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Norfolk eyes two former school sites for development

The city government is soliciting help to figure out how to transform two former school sites into significant assets that generate tax revenue.

The city government has sent out two Requests for Information asking professional development firms to provide insights on how should develop the former Coronado School and former Madison School properties, which are now owned by the city.

The roughly 2.7-acre Coronado school property at 1025 Widgeon Road — recently appraised at $800,000 — is located in the Coronado neighborhood and is home to a 13,133-square-foot facility. The neighborhood is in the Sewells Point Corridor in central Norfolk and is a largely residential area of single-family .

Meanwhile, the 2.8-acre former Madison School site at 3700 Bowdens Ferry Road — appraised at $4.3 million — is located in the Neighborhood on the Hampton Boulevard Corridor, in western Norfolk. The property houses a 14,069-square-foot facility, originally built in 1962. The RFI describes Lamberts Point as “a historically diverse area of Norfolk” featuring a blend of single-family homes, retail spaces and the Lambert’s Point coal-exporting facility. The site is about a mile from , which enrolls around 23,000 students and is the fifth-largest employer in Norfolk.

Norfolk wants the firms to determine the best use of the properties, “maximizing legal, financial, and physical potential” and for the suggested uses to support the growth of the adjacent residential and commercial areas. The city asks the firms to clearly explain how they plan to develop the sites, devise a project timeline and explain how the city should fund the projects in their response.

The city wants the new uses of the properties to enhance the “social, economic, and cultural fabric” of the community. The RFIs also ask the firms to explain how the projects would benefit small, woman and minority-owned businesses. The city says the aim is to transform the properties into tax-producing assets. For the Coronado site, the city says it remains open to a wide range of residential uses, whereas for the Madison site, it says it is open to a wide range of both commercial and residential uses.

The city says the RFI process is for collecting information and gauging the interest of developers, with the insights gathered helping inform Norfolk’s strategies for developing the sites. Norfolk stresses the RFIs are not a competitive solicitation, and that the city will evaluate the responses solely for informational purposes and will not lead to the city awarding any contract.

However, the city says the information obtained in the process might inform the creation of a future competitive solicitation.

For both RFIs, the city says it must receive all responses no later than 4 p.m. Feb. 28.

City officials did not return requests for comment by press time.

Jan. housing inventory, prices increase in NoVa, Hampton Roads

Housing sales last month increased year-over-year in but dropped in , although inventory and sales prices rose in both regions.

Northern Virginia

Home sales, prices and inventory in Northern Virginia rose year-over-year in January, according to data released Tuesday.

Last month, 833 sold in Northern Virginia, up 8% from January 2024 — the first time the region has had a year-over-year sales increase in January since 2021.

“The beginning of 2025 has reaffirmed the strength of Northern Virginia’s market,” CEO Ryan McLaughlin said in a statement. “With closed sales up and price growth remaining steady, buyers are actively engaging in the market despite fluctuating economic conditions.”

New pending sales, however, fell 9.7% from January 2024, to 933 units. According to NVAR, that decline indicates some buyers may be adjusting to changing affordability conditions as prices rise.

Inventory in January also showed signs of improvement, according to NVAR. The month’s supply of inventory (MSI) — a measure of how many months there would be homes on the market if no new inventory were added — increased to 0.92, up 25.1% from the same month last year.

January 2025 statistics for Northern Virginia. Image courtesy Northern Virginia Association of Realtors

There were 1,261 active listings on the Northern Virginia market in January, up 28.5% year-over-year. New listings, though, totaled 995 units, remaining below the five-year average.

Homes spent an average of 31 days on the market last month, a 6.9% increase from January 2024.

The median sold price last month was $685,000, up 5.4% compared with January 2024. In turn, the total sold volume was more than $698 million, up 19.2% year-over-year.

“While rising inventory is a welcome trend, the market remains dynamic,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “With steady price appreciation and strong overall demand, Northern Virginia continues to be an attractive destination for homeownership.”

NVAR reports home sales activity for Fairfax and counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.

Hampton Roads

Housing sales in Hampton Roads dropped year-over-year in January, although inventory increased, according to data released Monday by the Information Network ().

Closed home sales in the region totaled 1,389 last month, down 5.51% from the 1,470 closed sales recorded in January 2024 and down from 1,901 in December 2024.

There were 1,748 pending sales in January, down from 1,765 in the same month last year but up from 1,662 in December 2024.

