June 2025 for the record

Central Virginia

A massive $80 million, 846,260-square-foot spec industrial building under construction in southern Chesterfield County is expected to be ready for delivery before the end of the year. New York-based real estate developer PNK Group began construction on the building at 1640 Ashton Park Drive during the first quarter of this year. According to a company spokesperson, it is the company’s first Virginia project and the largest industrial building available in the Richmond market. The site includes warehouse lighting, docks and office space. It will also include almost 570 trailer spaces and feature 40-foot ceilings. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The U.K.-based Admiral Group is selling Henrico County-based auto insurer Elephant Insurance to J.C. Flowers & Co., a New York-based private investment firm, according to an April announcement. A news release said the deal is for “an undisclosed cash consideration … representing approximately the net asset value of Elephant.” The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year. The company’s name is not expected to change, and no employees are expected to lose their jobs. Elephant has more than 500 employees. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Lego Group announced on May 8 it will invest $366 million to build a 2 million-square-foot warehouse in Prince George County, expected to create 305 jobs. The warehouse and distribution center will be located at 8800 Wells Station Road in the county’s Crosspointe Business Centre. Construction will start later this year, and the Danish toy company expects it to be operational in 2027. The center will support the $1 billion, 1.7 million-square-foot Lego manufacturing campus under construction in Chesterfield County. Lego expects to begin production at the Chesterfield facility in 2027 — at least a year later than originally planned. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

An April U.S. Senate report found that Richmond Community Hospital, which is owned by health system Bon Secours, generated $276 million over five years through a government program known as 340B. The program allowed the hospital to buy expensive drugs at a significant discount because the hospital has a low-income patient demographic. However, Bon Secours ended up selling the drugs to well-insured patients in wealthy Richmond neighborhoods. The Richmond Coalition for Health Equity demanded that Bon Secours reinvest all the 340B revenue into the struggling community hospital. Bon Secours says it has used the program legally. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

An entity sharing an address with Dallas-based commercial real estate company Stream Realty Partners purchased 4701 and 4949 Commerce Road in Richmond for $97.5 million on April 9, according to city property records. A different entity sharing the Stream Realty Partners address, Chesterfield County records show, purchased roughly 135 acres at 15601 Route 1 in Chesterfield for $3 million on March 28. Amazon.com has been leasing space at the Richmond warehouse campus. But an Amazon spokesperson said in April the company has no plans to vacate the 460,000-plus-square-foot fulfillment and delivery center. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Greater Richmond Partnership announced in April that Kansas-based engineering and scientific consulting firm Terracon has opened an office in Richmond that is expected to create 25 jobs within the next year. The office location at 3711 Saunders Ave. is meant to provide the company with access to key industrial and manufacturing clients in the area. Some of the new jobs tied to the office include field technicians and positions related to engineering, project management and administrative support opportunities. Terracon also plans to work with local schools and colleges to offer internship programs and mentorship opportunities. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Eastern Virginia

Bon Secours on May 6 officially opened its new $80 million, 100,000-square-foot Harbour View Medical Center in Suffolk. The three-story addition adjoins the existing Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View campus. Bon Secours broke ground on the hospital in October 2022, and construction wrapped up on March 31. The new medical center includes 18 private inpatient rooms and four new operating rooms, a freestanding emergency department and on-site laboratory and imaging services, including CT, MRI and X-ray capabilities. The center also features “smart” hospital rooms, which utilize AI-powered technology that integrates with patients’ electronic medical records. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

During a May 1 earnings call, Dominion Energy President and CEO Bob Blue said construction costs from the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach, which aims to power up to 660,000 homes, could rise due to tariffs on imported goods from President Donald Trump’s trade war. Blue said through the end of the first quarter, the project incurred actual tariff costs of $4 million. If current tariff policies continue through the end of 2026, when the wind farm is expected to be fully operational, it’s estimated that the impact would grow to $500 million. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries and Reston’s General Dynamics have been awarded Navy contract modifications worth up to $18.4 billion to build two Virginia-class submarines, the Department of Defense announced April 30. General Dynamics’ Connecticut subsidiary Electric Boat is being awarded $12.4 billion for construction of the nuclear-powered vessels and investment to improve productivity and workforce support, with options to increase the contracts to a total of $17.1 billion. HII and its Newport News Shipbuilding division is being awarded $1.2 billion. The two ships, contracted by Naval Sea Systems Command, are expected to be completed by June 2036. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

