June For The Record

Roanoke/ New River Valley

In late April, Salem-based LewisGale Regional Health System broke ground for a new freestanding emergency room in Roanoke. Located on West Ruritan Road, the nearly 10,000-square-foot facility will be named LewisGale Medical Center Blue Hills ER and staffed with board-certified emergency room physicians and nurses. It is expected to open in 2022. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In May, Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Theatre had its first in-person performance since 2019, staging Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on the front lawn of Heights Community Church in Roanoke’s Grandin Village. The theater’s COVID-19 compliance officers put in their share of work. While seven members of the cast and MMT’s full staff already were vaccinated, actors who hadn’t yet been vaccinated were tested before performances. MMT plans to return to indoor performances at its theater in mid-June, including a production of “Legally Blonde” opening in late September. (WVTF)

Passenger train service will return to the New River Valley for the first time since 1979, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in early May. The $257.2 million deal with Norfolk Southern Railway is in addition to the $3.7 billion rail expansion Northam announced in March as part of the Transforming Rail in Virginia program. The agreement, called the Western Rail Initiative, extends service to the city of Radford and the counties of Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski. It also increases intercity passenger rail service between Roanoke and the Northeast Corridor, and the initiative includes $219 million in infrastructure investments. The completion date is set for 2025. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

A new government website and interactive map was launched in late April for citizens to monitor progress on a variety of broadband expansion projects dotting Roanoke County. After a final vote in April to approve a $3 million project with Cox Communications that will expand internet access to more than 300 homes in Windsor Hills, Cave Spring and Catawba, the county has amassed close to $4 million in private, local, state and federal funds for rural broadband in the past year. (The Roanoke Times)

In May, unionized workers at the Volvo Trucks North America plant in Pulaski County soundly rejected a five-year contract, negotiated after a strike that ran from April 17 to April 30. According to a notice posted on the United Auto Workers Local 2069 website, workers voted “no” on aspects of pay, benefits and work schedules by margins ranging from 83% to 91%. It was not clear whether production at the Dublin plant proceeded normally after the vote, with the expected level of UAW-represented staffing, or how or when negotiations would resume. The plant employs more than 3,300 people, about 2,900 of whom are UAW members. (The Roanoke Times)

Wing, a subsidiary of Google corporate parent Alphabet, started using drones to deliver Girl Scout cookies in April to residents of Christiansburg. The town has been a testing ground for commercial delivery drones since 2019, with packages ranging from drugstore offerings, FedEx packages and cold brew coffees, but this is the first time Girl Scout cookies have been delivered by drone. Wing said it began talking to local troops because they’ve had a harder time selling cookies during the pandemic when fewer people were out and about. Federal officials started rolling out new rules in April that will allow operators to fly small drones over people and at night, potentially giving a boost to commercial use of the machines. (The Associated Press)

Eastern Virginia

People in Hampton Roads reported in early May that gas stations were sold out of fuel and station owners saw a spike in demand for gasoline in the days following a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, which was shut down for several days. The fuel frenzy hit several states but was particularly hard on Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, due in part to a shortage of tanker truck drivers. Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency that loosened the state’s regulations to make it easier to get gas in tanks and also punished suppliers for price gouging. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Integrity Bank for Business opened for business in Virginia Beach in early May. The first new community bank established in Hampton Roads
since 1998, Integrity received regulatory approval in April and is led by former Heritage Bank President and CEO Michael S. Ives. In January it announced that it had raised more than $20 million in stock purchase commitments. The bank plans to focus on serving business customers in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

A modular housing manufacturer plans to establish its first East Coast facility in Newport News, investing $2 million and producing 220 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in mid-May. A public-benefit corporation and Certified B Corporation founded in 2018, indieDwell turns recycled shipping containers into small homes with one to four bedrooms to help solve the affordable housing crisis. The company currently has facilities in Idaho and Colorado, with plans to expand to other states, building factories in areas with low to moderate income and a need for affordable housing. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Signs are pointing to the Hampton Roads region’s COVID recovery picking up steam if workers return to fill thousands of jobs that are coming open again, according to Bob McNab, director of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy. Before the pandemic, the region had a tight labor market with low unemployment — 2.9% in February 2020. Wages and income began to rise then, and now broad-based growth is returning on rising consumer confidence, increased vaccination and an increase in demand from deferred consumption and travel. Businesses, particularly in hospitality, have reported they’re having trouble finding workers, with many advertising sign-on bonuses. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Norfolk-based Sentara Healthcare was named one of the top five large U.S. health systems in an annual ranking by Fortune and IBM Watson Health released in late April. Sentara landed in fifth place, receiving five stars for clinical outcomes and operation efficiency and three stars for patient experience. This is the second year Sentara was ranked among the nation’s top 15 health care systems. Also, Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk was named the No. 2 teaching hospital in the U.S. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Agriculture startup Sunny Farms LLC plans to build a $59.6 million, 32-acre hydroponic operation in Virginia Beach, creating 155 jobs and one of the East Coast’s largest greenhouses, the governor’s office announced in April. The facility, which will cover 1.2 million square feet when completed in three years, will be at Taylor Farms off Dam Neck Road. The company’s co-founders, Jim Arnhold and Wayne Zinn, worked with the School of Plant and Environmental Science at Virginia Tech and other industry experts to develop the greenhouse. The development will be the site of a new workforce training nonprofit, One Matters Inc. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Shenandoah Valley

