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Virginia Business// October 28, 2021//
One of the largest rooftop solar energy projects in the Roanoke region is now operating at Goodwill Industries of the Valleys. In mid-October, the nonprofit installed solar panels at its Support Center/Jobs Campus building on Melrose Avenue. About 90% of the building’s electricity will be generated by renewable energy, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions equal to that produced by burning 581,000 pounds of coal. The solar panels will have a maximum capacity of 548 kilowatts at any given time, and over a year will produce up to 742 megawatt-hours of electricity. (The Roanoke Times)
Two counties in the Roanoke and New River valleys are separately seeking state funding to help with major broadband internet access expansion projects. Montgomery County leaders put support behind a grant application that, if approved, would help pave the way for far greater availability of broadband in much of the county outside of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. Montgomery is seeking another grant through the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative. In the Roanoke Valley, Botetourt County applied for nearly $3.1 million through VATI toward a $7.9 million project to bring universal broadband coverage to the county by 2023. (The Roanoke Times)
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 in September. The Virginia Tech National Security Institute aspires to become “the nation’s preeminent academic organization at the nexus of interdisciplinary research, technology, policy and talent development to advance national security.” Tech has long had ties to the Department of Defense, which contributed $50 million in federal funding to the university in fiscal year 2020.The institute will bring together researchers, programs and resources from across the university and industry leaders. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Virginia Tech leaders, key partners and government officials formally opened the $90 million, 139,000-square-foot Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC in mid-October. Already equipped with research instrumentation and new laboratories for up to 25 research teams, the building has been operational for a year. The LEED Silver-certified building designed by AECOM has sustainability features, including a meadow garden roof that prevents flooding. Set in the heart of the Roanoke Innovation Corridor, the institute is a major economic driver in the region, currently employing more than 400 researchers, staff, and trainees.
(Virginia Tech news release)
Pam Bailey will be the new Bedford County economic development director after serving as the interim director. Since February 2018, Bailey has served as the county economic development office’s marketing and business development coordinator, leading marketing, managing the departmental and EDA budgets and assisting with securing grants. She has worked with Lynchburg-based firm Blair Marketing, Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson and United Way of Central Virginia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in interior design with a minor in marketing from Meredith College. Bailey succeeds Traci Blido, who is now the director of the Central Virginia Workforce Development Board. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Michael C. Maxey, the 11th president of Roanoke College, announced in September 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. “The decision has been most difficult, but it is right for Terri [Maxey] and me, and for Roanoke College,” Maxey said in a statement. “I will always treasure the opportunity to have served Roanoke College as president.”
(VirginiaBusiness.com)
The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton has canceled its fall slate of in-person productions. In an email sent in September offering refund information, the troupe notified ticket holders that it was eliminating the season. Along with the runs of “Macbeth,” “Henry V” and “All’s Well That Ends Well,” and the world premiere of “Keene” by Anchuli Felicia King, it canceled the 2021 Blackfriars Conference, a three-day gathering of classical scholars originally scheduled for October. Company members say the cancellations were caused by internal strife over how the company is run, and its treatment of women and people of color. (The Washington Post)
Williamsport, Maryland-based developer Elevate Homes has proposed a high-end 74-home subdivision for active seniors in Winchester that would occupy a 28-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley and the Emil and Grace Shihadeh Innovation Center. Each house would include a two-car garage and be priced at least $500,000. Taxes from the development, The Preserve at Meadow Branch, are projected to add approximately $425,580 to the city’s coffers each year. A public hearing on the development was set to be held on Oct. 19. (The Winchester Star)
The Shenandoah Community Capital Fund (SCCF) has received $1.5 million in federal grant funding to support innovation in the region, Director Debbie Irwin said on Oct. 7. The fund will use a three-pronged approach to spend the grant money: expanding the Startup Shenandoah Valley program to support entrepreneurs with scalable tech ideas in agriculture, cybersecurity and software from this October to September 2024; creating a digital platform connecting investors, business resource groups and higher education institutions; and centralizing and expanding the storytelling of the valley to draw new businesses. (Daily News-Record)
Italian cured meats manufacturer Veronesi Holding S.p.A., a Gruppo Veronesi company, will invest approximately $100 million to establish its first