LS GreenLink USA on April 28 broke ground on the tallest structure in Virginia. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and several Chesapeake officials gathered at 1213 Victory Blvd. in Chesapeake to kickstart construction of the company’s roughly $700 million offshore wind subsea cable manufacturing facility, the first of its kind in the United States. The site will include a 750,000-square-foot production facility with a 660-foot tower needed to support the production of massive cables. Construction should wrap up in the third quarter of 2027, with the site operational in the first quarter of 2028. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Newport News City Council on April 22 approved the rezoning of a vacant lot at 350 Yorktown Road to allow a 620-unit housing development on historic Endview Plantation. The proposed 282-acre project, called the Parkside at Endview, is near the city’s border with York County. The project calls for nearly 32,000 square feet of commercial space and 125 acres of planned open space, including new trails that will connect to Newport News Park. The Newport News’ Economic Development Authority currently owns the property and will work on the project with D.R. Horton, and WeldenField of Virginia. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Rivers Casino Portsmouth and Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming are planning to break ground on a $65 million hotel in Portsmouth this summer, more than two years after the casino first opened. Portsmouth Mayor Shannon Glover revealed the plans for The Landing Hotel Portsmouth during his annual State of the City address in May. The eight-story hotel will be located directly adjacent to the casino, overlooking the property’s water feature. It will have 106 guest rooms, including 32 suites ranging from roughly 400- to 800-plus square feet. The hotel is expected to open in early 2027. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Northern Virginia

Arlington County-based defense contractor AeroVironment on May 1 announced it has completed its $4.1 billion acquisition of Arlington aerospace and defense tech firm BlueHalo. Previously owned by private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners, BlueHalo works in space technologies, counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, electronic warfare, cyber, artificial intelligence and uncrewed underwater vehicles. The deal was announced in November 2024, and AeroVironment expects the combined company to deliver more than $1.7 billion in revenue. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

When Amazon.com picked Arlington County as the site of its HQ2 East Coast headquarters in 2018, the online behemoth said it expected to create 25,000 jobs by 2030. However, in an April 1 application requesting payment of $6.4 million in taxpayer-funded initiatives from the state, Amazon checked the “moderate” box as a reflection of its confidence that it would meet the job target by 2038. In every previous application filed with the state, Amazon checked the “high” confidence box. It also fell short of a goal of hiring 10,000 workers making an average salary of $161,593 by the end of 2024. Amazon says it has hired only 7,232 employees at that wage or higher. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Beacon Roofing Supply, a Herndon-based Fortune 500 roofing material and building supplies company, was sold to Connecticut software and tech business QXO for $11 billion at the end of April. Beacon CEO Julian G. Francis, who led the company since 2019, has left, QXO said. However, many of Beacon’s employees in Herndon are expected to remain in place. QXO announced its definitive merger agreement in March for $124.35 per share in cash, a 10-cent increase from a January offer that Beacon declined. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

McLean businesswoman Kimmy Duong made a $20 million donation to George Mason University. Her foundation made the gift to support a department in the university’s College of Engineering and Computing; it will be renamed for Duong and her husband as the Long Nguyen and Kimmy Duong School of Computing, according to the April announcement. Nguyen founded Reston IT company Pragmatics, where Duong worked as vice chair and CFO. The couple has retired, but both have philanthropic foundations. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Northern Virginia business leaders’ confidence in the economy declined in the second quarter of 2025, according to a Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce survey released in late April. About 59% of the 298 executives responding to the survey said they believe the region’s economy will decline in the next six months, in contrast to a January survey in which 60% of respondents thought the economy would grow over the next six months. Their major concerns were federal job cuts and their impact on federal contracts, according to the report, and tariff policies were also a concern. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Washington Commanders are set to return to the nation’s capital as part of an agreement between the NFL franchise and the District of Columbia government to build on the site of the old RFK Stadium. Mayor Muriel Bowser said April 28 that the District of Columbia and the Ashburn-based Commanders reached an agreement to construct a new home for the football team, which has played in Prince George’s County, Maryland, since 1999. The project totals nearly $4 billion, and the new stadium would open in 2030, with groundbreaking expected next year, pending approval by D.C.’s city council. (Associated Press)