The Frederick County Board of Supervisors has been sued for denying a conditional-use permit for a utility-scale solar power-generating facility in Gore. The lawsuit from Hollow Road Solar LLC, National Fruit Orchards Inc. and Diane Holmes, filed in April in the county’s Circuit Court, seeks a court order for supervisors to approve the permit. The suit also states the plaintiffs are entitled to a redress of $7.5 million. Supervisors voted 6-1 in March to reject the permit, which was part of the parties’ request to approve the county’s third solar facility within the past year. (The Winchester Star)

The Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority reached an agreement with its former executive director that requires her to pay the EDA $9 million to settle claims she used its money for her benefit. The EDA board voted in May to adopt a resolution that directs the Sands Anderson law firm to move forward with the judgment against Jennifer McDonald for no less than $9 million. The settlement cannot be discharged through her Chapter 7 bankruptcy case currently in federal court. (The Winchester Star)

Mary Baldwin University announced in late April it will require students 16 and older as well as faculty and staff to have a COVID-19 vaccination before returning to the Staunton and Fishersville campuses this fall. Earlier in the month, Attorney General Mark Herring said that Virginia colleges and universities have the right to require proof that anyone attending class in person has been vaccinated, although he left individual decisions up to schools. MBU, like most other schools with a vaccine requirement, is making an allowance for medical and religious exemptions. (News Leader)

Modine Manufacturing Co. will invest $7 million to convert its Rockbridge County warehouse into a manufacturing plant that will produce data center cooling solutions, creating 60 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. Modine has had a manufacturing facility since 1963 in Buena Vista, where it employs more than 260 people. The new operation will be at Modine’s former warehouse at 360 Collierstown Road.(VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Military Institute, which was pressured last year to remove a prominent statue of Confederate
Gen. Stonewall Jackson, took more steps to reduce its lingering tributes to the Civil War leader, a former professor at the college who owned six enslaved people. In its most notable decision made in early May, the college’s board of visitors voted to erase Jackson’s name as the author of a quotation mounted in bronze in the student barracks — a mantra that cadets and alumni memorize and has been engraved in class rings: “You may be whatever you resolve to be.” The maxim will remain, but the words “Stonewall Jackson” will be scrubbed. (The Washington Post)

The Washington and Lee University board will announce its name change decision in June, almost a year after the formation of a special committee to reconsider the university’s relationship to Robert E. Lee. The deliberation over dropping Lee’s name from the university has been lengthy. It began in July 2020, when the board formed a committee to gather input from all campus constituencies, analyze data and consult relevant experts. Mike McAlevey, rector of the board, announced the June deadline in a May email to the university community. (The Roanoke Times)

Southwest Virginia

Without naming Bristol, the executive director of the Virginia Lottery in April all but ruled out the possibility that a temporary casino could open this year. Officials of the Hard Rock Bristol Hotel and Casino Resort have on multiple occasions voiced plans to host temporary gaming while the casino project is being developed at the former Bristol Mall. The enabling legislation allows for a temporary location for up to one year before the permanent site opens but only after the gaming license is approved and several other steps occur. Lottery officials are currently developing regulations to govern the operation of five casinos in the state. (Bristol Herald Courier)

The federal Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities identified Southwest Virginia as the fourth most coal-dependent area in the United States in a report in late April. The finding, which is based on the percentage of total direct coal jobs relative to all employees within a region, designates the region as a priority community for “initial federal investments.” Roughly $38 billion in federal funding could be available for communities likely to be hard-hit by coal mine and power plant closures. The working group, which was created in January, consists of 11 federal agencies and the Appalachian Regional Commission. (Virginia Mercury)