Active listings totaled 4,366 in January — a 23% year-over-year increase in homes for sale. In January 2024, there were 3,538 active listings, and in December 2024, there were 4,072 active listings. The MSI stood at 2.12, up from 1.72 last year and from 1.97 in December 2024.

January 2025 housing market data for Hampton Roads. Image courtesy Real Estate Information Network

“Additional inventory is always good for prospective homebuyers,” Barbara Wolcott with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty, president of REIN’s board of directors, said in a statement. “Likewise, the increased number of homes can help drive down prices for buyers, which is especially helpful since mortgage rates continue to climb.”

The median sales price in Hampton Roads was $340,000 in January, up from $320,500 in January 2024 and $355,000 in December 2024.

Homes spent a median of 27 days on the market in January, down from the 32-day median recorded in January 2024 and from the 29-day median in December 2024.

Founded in 1969, REIN is a regional multiple listing service that covers an area stretching from Williamsburg east to Virginia Beach and south across the North Carolina border.

Status of federal agency’s lawsuit against Capital One unclear

A lot has happened since Jan. 20, as the Trump White House employs “shock and awe” tactics at lightning speed. Among the consequences is the shutdown of the , a government watchdog over private industry.

Specifically, the CFPB’s pause in work leaves in question a major against McLean-headquartered and its parent company, , filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

On Jan. 14, in the waning days of the Biden administration, the CFPB filed suit in federal court against the credit card giant and its holding company, alleging the companies cheated millions of out of more than $2 billion in interest payments.

The CFPB alleged that Capital One misled consumers about “high interest” accounts, claiming Capital One Financial illegally deceived consumers and that Capital One N.A. — a national bank and wholly owned subsidiary of Capital One Financial — violated the Truth in Savings Act by falsely representing the 360 Savings accounts as providing a variable interest rate that was “one of the nation’s” “top,” “best” and “highest” and that customers would earn much more interest than with the average savings account.

Capital One responded with a statement last month following the filing: “We are deeply disappointed to see the CFPB continue its recent pattern of filing eleventh-hour lawsuits ahead of a change in administration. We strongly disagree with their claims and will vigorously defend ourselves in court.”

Just over a week later, Donald Trump entered office and since then has issued dozens of executive orders, some of which shut down entire government agencies, including the CFPB. The bureau’s director, Rohit Chopra, was fired, and Trump named Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as its acting director on Friday, Feb. 7.

Over the weekend, the agency, which has a mission to protect consumers in the financial sector, reportedly sent multiple missives to workers telling them that its Washington, D.C., headquarters were closed and that they should not do any work.  On Monday, the White House issued a news release calling the CFPB, which was created by Congress in 2010 in response to the 2008 banking crisis, a “woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy that leverages its power against certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called ‘elites.’”

“Under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the weaponization ends right now,” the release stated.

What that means for the lawsuit

CFPB’s case against Capital One remains on the docket at the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia’s Alexandria courthouse. However, several legal experts have speculated publicly that any CFPB enforcement actions will be shut down.

On Feb. 4, attorneys representing CFPB filed a request for an emergency motion for a temporary stay of deadlines related to whether the case should be consolidated with a class-action multidistrict lawsuit brought by Capital One 360 Savings accountholders “to promote consistency with the goals of the new Administration.”

A judge denied the motion for a temporary stay and gave the CFPB until Friday to file its position on consolidation.

“I’m very curious to see what happens tomorrow and how the bureau is going to proceed, because they’re in a court that moves very quickly and they want to know the CFPB’s position about how they’re going to move forward, but doesn’t seem like they’re really willing to accommodate too many extensions to hear from the CFPB about that,” explained Erin Witte, the director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), a Washington, D.C., association of nonprofit consumer organizations.

Witte shrugged off the fact that the lawsuit was filed in the final days of the Biden administration.

“It’s clear Capital One intentionally steered their customers out of a product that would have paid them more money, and they did it in a way that made it difficult for their account orders to figure out that that was even happening,” she said. “I mean, this is not a political football. This is a pretty clear violation of law when you read the allegations.”

Neither attorneys representing Capital One Financial in the lawsuit or the company’s spokespeople or the media office for the CFPB responded Thursday to requests for comment.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia’s senior Democratic senator, said Thursday in a media availability that he doesn’t follow individual actions filed by the CFPB, when asked about the Capital One lawsuit.

