arlington-based aerospace and defense technology company CAES will be acquired from private equity firm Advent International by Honeywell for $1.9 billion in cash. The acquisition will enhance Charlotte, North Carolina-based Honeywell’s defense tech portfolio, including new electromagnetic defense tools for end-to-end radio frequency signal management. The deal comes as military spending has ramped up amid long-standing conflicts, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Loudoun County Supervisor Mike Turner wrote a white paper issued in June arguing that data centers’ surging demand for electricity has left the county with no choice but to find a way for the facilities to produce energy on their campuses. With on-site power generation, electric utilities will no longer need to keep building more transmission infrastructure to connect data centers with electricity generated outside the county. Turner’s paper said that his proposals would likely not affect current plans to add transmission lines in Loudoun. Meanwhile, in July, county supervisors passed a policy that would remove data centers as a by-right use on all properties in all zones, meaning all data center proposals would require the board’s discretionary approval. (Loudoun Times-Mirror; Washington Business Journal)
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Mark Peters, an executive vice president at Battelle Memorial Institute in Charlottesville, was named president and CEO of Mitre, succeeding Jason Providakes, effective Sept. 3. Providakes said in a statement he plans to retire. Founded in 1958 with a focus on national security, Mitre is a not-for-profit research and development company with dual headquarters in McLean and Bedford, Massachusetts. Peters is currently executive vice president of laboratory management and operations at Battelle. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Former Advance Auto Parts CEO Nick Taubman and his wife, Jenny, are giving $25 million to a Carilion Clinic campaign to fund a new Roanoke cancer center that could be under construction by the end of the year. Radiation, chemotherapy and related treatments and services provided in a 43-year-old facility on South Jefferson Street and other locations today will move to a new seven-story building on Reserve Avenue. A 2027 opening looks like a possibility, officials said. (The Roanoke Times)
Roanoke-based tech company Luna Innovations filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, notifying it that the Nasdaq stock exchange granted Luna’s request to continue its listing while it attempts to compile accurate financial statements. The fiber optic sensing, testing and measuring company has until Sept. 11 to file its 2023 annual and fourth quarter reports — along with reports from 2022 — with the SEC, or Nasdaq could delist it. Luna has seen executive turnover since mid-March, when the company announced it could not produce those reports. (Cardinal News).
Salem City Council approved a contentious rezoning for the HopeTree development on a split vote after a second reading on June 24. Council member Hunter Holliday motioned to table the issue until all members were physically present, as Mayor Renée Turk was out of town and participating remotely. That motion failed. The planned development on the Virginia Baptist Home property owned by HopeTree is proposed to include up to 340 residences as well as commercial space. It will be the largest development of its kind in the city’s history. (The Roanoke Times)
The Roanoke Valley will host six days of racing events for USA Cycling’s Endurance Mountain Biking National Championships in July 2025 and 2026, announced regional tourism group Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge on June 24. The weeklong event is expected to generate approximately $2.2 million and bring in 1,900 athletes. Racing events will take place July 14-20 next year at Explore Park, Elmwood Park and Carvins Cove. The event is a collaboration between the City of Roanoke, Roanoke County and Hollins University. (The Roanoke Times)
The Volvo Group received a $208 million federal grant for upgrades at its Dublin manufacturing plant, as well as facilities in Maryland and Pennsylvania, officials announced in July. The 2.3 million-square-foot New River Valley plant in Pulaski County employs about 3,600 people. It makes trucks including the Volvo VNR Electric, one of two heavy-duty electric vehicles Volvo manufactures in North America. The U.S. Department of Energy grant will help Volvo upgrade its facilities to more efficiently produce those vehicles and eventually expand its range of electric models. (Cardinal News)
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Maury Strauss, a philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to health care, education and economic development efforts around Roanoke, died June 25 at age 99. Strauss founded real estate development firm Strauss Development Corp. and served as president of the Roanoke Valley Homeowners Association and the Virginia Homebuilders Association. Strauss donated $1 million each to the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, Virginia Western Community College Educational Foundation and Carilion Clinic’s cancer program between 2018 and 2022. He is survived by three children and five grandchildren. (Cardinal News)
The Middletown Town Council decided in its July 1 meeting that a proposal for the historic Wayside Inn to offer recreational vehicle parking for guests will go before the planning commission and again before the council. Earlier this year, Tamara Bullard and her husband, Blake, considered purchasing the inn but withdrew their bid because the town council wasn’t receptive to approving RV parking behind the property. The inn’s current owners said the property at 7783 Main St. is “bleeding” money. The business, which includes Larrick’s Tavern, the Wright House and The Red Hat speakeasy, has been for sale for more than eight months. (The Winchester Star)