Traeger Grills, manufacturer of the world’s top-selling wood pellet grill and signature hardwood pellets product, plans to build a $3 million manufacturing operation in Wythe County, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. The company plans to purchase wood products exclusively sourced from
Virginia and create 15 jobs in Wythe. The Utah-based company will partner with Musser Lumber Co. Inc., which produces materials for wood pellet producers, decking manufacturers and plastic extrusion companies. Last August, Musser announced its own $2.4 million expansion in Wythe. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In May, a Bristol, Tennessee, woman pleaded guilty in federal court in Abingdon for her part in a scheme to defraud the Virginia Employment Commission. The scheme involved dozens of co-conspirators, federal prosecutors said. Melissa Hayes conspired with others, including several people previously convicted in the case, to file claims for pandemic unemployment benefits through the VEC website, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The scheme involved submitting claims for several individuals who weren’t eligible to receive unemployment benefits, including inmates incarcerated in Southwest Virginia, prosecutors said. At least $499,000 in false claims were made. (Washington County News)

PEOPLE

Appalachian School of Law named its next president and dean, B. Keith Faulkner, in late April. He will begin his new role July 1, succeeding former Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, who will become president of the Virginia Tech Foundation in Blacksburg. Faulkner, previously dean of the Liberty University School of Law, was a litigator and served as the interim dean of North Carolina-based Campbell University’s law school. (Bristol Herald Courier)

Ballad Health named a new CEO of Smyth County Community Hospital in Marion. Dale Clark will succeed James Tyler, who is retiring, in early June, the health care system announced in May. Clark, a Bland County native who previously served as interim vice president and CEO of Ballad’s Wise County hospitals, will lead operations and services for the 44-bed acute care hospital and 109-bed nursing care facility. (SWVA Today)

Northern Virginia

Engineers working for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority determined in May thatAmazon.com Inc.’s Helix structure at PenPlace is roughly 13 feet taller than the maximum allowable height for structures near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. MWAA, which manages both Reagan and Dulles International airports, is responsible for monitoring construction projects to ensure they comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Amazon is seeking a variance from Arlington County to allow the Helix to reach a height of 354 feet. (Washington Business Journal)

Aerospace and defense contractor Boeing made a record $50 million, multiyear commitment to foster diversity at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus under development in Alexandria, Virginia Tech announced in early May. It’s the largest corporate donation ever made to the university, and the commitment from Chicago-based Boeing also ties
the largest private donation made to Virginia Tech, a $50 million gift made in 2019 from the Horace G. Fralin Charitable Trust and Heywood and Cynthia Fralin for the Fralin Biomedical Institute at VTC. Boeing’s donation will include student scholarships, recruitment of faculty and researchers, and funding pathway programs for underserved K-12 students seeking STEM degrees and technology careers. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Guidehouse, a management consulting company with clients around the world, will establish its global headquarters in Fairfax County, producing more than 900 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in May. The company plans to invest $12.7 million in a campus in McLean, where 1,550 people will work at full capacity. Virginia competed with Maryland and Washington, D.C., for the project. Owned by Veritas Capital, Guidehouse employs more than 9,000 people in more than 50 locations around the world and works in public and commercial markets, providing services in management, technology and risk consulting. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, along with Maryland’s senators, wrote President Joe Biden in May, requesting the federal government resume the selection process for a new FBI headquarters in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Springfield is one of three sites under consideration for a potential replacement for the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. Congress previously appropriated close to $1 billion in the selection process, which also includes two sites in Prince George’s County in Maryland. (Washington Business Journal)

Herndon-based national security contractor Peraton Inc. completed its $7.1 billion, all-cash acquisition of Chantilly-based federal IT contractor Perspecta Inc. in May, according to an announcement by Peraton’s parent company, private investment firm Veritas Capital. The combined companies will be known as Peraton and will be overseen by Peraton Chairman,

President and CEO Stu Shea. The purchase follows Peraton’s $3.4 billion cash acquisition in February of Northrop Grumman Corp.’s federal IT and mission support services business. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

People

Former private-equity chief Glenn Youngkin of Fairfax County became the Republican nominee for Virginia governor in May after his closest rival, business executive Pete Snyder, conceded while votes were still being tabulated. The two candidates, both of whom embraced the politics of former President Donald Trump, had been the leaders throughout the complicated, ranked-choice balloting process that slowly whittled down the field from seven contenders. Youngkin was CEO of Washington, D.C.-based The Carlyle Group and has an estimated personal worth of more than $200 million. Democrats are set to choose their slate of candidates in a June 8 primary. (The Washington Post)