“In certain areas, I think they were very aggressive,” Warner said. “I have no problem with CFPB doing its job, but do it the way where you try to work with the litigant first.”

Warner pointed to the CFPB’s report that it has returned billions of dollars to consumers through law enforcement activity since its creation.

“What I do have the problem with is an organization that’s returned over $20 billion to consumers because of fraud, because of rip-off scams, arbitrarily being shut down with no warning,” he said. “I mean, what happens if it’s the FBI next? What happens if it’s…. [the] Environmental Protection Agency, just because it’s in the political crosshairs of some of the very wealthy folks who make up the Trump administration.”

Warner said that if President Trump wants to reform CFPB or any federal entity, he should present his ideas to the U.S. Congress, rather than taking unilateral action.

“Then we can try to come to agreement,” Warner said. “What we can’t come to is by executive fiat and a stroke of a pen, this president dismantling wide swaths of government that have broad bipartisan support. That’s just not the way the Constitution and system works.”

The CFPB’s shutdown comes amid fast-moving agency takeovers by Trump adviser Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Although some federal judges have put injunctions in place, Musk and his DOGE aides have received access to sensitive federal data, including personal and financial information of the nation’s more than two million federal workers.

Trump has given Musk the authority to cut the federal workforce and spending in many sectors, although the U.S. Post Office, military branches and border enforcement are mostly immune to cuts.

In the Feb. 10 press release, the Trump White House made several claims about the CFPB, including that in the waning hours of the Biden administration, “it gave itself the authority to regulate Americans’ checking accounts by dictating government price controls and unilaterally buried $50 billion in medical debt.”

That was in reference to the CFPB’s finalizing a rule in January under Biden that would keep medical debt from being included on credit reports. It was set to take effect in March. However, an executive order issued by Trump paused all rulemaking activity for 60 days.

Pushback on CFPB’s closure

The CFA issued a press release Sunday noting Congress transferred consumer financial protection functions to the CFPB when it formed. “Unless Congress passes , the suspension of supervisory work by the CFPB will not result in those responsibilities being returned to the agencies that formerly had them,” the association stated.

“The CPFB was created after excessive risk-taking by financial companies, many of whom were not supervised by a federal regulator, crashed our ,” Adam Rust, CFA’s director of financial services, said of the CPFB’s shuttering in a statement. “Millions of people lost their , work, savings, and businesses. It was created to protect people, not empower Elon Musk. If this administration chooses to cover its eyes from the facts, people will be put in harm’s way. This is a free pass for financial institutions to take advantage of consumers.”

The National Treasury Employees Union filed two federal lawsuits Sunday against Vought, alleging that “the administration has unlawfully trampled the power of Congress to create a that it deemed necessary to protecting American consumers” and that the CFPB violated the Privacy Act by disclosing employee records to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency.

Associate Editor Katherine Schulte contributed to this article. 

Peraton taps new senior vice president of talent acquisition

Reston-based has selected to be its new senior vice president of talent .

Pittman, who has almost three decades of experience in talent management and recruiting, made the announcement in a post on LinkedIn, saying she’s “grateful to friends and family for their unwavering support during this transition.”

According to Peraton, Pittman will oversee development, hiring, onboarding and redeployment functions and establish operational metrics to support the company’s business growth objectives.

Pittman comes to the new role after leaving Vistant, formerly PM Consulting Group, where she served as chief people officer. She previously worked at Leidos, where she was responsible for human resources and workforce management and development efforts.

Other roles Pittman has worked in include senior vice president of talent strategy and human resources at 1901 Group, managing partner at Jackson Business Consultants, vice president of human capital & compliance at Verato, and more than a decade at SRA International.

Pittman has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida State University.

Owned by Veritas Capital, Peraton purchased Chantilly-based contractor Perspecta and Northrop Grumman’s federal IT and mission support services businesses in 2021 for a total of $10.5 billion. In 2023, Peraton moved its headquarters, which serves as a hub for 5,000 of the company’s 19,000 employees, from Herndon to .

In September 2024, Steve Schorer was named Peraton’s chairman, president and CEO, replacing Stu Shea.

Loudoun County advances changes to data center regulations

Loudoun County has 117 in the pipeline, but its is considering substantial changes to how the county regulates the booming industry due to growing concerns from residents.

A board vote this week moved the issue forward, with a second vote expected in March to deal with expectations for pending data centers.