Roanoke/Lynchburg/New River Valley

U.S. Rep. John McGuire, R-Goochland, and other officials attended an April 15 ground-breaking for a 100,000-square-foot industrial building that will be built at Seneca Commerce Park in Rustburg. An $11 million project, the building is the largest initiative undertaken by Campbell County Economic Development in over a decade. Scheduled to be completed in 2027, the building will be a dark shell, offering few or no interior improvements. Lynchburg’s Architectural Partners designed the structure and will provide engineering services. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Delta Star, a manufacturer of power trans-formers and mobile transformer substations for the electrical grid, is investing $35 million to expand its Lynchburg operation and expects to create 300 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced April 17. The Lynchburg facility is set to expand by 80,000 square feet. Most of the jobs created will be in manufacturing, but there will also be engineering and operational support positions. The news comes less than 24 months after Delta Star announced a $30 million investment to build a metal fabrication facility and corporate headquarters in Lynchburg. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and other dignitaries broke ground April 24 on the long-awaited New River Valley Rail Project in Christiansburg, which will return passenger service to the New River Valley for the first time since 1979. The $264.5 million project involves railroad infrastructure upgrades that will allow the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority to extend its Amtrak Virginia service from Roanoke to Christiansburg. The extension of service to Christiansburg will be through Norfolk Southern’s main line, the result of a 2024 agreement between VPRA and Norfolk Southern. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In an unpopular move among restaurant owners, Roanoke’s meals tax will increase by one percentage point to 6.5% starting July 1. The increase on tax paid by restaurants serving food and drinks, with a two-year sunset for the measure, passed by a 5-1 Roanoke City Council vote May 12. Mayor Joe Cobb said it will take five or six years to cover the city’s $25 million deferred maintenance backlog, so he questioned the timing of the tax expiration. (The Roanoke Times)

JAB Holding Co., the Luxembourg-based holding company that owns a majority stake in Krispy Kreme doughnuts, plans to pay $3.1 billion to buy Prosperity Life Group, parent company of Roanoke-based Shenandoah Life Insurance, according to a March filing made with the State Corporation Commission. Applications for approval of acquisition of an insurer typically take between two and six months to complete, according to a spokesperson for the Virginia regulatory agency. Shenandoah Life Insurance had $1.96 billion in assets at the end of 2024. It collected $315 million in premiums last year  (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Volvo announced in April plans to lay off 250 to 350 workers at its Pulaski County facility in June. Between 300 and 450 employees will also be laid off at the company’s Mack Trucks Lehigh Valley Operations in Pennsylvania and at its Volvo Group Powertrain Operations in Maryland. This is a second wave of layoffs for the Dublin facility. In February, Volvo announced layoffs of between 250 and 350 employees, which, due to attrition, ended up impacting about 180 workers. Deliveries of Volvo’s trucks declined by 11% in the fourth quarter of 2024. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Shenandoah Valley

Warrenton Town Council member Eric Gagnon and activist Cindy Burbank spoke to a crowd May 10 in Warren County about their local fight against a planned Amazon data center. The council approved a special-use permit for Amazon to build a 220,000-square-foot data center on 42 acres, despite vocal opposition by town and Fauquier County residents. In
2022, Warren County supervisors rejected a zoning ordinance meant to open the county to data centers. Burbank and Gagnon urged the community to get involved. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