U.S. production facility in Rockingham County, creating an estimated 150 jobs over the next four years, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Sept. 30. The facility will sit on 75.8 acres in the Innovation Village @ Rockingham and will be used to age, process and package the company’s products. A privately traded company, Veronesi Holding S.p.A. reported more than €3.1 billion in sales in 2020. The company is headquartered in Verona and has 9,000 employees. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Plastic thermoforming and fabrication company Virginia Industrial Plastics Inc. will invest more than $6.5 million to expand its manufacturing facility in Rockingham County, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Sept. 23. The expansion is expected to add 92 jobs and allow the company to increase capacity for its product lines, Cabinet Savers and VIP Golf Cars. Virginia Industrial Plastics makes products designed to serve markets such as meat processing, leisure, medical, commercial, transportation, industrial, heavy equipment and agriculture. The company’s services include tooling and mold creation using wood, synthetics, composites, or aluminum, thermoforming and vacuum forming, CNC operations, value-add assembly, and just-in-time inventory. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Charlie King, the senior vice president of administration and finance for James Madison University for the past 25 years, has announced that he will retire in December. King’s tenure included assisting with capital projects on campus, including building out the school’s East Campus and growing JMU’s athletic programs. In 2019, the university’s endowment grew to $111 million, a 42% increase over the past five years, and JMU’s $200 million fundraising campaign launched in 2018 reached its goal more than a year early. King will work on a temporary, part-time basis with JMU’s government relations staff through the next General Assembly session. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Gov. Ralph Northam, first lady Pamela Northam, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and other government officials attended a three-day annual conference for Appalachian leaders beginning Oct. 6. The 2021 Appalachian Regional Commission conference was held in St. Paul, a town on the Wise-Russell county line, and received about 800 online and 100 in-person registrations. The commission’s representatives talked about the challenges facing their states’ Appalachian communities — high poverty rates, lagging infrastructure, lack of access to early childhood education and high-speed broadband struggles — and touted strides they’d made in those areas. Northam and Hogan visited sites in St. Paul and rode ATVs on trails. (Cardinal Press)
Ballad Health Chief Operating Officer Eric Deaton announced on Sept. 29 that the system would resume some elective surgeries that have been on hold since late August, as the number of new cases in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee dropped by about 40% over the two weeks preceding the announcement. The hospital system was treating 324 COVID-19 patients at the time, down from 413 a few weeks prior. The testing positivity rate in the region, however, has remained around 21%, and the vaccination rate is trailing the two statewide averages. (WVTF)
Connecticut-based Blue Star NBR LLC and Delaware-based American Glove Innovations Inc. will invest $714 million to build a manufacturing facility in Wythe County for producing nitrile medical gloves — a joint venture expected to create 2,500 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Oct. 4. The operation is expected to produce up to 60 billion medical gloves each year from nitrile butadiene rubber — an oil-resistant, synthetic rubber — at the manufacturing plant in Progress Park, the county’s industrial park. It is anticipated to occupy more than 200 acres and will have the potential to triple in size in future phases. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Facebook Inc., Appalachian Power and GigaBeam Networks are partnering to bring faster internet to Grayson County residents, the social media giant announced Sept. 23. The trio of companies will bring fiber-to-the-home and wireless internet to about 6,000 households in the county. Facebook is building long-haul fiber routes, which will connect Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina data centers. Facebook’s network will connect with Appalachian Power’s middle-mile fiber network along its electric infrastructure grid, which GigaBeam Networks built on, extending broadband access to residences. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Norton-based firm SolarBiotech and Mountain Empire Community College announced a partnership on Sept. 29 to help prepare residents for expected new jobs. The company, which is currently focused on using cellular agriculture to create food ingredients, relocated from North Carolina in March 2020 and employs 35 people. It expects to grow to more than 100 employees next year and to add a 200,000-square-foot facility to its operations by the end of 2023. The college will work with SolarBiotech to create a six-month bioprocessing operator certificate program for high school graduates. (The Coalfield Progress)
On Sept. 20, Salt Lake City-based Traeger Pellet Grill and Musser Biomass and Wood Products held a ribbon cutting at Musser Lumber Co. in the town of Rural Retreat to celebrate their partnership, which will create jobs in Wythe County while fueling barbecues across the country. Musser Biomass and Wood Products is a division of Musser Lumber Co. Inc. focused on the pellet and composite decking markets. The facility created approximately 25 jobs with its grand opening. The plant has a new form of wood dryer that can evaporate more than 2,000 gallons of water per hour from the green wood. (SWVAToday)