Construction on an 800-acre solar project in southern Frederick County was almost complete as of July 1, according to Torch Clean Energy developing manager Sam Gulland. The $150 million-plus Bartonsville Solar project with roughly 315,000 solar panels is the largest of four solar farms that the county’s board of supervisors approved from 2020 to December 2022. The 130-megawatt project could come online later this year, once it is connected to a nearby FirstEnergy 138-kilovolt transmission line. Torch Clean Energy is developing the site, which D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments owns. (The Northern Virginia Daily)
At its June 26 meeting, the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority was expected to announce which company, among 40 applicants, had been selected from a highly competitive process to become the sole licensed pharmaceutical processor of medical cannabis for a region including the entire Shenandoah Valley, as well as the cities of Charlottesville and Fredericksburg and the counties of Spotsylvania and Stafford. But, during that CCA Board of Directors meeting, Shawn Casey, deputy chief of CCA’s regulatory, policy and external affairs office, said the authority’s staff and legal counsel needed more time to study the scoring of the applications and to ensure the authority’s choice complies with all regulatory requirements. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
A group of 29 Virginia Military Institute alumni are suing the school’s alumni association over alleged violations of their civil rights, according to a complaint filed in federal court in June. The plaintiffs claim the institute and its alumni association have become so intertwined that the state-run military college in Lexington essentially controls the alumni association. The suit traces much of the relationship between VMI and its alumni organizations to a 2019 action that moved four alumni corporations — the Keydet Club, the VMI Foundation, the VMI Development Board and the VMI Alumni Association — under the umbrella of VMI Alumni Agencies. (Cardinal News)
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Charlie King assumed the role of interim president of James Madison University on July 1. The university’s former president, Jonathan Alger, left to head American University, a move the Washington, D.C., university announced in March. King retired from JMU in December 2021 after serving as its senior vice president of administration and finance for 25 years. Before joining the Harrisonburg university, he was vice president for business affairs at Radford University from 1991 to 1996. Prior to that, King held various administrative roles at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. (News release)
Winchester Main Street hired Brady Cloven as executive director, the nonprofit announced June 21, making Cloven its first and only paid employee. Winchester Main Street launched late last year as a nine-member board with the goal of transitioning Old Town Winchester’s branding, upkeep and enhancement responsibilities from governmental authority to community authority. Cloven previously worked at Veterans Inc., a nonprofit that supports veterans with housing, employment and meals, in Massachusetts. The board chose Cloven from a group of more than 20 applicants. (The Winchester Star)
Amid what’s described as a “short-term cash crunch,” salaries have been reduced for senior leaders at Averett University, and other staff members were cut to a four-day workweek during summer. The financial stress emerged because of “mismanagement” by a former university official who “misrepresented both the facts and the numbers as regards to the school’s financial position,” according to an Averett spokesperson. The Danville Police Department has not received reports from the university surrounding money issues. The spokesperson said the university will be on the “right track” by the fall semester. (Danville Register & Bee)
Martinsville-based Carter Bank & Trust has reached an agreement with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, his family and their companies regarding the repayment of approximately $300 million in outstanding loans, according to separate statements. Both sides said that their agreement entails a “pathway of curtailment and payoff of the loans” that Justice; his wife, Cathy; their son, Jay; and their network of family companies have with Carter Bank. The loans, which are backed by collateral including property at the Greenbrier Sporting Club, have been the subject of legal clashes for years. (Cardinal News)
In July, the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority passed a resolution authorizing a ground lease with Tupelo Storage, an affiliate of Durham, North Carolina-based Strata Solar, to build and operate an energy storage system on 85 acres at the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill. The lithium-ion battery system would be built on a 3 ½- to 4-acre concrete pad and connected to the grid, feeding into the new Appalachian Power electric substation. The system would charge overnight, with energy from the battery offsetting consumption of power during peak energy use. Construction is slated to start in mid to late 2026. (Danville Register & Bee)