Elkton Brewing Co. in May launched a unique coin called a “pint” as part of an effort to drum up business. The one-ounce coin of pure copper says “Elkton Brewing Co.” on one side and “One Pint” on the other. Customers can purchase the coin for $7.50 and exchange it for one pint of beer at the Elkton Brewing Co. Brewery co-owner August Napotnik has invited several other Elkton businesses to participate, including Funk Trunk and Mr. J’s., where people can spend the coins there as well. (Daily News-Record)

Frederick County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Patrick Barker discussed creating large project-ready sites in the county during a May 1 EDA board meeting. The board previously directed the EDA to create more sites that are 100 to 200-plus acres as a way of attracting large businesses to the area. Barker said the EDA identified five different
sites that are larger than 200 acres, and the goal is to find locations that could be project-ready within 18 to 24 months. But Barker acknowledged potential challenges, including making sure the sites have necessary utilities. (The Winchester Star)

During a May 5 Strasburg Town Council work session, Mount Jackson-based limited liability company Holtzman Mason Property discussed its proposed development near the intersection of Interstate 81 and John Marshall Highway
(Va. 55), within Shenandoah County but outside Strasburg’s corporate boundaries. The development could include a shopping center, up to six standalone restaurants and a gas station. The company wants Strasburg to provide utility service for the site, projecting daily usage of 22,800 gallons. Council members expressed hesitation and were unsure if a decades-old infrastructure agreement would legally compel them to provide service. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

PEOPLE

Farm Credit of the Virginias CEO Brad Cornelius will retire in the fourth quarter, ending a 33-year career with the Farm Credit System, a financial cooperative owned by member-borrowers. Cornelius has led Farm Credit of the Virginias since 2020. Staunton-based Farm Credit of the Virginias provides financing to farmers, agribusinesses and rural homeowners throughout Virginia, West Virginia and western Maryland and is the largest provider of agricultural credit in the United States. The co-op’s board will launch a national search for Cornelius’ successor. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors on May 3 named Brig. Gen. Dallas Clark as acting superintendent but didn’t set a firm date for when a new superintendent will be selected. The board launched a search for a new superintendent after deciding in February to not extend the contract of the institution’s first Black superintendent, Ret. Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins. Wins had faced backlash from some alumni, parents and students over efforts to expand Title IX and bolster DEI efforts. Wins defended his leadership, saying that his tenure ended because of “bias, emotion and ideology.” (Virginia Mercury)

Southern Virginia

More than 400 stakeholders in the defense industry attended the multiday Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing and Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence Summit, which was held at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville in late April. The event included facility tours, speakers and panel discussions on the shipbuilding and repair industry including workforce development, technology and rebuilding the industry. Adm. James Kilby, vice chief of naval operations for the U.S. Navy, gave the keynote address and spoke about challenges facing shipbuilding and repair.
(Danville Register & Bee)

Danville plans to add a second battery energy storage system to its municipal utility portfolio. The battery systems store electricity during periods of lower demand and release it during periods of higher demand. The city’s first such system, a 10.5-megawatt project dubbed “Danville I,” went online in 2022 on Monument Street near Danville Utilities’ warehouse. The newer 11-megawatt system, “Danville II,” will be built at 900 Mount Cross Road, the site of a former city-owned propane storage facility. It’s expected to begin operating in the second quarter of next year. (Cardinal News)

Danville Utilities has applied for a $5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to pay for a water line project at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill. The city would have to provide a 50% match, or $2.5 million, for the grant. The money would fund a 20-inch water main project at Trotters Creek that will entail 8,000 feet of water line from Oak Hill Road to Berry Hill Road. Additional water projects in the works at the site include a 1.25 million-gallon groundwater tank that’s expected to be completed in September. (Danville Register & Bee)