Demolition began in September to make way for the Caesars Virginia casino at the former Dan River Inc. Schoolfield site. It will take several months to completely demolish structures at the site. “Full demolition will take seven to nine months based on knowledge of current conditions,” said Mark Schlang, senior director of design and construction with Caesars Entertainment. As for the former finishing building, officials are still determining how to approach taking it down, Schlang said. “The finishing building will be later in the schedule,” he said. “The contractor and engineers are still evaluating the best methods for removal.” (Danville Register & Bee)
A groundbreaking ceremony took place in late September in Patrick County to widen a 7.4-mile stretch of U.S. Route 58 in Patrick County, the first phase of a project to create a continuous four-lane highway between Virginia Beach and Interstate 77. The project, part of the U.S. Route 58 Corridor Development Program enacted by state lawmakers in 1989, will cost approximately $300 million. The two-lane section of the highway over Lovers Leap Mountain is restricted to tractor-trailers, but that will change once improvements are completed under a November 2020 agreement between the Virginia Department of Transportation and Roanoke-based Branch Civil Inc. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
A Martinsville-based company announced its plans to hire nearly 1,000 workers during the holiday season. Radial is accepting applications for entry-level warehouse positions in its fulfillment center. Duties include processing online orders, as well as picking, sorting, packing and shipping them. The goal is to combat the holiday demand surge and help workers make some extra cash. “We are one of the largest employers in the area. This is a good opportunity for people to get their foot in the door during peak season,” JMH Campus Site Leader Tammy Elder said. (WSLS)
Schock GmbH, a German quartz composite sink manufacturer, plans to build an $85 million manufacturing facility in Henry County, creating 355 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late September. Virginia competed with Florida,
Georgia and North Carolina for the project, which will occupy a 95,500-square-foot shell building on 14.7 acres in Patriot Centre Industrial Park. The new facility will be completed in phases, with the first phase — establishing the capability to produce quartz composite kitchen sinks — finished in five years. Schock invented the material in 1979 and manufactures more than 200 sink models. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Southern Virginia Vegetable Packing LLC has partnered with Brunswick County Industrial Development Authority, with plans to build a 45,000-square-foot, $4.2 million produce processing and packing facility that is expected to create 40 jobs over three years, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late September. Old Dominion Organic Farms, a member of Southern Virginia Vegetable Packing, will operate the facility, which is expected to process nearly 24 million Virginia-grown vegetables. It will support more than 22 farmers across Amelia, Brunswick, Dinwiddie, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Prince George and Surry counties. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
The Virginia Supreme Court refused in early October to hear Virginia Uranium’s latest legal bid to overturn the state’s ban on uranium mining. The case involved Virginia Uranium’s claim that the mining ban unconstitutionally deprives the company of use of its Coles Hill mining site in Pittsylvania County and therefore amounts to an unlawful taking of private property. After reviewing the case record and arguments by both sides, “the Court is of the opinion there is no reversible error in the judgment complained of. Accordingly, the Court refuses the petition for appeal,” its order read. (SoVaNow)
Henrico County-based tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. was hit with a legal ruling that could crash the rollout of its IQOS device, an alternative to conventional cigarettes. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in late September that Altria and its former subsidiary, Philip Morris International, must halt imports and sales of the IQOS device because it infringes two patents held by their top competitor, Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The IQOS is a battery-powered device that heats tobacco instead of burning it, part of a larger strategy by Altria to expand its product portfolio and introduce alternatives to conventional cigarettes.
(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
The director of Chesterfield County’s economic development office says a “major midtown development” could result from the sale of nearly 250 acres of undeveloped property in the county and the city of Richmond. The two pieces of land went on the market for $30 million and $49 million in early October, according to S.L. Nusbaum Realty, which is handling the sale. The 82.5 acres in the city was the proposed location of a $650 million Bally’s Corp. casino rejected this spring by a city advisory panel, and the 166.44 acres in Bon Air in Chesterfield is zoned to accommodate more than 1 million feet of office, retail and hospitality space. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. reached an agreement in October to sell its Questar Pipeline subsidiary to Las Vegas-based Southwest Gas Holdings Inc. for $1.975 billion. The all-cash deal includes the assumption of $430 million of debt and is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Questar Pipeline provides natural gas transportation and underground storage services in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, and it owns and operates 1,867 miles of pipeline. Questar transports gas for delivery to markets in the West and Midwest.