Citing a September 2024 report from Kimley-Horn, Vice Chair Michael Turner said there are 199 data centers on the ground in and 117 in the pipeline. Of these, 84 have site plans submitted.

But Turner noted that county officials and citizens have become concerned about the abundance of data centers popping up, noticing they were starting to be built in “inappropriate places,” i.e., right next to residential neighborhoods. This rapid growth prompted county officials to assess “where data centers are, where they could be, and where we don’t want them.”

According to a presentation from County Administrator Tim Hemstreet, the data center industry now generates 38% of all the county’s general fund revenues. But despite the financial upsides, opponents often complain about the data centers straining the state’s electric grid, the centers generating too much noise and the buildings being eyesores.

Additional oversight

On Wednesday night, the board voted 6-2 to advance changes to the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance. The comprehensive plan amendment makes data centers a “conditional use” in places where they are currently a core or complementary use. This change requires all future data centers to meet certain conditions to be built.

The zoning ordinance amendment designates data centers as a “special exception” use in county areas where they are currently permitted by-right. Turner explained that by-right applications could be approved administratively, whereas “special exception” requires applicants to go through a public hearing process and get approval for data centers from the board. The board plans to take a final vote on these proposed amendments during its March 18 meeting.

The board’s vote was preceded by an 80-minute public hearing, where several mayors and residents urged the supervisors to approve the amendments, saying they allowed for data centers to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and ensured the supervisors could mitigate the impacts of the centers. Many opposed adding provisions to grandfather in potential data centers with pending applications.

“If these new regulations are so necessary to prevent future harm, then we should apply them universally today, without loophole grandfathering provisions,” said Middleburg Mayor Trowbridge “Bridge” Littleton.

Members of the business community and other supporters argued that data centers support the local and provide high-paying . Several advocated for a grandfathering clause to be added to accommodate existing investments. According to Planning Director Daniel Galindo, there are 36 active by-right applications as of Dec. 1, 2024.

Ultimately, most of the supervisors decided to advance the matter to the March 18 meeting, with supervisors Caleb Kershner and Kristen C. Umstattd being the dissenting votes. Supervisor Matthew Letourneau was absent. Umstattd worried that the new regulations could harm Loudoun’s reputation as a place where people can do business.

“I have been increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that we are singling out one industry and targeting that industry to put limits on in a way that we don’t do with any other industry, or even with residential development,” she said.

Supervisor Koran T. Saines accused some of his colleagues of “fear-mongering” with the insinuation that data centers might avoid the county over the proposed zoning changes. Supervisor Laura TeKrony said by-right developments don’t give oversight and the voice the public asks for.

“A special exception ensures transparency and provides an opportunity for the community to voice support or concerns,” TeKrony said.

Before the March 18 meeting, county staff will present the supervisors with various options that would grandfather data centers with pending applications. Galindo said if the board decides to pass a resolution grandfathering some data centers, the vote on that resolution would also occur on March 18.

Turner told Virginia Business that the county’s changes to data center regulations will occur in two phases, with the first phase concluding with the vote that will take place in March.

“Phase two is we’re going to implement comprehensive performance standards on all data centers going forward, things like setbacks, power usage, noise levels, emissions controls and emission standards,” he said.

Energy concerns

A Dec. 9 report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission acknowledged the challenges in the state being able to provide the necessary infrastructure to keep up with the demands of data centers. The report found that a substantial amount of new power generation and transmission infrastructure will be needed to meet unconstrained energy demand or even half of unconstrained demand. The Virginia last year forwarded all data center-related bills to this year’s session so lawmakers could take JLARC’s study into consideration.

Turner foresees the challenges of the data centers and power resulting in one of three scenarios.

“The first is the utilities will cap the power available to the data centers just to protect the grid,” Turner said. “They won’t call it that, but they will.”

The second option, he said, is that the industry, on its own, will organically develop ways to process data with far less energy.

“And the third thing is the industry will get tired of being held hostage by the limitations of the grid, and they will develop their own on-site power with microgrids, so they have their own on-site power source,” he said.

Terracon

Terracon is pleased to announce the promotion of Chris Caton, PE, PG, PMP, to the position of Senior Principal. With over 26 years of industry experience, Chris is a program manager for federal projects and serves as a senior Geotechnical engineer and reviewer of project deliverables for the Geotechnical service line.