Employees at Georgia-Pacific’s Emporia plywood mill were told May 2 that the company plans to permanently close the mill, with more than 550 workers losing their jobs, according to an announcement by the Georgia-based company that’s one of the world’s top manufacturers and marketers of tissue, pulp, paper and related products. Georgia-Pacific stated that housing affordability and a 30-year low in existing home sales are impacting its plywood business. The company plans to make a decision about what will happen to the Emporia facility and property at a later date. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Henry County Industrial Development Authority has signed a purchase-option deal with an unnamed company for the potential sale of a 1,200-acre undeveloped industrial site adjacent to the county’s Patriot Centre Industrial Park. The potential buyer negotiated a six-month purchase option agreement with the IDA for $50,000. The deal gives the business the exclusive right, but not the obligation, to buy the site, which is named Patriot Centre II but is commonly known as the Bryant property, for $1.2 million. The agreement allows the company to conduct studies and planning at the site. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Averett University installed Thomas H. Powell as its 16th president May 1, following the sudden resignation of its previous president, David Joyce, who cited his wife’s serious medical issue as his reason for stepping down after just three months. Powell, a former president of Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, comes to Averett amid reports of significant financial woes. In March, Averett filed a federal lawsuit against its former chief financial officer and an investment firm, alleging they drained close to $20 million from the university’s endowment without permission to meet university financial obligations. The investment firm has denied the allegations. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Southwest Virginia

Four coal miners have sued Buchanan Minerals, alleging that their termination from a Buchanan County mine in April violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Joshua McCoy, Joey Hill, Timothy Vance and William Stiltner filed the suit April 30 in U.S. District Court in Abingdon. Buchanan Minerals is a subsidiary of West Virginia-based Coronado Coal, which owns the Buchanan mining complex near Oakwood. In total, the company terminated 140 employees on April 28, and the suit is a proposed class action. (Cardinal News)

The $2.5 million High Knob Destination Center opened in Norton on April 25. Located at 1147 Laurel Ave. SW, the 5,300-square-foot building has an exhibit room, a meeting/event room, retail space, four offices and a kitchen area. The destination center is meant to serve as a gateway to the High Knob region, which includes communities in Lee, Scott and Wise counties. It will offer information and programming highlighting recreational, ecological, historic and cultural sites in the region. The project was funded by the City of Norton, grants from the Appalachian Regional Commission and the U.S. Transportation Department’s Federal Lands Access Program and contributions from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and Ballad Health. (The Coalfield Progress)

Hitachi Energy, a provider of electrical grid  infrastructure, plans to invest $22.5 million to upgrade its current facility in Bland County and to add a warehouse in Atkins, Gov. Glenn Youngkin  announced April 25. The project is expected to create 120 jobs. The Hitachi Energy facility in Bland is the United States’ leading source of dry-type transformers, which are used to adjust and stabilize the voltage of electricity flowing through power grids. Opened in 1972, the facility employs about 450 people. About $12.5 million will be invested in the Bland plant. The remaining approximately $10 million will go to the Smyth County facility that will handle core cutting and warehousing work. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Austin, Texas-based RWE Clean Energy, the U.S. subsidiary of German renewable energy company RWE, announced in early May it had completed six energy projects with a combined capacity of 999 megawatts, including one in Virginia: the now-operational 75-megawatt Wythe County Solar farm. The project employed more than 300 workers during peak construction. It will generate about $7 million in property tax revenue over its lifetime. The other five projects were scattered across states, with one in Arkansas, one in California and three in Texas. (News release)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notified the University of Virginia on May 1 that it is terminating a $19.9 million grant that would have funded eight Southwest Virginia projects, collectively called the Appalachian Environmental Resilience Community Change Grants Program. The projects include energy-efficient workforce housing in Buchanan County, a community center in Dickenson County, energy-efficiency improvements for child care centers in eight localities and research to identify locations for telehealth hubs that could double as safe places during natural disasters. The grant was awarded in January, before President Donald Trump took office. (Cardinal News)

The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority and the coal and natural gas industries in Southwest Virginia generated $13.48 billion in economic impact, including direct, indirect and induced measures, in the region in 2024, according to a Chmura Economics & Analytics study released in May. They supported a combined total of 51,245 jobs in the region. The total economic impact of VCEDA-assisted businesses alone in Southwest Virginia was $11.2 billion, supporting 45,045 jobs. Of that, their direct impact was $8.4 billion in total gross revenues and 28,036 jobs. (News release)