(VirginiaBusiness.com)
About a year after unions raised public concerns, a grand jury indicted two General Assembly Building construction subcontractors on felony counts alleging they improperly classified workers to avoid paying state income taxes on them. A multijurisdictional grand jury indicted GTO Drywall LLC and Richmond Drywall Installers Constructors Inc. in Richmond Circuit Court on 10 counts each of embezzlement in early October. The Virginia Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the State Inspector General worked on the investigation after allegations of illegalities were made. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Henrico County-based Fortune 500 insurer Genworth Financial Inc. completed the once-delayed initial public offering of its mortgage insurance subsidiary, Enact Holdings Inc., headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September. Between the IPO and a private sale of shares, Genworth received aggregate net proceeds of about $535 million after underwriters’ fees but before other expenses. Genworth Holdings Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial, sold 15.3 million shares of Enact common stock at a price of $19 per share. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
The University of Virginia announced in September that it has received a $50 million lead gift to build a performing arts center, a donation by Tessa Ader, a prominent Charlottesville-area philanthropist who serves on the Fralin Museum of Art advisory board at U.Va. Her late husband, Richard Ader, was an attorney who represented artists including Joseph Cornell, for whom he was estate executor. The new center will include a 1,100-seat concert hall, a 150-seat recital hall and practice space in the Emmet-Ivy corridor near other facilities being built, including the School of Data Science and the Karsh Institute of Democracy. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Capital One Financial Corp. has pushed back the reopening of its corporate offices to 2022, citing “uncertainty about the direction of this pandemic and the timing of a sustained improvement in health conditions across the country.” The McLean-based financial giant opted not to reopen its office in a hybrid format as planned for Nov. 2, after two delays earlier this year. Hybrid remains the plan, but the company will no longer attempt to forecast a date as to when that might be implemented. (Washington Business Journal)
Fortune 500 IT services company
DXC Technology is leaving Tysons for a smaller headquarters in Ashburn in November, the company announced in late September. The new corporate office, located at One Loudoun, will reflect the shift to a virtual-first mentality. Employees can work from anywhere and use the office as more of a place to come together, executives say. It’s almost entirely meeting and conference space, with offices for key executive officers. DXC has several hundred employees in the greater Washington, D.C., area. Some will work on-site and others will have access when needed. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
George Mason University has finished the master planning process for its three main campuses, moving forward with the final designs for a $1 billion capital and academic overhaul. The university’s design team in October outlined the final vision for its original, flagship campus in Fairfax, its science and technology campus in Manassas and its Virginia Square campus in a public engagement session. The final report will be released within a few months. GMU plans to break ground on the nearly $250 million expansion of its Arlington campus in January. The primary addition is the 360,500-square-foot home for the Institute for Digital Innovation and the coming School of Computing. (Washington Business Journal)
Fairfax-based Peterson Cos. is building a 1.9 million-square-foot development in a 270-acre industrial park in Stafford County, and JLL will oversee the leasing, the companies announced in September. Northern Virginia Gateway, Peterson’s first industrial project in the Washington, D.C., area, is off Interstate 95 and is expected to be built out within a year. Construction on the first 630,000-square-foot building is underway, and the entire site is being cleared and graded. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Tysons-based broadcast and digital media corporation Tegna Inc. received acquisition bids of more than $8 billion from Apollo Global Management Inc. and media mogul Byron Allen, according to media reports. Allen, owner of The Weather Channel and chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group, teamed up with Ares Management Corp. to offer $23 per share for Tegna, Bloomberg reported. Apollo Global and New York hedge fund Standard General made an all-cash offer of $22 per share. Tegna owns 64 television stations and was created in 2015 as a publicly traded company after McLean-based Gannett Co. Inc. spun off its broadcast and digital media divisions. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Tamika L. Tremaglio is leaving her post as Deloitte’s Greater Washington managing principal to be the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association union at the end of this year. She has served as an adviser and consultant to the NBPA since 2012, and as principal of the Washington, D.C., area for Deloitte, she oversees 14,000 employees across 23 offices. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
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