Dominion Energy wants to build a storage facility capable of holding 2 billion cubic feet of liquified natural gas next to its giant Greensville County power plant, a more than $500 million project. The aim is to provide backup fuel for its two large Southside Virginia power stations in Greensville and Brunswick counties, the company said in filings with the State Corporation Commission. If the SCC approves it, Dominion wants to start construction next year, and would complete the project in 2027. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Hitachi Energy plans to invest $26 million into expanding its South Boston transformer manufacturing facility, a move expected to create about 100 jobs. Hitachi’s expansion in Halifax County, where the company has 585 employees, will increase capacity for producing distribution transformers with new equipment, upgrades and other production-line improvements. The new positions created at Hitachi’s South Boston operation will be in skilled manufacturing, engineering and administration. The company did not receive incentives from the state government for the expansion, according to a Hitachi spokesperson. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
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In July, Tory Shepherd became the new market chief operating officer for Sovah Health, a health system with hospital campuses in Danville and Martinsville. Previously, Shepherd held positions as chief operating officer and interim CEO at Sovah Health — Martinsville. In 2022, she joined Rutherford Regional Health System in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, as interim CEO and was soon appointed as Rutherford’s permanent CEO. In her new role, Shepherd will oversee operational functions of both the Martinsville and Danville Sovah campuses. (Martinsville Bulletin)
Appalachian Sustainable Development unveiled on June 13 plans to build a $12 million agriculture campus on more than 17 acres of land between Bristol and Abingdon. Plans for the site, which is located just off Lee Highway in the Exit 10 area of Interstate 81, include an agriculture business development hub, a food hub, a workforce development hub, a visitor village, a greenhouse, outdoor classrooms and gardens for alley cropping demonstrations, wildflower pollination, agroforestry nursery demonstrations and research. Construction will start as money is raised, and fundraising will go through 2025. (Cardinal News)
Ballad Health was set to open a new Center for Early Learning in Norton in July. The new center is located close to Norton Community Hospital and has the capacity to serve up to 130 children, ranging from 6-week-old infants to 5-year-olds. The Norton center is Ballad’s second in Southwest Virginia; the health system also operates one in Lebanon. Additionally, Ballad plans to open an Abingdon facility in the fall and has plans for a Marion facility. It also operates five Centers for Early Learning in Tennessee. The facilities serve Ballad Health team members and community members. (Bristol Herald Courier)
Dallas-based Catalyst Energy Partners withdrew its application to establish a $400 million, 262-megawatt solar project in Washington County in early July. The company plans to come back with a second, smaller proposal. The board of supervisors had been scheduled to vote on the Wolf Hills Solar project on July 9, before Catalyst withdrew the application. The planning commission had recommended the board deny the special-exception permit that Catalyst needed to build the 500,000-panel farm, part of which would have been in land zoned for agriculture, after a five-hour meeting that drew about 300 people on June 24. (Cardinal News)
Simmons Equipment, a specialty mining equipment manufacturer based in Tazewell County, plans to expand into neighboring Russell County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced July 8. The company expects to invest $8.5 million into converting two buildings in Lebanon, an investment set to create 75 jobs. Founded in Tazewell in 2005, Simmons produces soft rock mining equipment, including scoops, haulers and longwall support vehicles. The company plans to also retain its Tazewell facilities, where it employs 107 people. Simmons plans to move into the new locations in phases over the next two quarters of the year. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
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Rodney Fogg is now vice president of operations for EO, the Abingdon nonprofit announced June 27. EO is an independent nonprofit that the United Way of Southwest Virginia established earlier this year to spin off its workforce development programs. Fogg will oversee operations for EO’s 87,000-square-foot Regional Workforce and Child Development Hub under construction in Abingdon as well as leading the nonprofit’s administrative and organizational operations. Fogg served 35 years in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of major general. He previously served as deputy chief for operations at the headquarters of the U.S. Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. (News release)
Megan Parks is the new executive director of the United Way of Southwest Virginia, the nonprofit announced June 25. Parks succeeds Travis Staton as the Abingdon-based nonprofit’s leader. Staton became president and CEO of EO, a nonprofit that UWSWVA established to spin off its workforce development programs, in February. Parks most recently directed strategy and impact initiatives at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee. She previously held roles at Ballad Health and at the YWCA in Bristol, and she holds a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. (News release)
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