Southern Virginia

The Danville Industrial Development Authority and The Alexander Co. are teaming up to redevelop the city’s White Mill on the Dan River as a mixed-use commercial and residential project, with $62.5 million invested in the first phase, city officials announced in May. Interest in the building, which once housed part of the defunct Dan River Mill’s manufacturing business, grew following the city’s approval of the Caesars Virginia casino project last year. The redevelopment will feature 110,000 square feet of commercial space and 150 apartments in the first phase, set to be completed in the summer of 2023. Another 100 apartment units are planned for the future. The Riverwalk Trail along the river also will be extended, and there will be a whitewater feature on the canal on the mill’s south side. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The largest single private land conservation gift to the state — 7,300 acres in Halifax County — was donated in April by North Carolina billionaire and Epic Games Inc. CEO Tim Sweeney. Known as Falkland Farms, the tract will be owned and operated by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and renamed the Southside Virginia Conservation and Recreation Complex. The property will be the first joint project between DCR’s Natural Heritage Program and Virginia State Parks, and the heritage program will conduct habitat restoration to replenish forest ecosystems. The land is home to 17 species of rare plants and animals, state officials said. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Five sites in Pittsylvania County are targeted for environmental assessments and development of clean-up plans under a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Federal officials announced the Brownfields Assessment Grant award in May. Sites targeted under the grant funding include the former Southside Manufacturing mill site, a former diner in Chatham, a block of South Main Street in Gretna, the Staunton Plaza Shopping Center and the 600-acre Burlington Industries property. Work is expected to start in October, and the grant is part of $1.5 million awarded to underserved and economically distressed communities in Virginia to assess and clean up abandoned and contaminated industrial and commercial properties. (Danville Register & Bee)

South Hill’s historic Colonial Theater was the chief point of contention at a Town Council meeting that ran almost five hours in May. The theater is seeking $175,000 in operating capital from the town for the coming fiscal year starting July 1. The debate swirled around what at least two council members said was a mistaken belief that there is a push to end town subsidies to the theater. Some council members and board directors of the South Hill Community Development Authority oppose taxpayer funding for the theater through the CDA until the Colonial is willing to provide evidence of how the money is being spent. The council’s budget committee has recommended a reduction in funding to $155,000. (Mecklenburg Sun)

PEOPLE

Jacqueline Gill Powell resigned as president of Danville Community College in April to become special assistant to Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia’s Community Colleges. She left after serving less than two years in the position. Muriel B. Mickles, who previously served as the vice president of academics, students and workforce development at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, began in May as interim president of DCC. (Chatham Star-Tribune)

Central Virginia

In May, California-based Aditx Therapeutics Inc. pledged to invest $31.5 million over the next three years in a new Richmond facility, producing 300 jobs. Aditxt is planning to build its first AditxtScore Center, a facility that will monitor patients’ immune systems, at Richmond’s Bio+Tech Park, set to open by the second half of 2021. The biotech company’s new platform measures patients’ immune biomarkers and predicts immunity to specific diseases, including COVID-19. Aditxt went public in June 2020 and is developing other programs, including one that is designed to retrain patients’ immune systems to tolerate transplanted organs and allergies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. has bought full ownership of a company that makes alternative smokeless tobacco products aimed at people who want to give up smoking cigarettes. Altria said in late April it had acquired the remaining 20% interest in the Swiss maker of a nicotine product called On! Altria agreed to pay $372 million in June 2019 to acquire a majority ownership stake in On!, an oral patch product that consumers buy in small cans. It contains nicotine but no tobacco leaf. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Amazon.com Inc. plans to build a multistory, 650,000-square-foot robotics fulfillment center near Richmond Raceway in Henrico County, creating 1,000 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. The center, which will be built on 119 acres of ancillary land used for overflow parking by the raceway, is expected to open in 2022. This is Amazon’s second robotics facility in development for Virginia. The mammoth e-tailer also is building a $230 million, five-story robotics fulfillment center in Suffolk’s Northgate Commerce Park. Richmond Raceway, which is owned by NASCAR, sold the 119-acre portion to Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties in April. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Goochland-based food service distributor Performance Food Group Co. announced in May it will purchase Core-Mark Holding Co. Inc. for $2.5 billion in stock and cash, a deal that will help push PFG further into supplying convenience stores. Core-Mark is one of the largest wholesale distributors to convenience stores in North America, and the acquisition would propel PFG as the Richmond region’s largest publicly traded company based on revenue. The deal would add about $17 billion in net annual sales to Performance’s bottom line, generating pro-forma annual net sales of about
$44 billion. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

On May 20, the city of Richmond’s
casino advisory panel recommended the ONE Casino + Resort to move forward for City Council and citizens’ consideration. If Council approves the measure and voters support it in a November referendum, the resort would be the first casino under Black ownership in the country. The $600 million resort was proposed by Silver Spring, Maryland-based Urban One Inc., which owns and operates 55 radio stations and the TV One cable network. The casino is proposed to be built on 100 acres owned by Altria Group Inc. on the city’s South Side, near Interstate 95. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Jennifer L. West starts July 1 as the University of Virginia’s first female dean of its School of Engineering and Applied Science. A researcher, inventor and entrepreneur, West comes from Duke University, where she was associate dean of doctoral education at the Pratt School of Engineering. She succeeds Craig Benson, who will remain on the engineering faculty. (VirginiaBusiness.com)