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Fairfax casino bill appears to be dead, following subcommittee vote

A that would have given the right to hold a casino referendum is likely dead for the 2025 session, after passing a vote last week in the Virginia State Senate.

Senate Bill 982, introduced by Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell, was passed by for the day — in other words, not passed along for a later vote in a — in a voice vote of the House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce Agriculture and Natural Resources on Wednesday. That’s ordinarily not a death knell for , but in this case it could be because that subcommittee is not scheduled to meet again this session.

Surovell’s chief of staff confirmed in an email that “essentially, yes,” the bill is tabled for the year, even though House Appropriations members have the ability to bring back bills for consideration after they have been tabled by a subcommittee.

A similar bill was introduced in 2024 by Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, but was killed in the Senate’s finance committee. His bill’s original proposed location was in Reston — a plan backed by developer Comstock Cos., which is developing Reston Station near the Dulles Toll Road. But plans changed to adjust the location near the Spring Hill Metro station in after senators received pushback from community members.

Under current state law, only five cities in Virginia are allowed to host one casino each: Bristol, Danville, , Petersburg and Portsmouth. Voters in each city have passed casino referendums on their ballots, and three are now open in Bristol, Danville and Portsmouth, while Norfolk’s resort is under construction.

Surovell presented his bill Wednesday afternoon to the House subcommittee, saying that he was “tired of Maryland eating our lunch,” referring to the MGM National Harbor Casino in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He said that the Fairfax County had not taken a position on the bill, although it did say it would like to gain more revenue to go toward school construction and other costs.

Several speakers spoke for and against the bill, including Sen. Jennifer Boysko, who represents part of Fairfax County and acknowledged it was unusual for a senator to visit a House subcommittee to speak against a fellow senator’s bill. However, she spoke on behalf of her “200,000-plus” constituents, who, she said, “were very clear” about their opposition to a potential casino in Tysons.

Many local homeowners groups and other Fairfax County organizations spoke against a casino in Tysons, although some residents and unions supported Surovell’s bill as it would provide opportunities.

“The voice of the people was finally heard today,” Paula Martino, president of the Tysons Stakeholders Alliance, said in a statement Wednesday. “Thank you to the members of the Senate who voted no and to the House of Delegates for listening to the thousands of Fairfax County residents who expressed their opposition to the Tysons casino legislation. If this bill had passed, it would have not only wreaked havoc on our county and region, but it would have set a bad precedent in circumventing local authority and the will of the local community.”   

Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, put forward the motion to pass by the bill, explaining that he felt the state needed a better regulatory framework to address more casinos outside of the five allowed under current state law.

Tysons’ Alarm.com buys stake in remote video monitoring company

Alarm.com has acquired a majority stake in , a Louisiana-based cloud platform for services, according to a Tuesday announcement by the home security tech company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to , the strengthens its “market opportunity in the emerging professional video monitoring space.”

Moving forward, CHeKT will operate independently, a news release stated. Video solutions offered by Alarm.com and its subsidiary OpenEye will be integrated into CHeKT’s control room software.

“CHeKT is a pioneer and a leader in the RVM space,” Jeff Bedell, president of ventures business and corporate at Alarm.com, said in a statement. “CHeKT’s deep industry experience has allowed them to design a comprehensive product that fits in seamlessly with monitoring station workflows. Their has attracted an impressive roster of partners, and we look forward to building on that momentum with the CHeKT team.”

Strategy, the Tysons tech company formerly known as , sold its security business to investors in 2009. Alarm.com, which had 1,989 employees at the end of 2023, went public in 2015.

PSI lands $156M contract to support VA’s electronic health records push

The U.S. Department of has awarded , which has its principal office in , a $156 million contract to provide test and evaluation support for the VA Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office (EHRM-IO) program.

The VA announced the award of the Independent Enterprise Testing and Support Services contract Monday on the System for Award Management (SAM) website.  The EHRM-IO is the VA office charged with preparing, deploying and transitioning to a new electronic health record system.

According to a Request For Proposal issued in November, will provide testing and evaluation support for the software, infrastructure, environments and operations of the Independent Verification and Validation test center.

In April 2020, PSI announced had received a five-year contract, with a value of $149 million, to provide services to the Enterprise Testing Service branch of the Veterans Affairs Office of Information and   and the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization.

Planned Systems International did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company was founded in 1988 and provides IT and management consulting services to government clients.

Va. economic outlook is positive, says Weldon Cooper Center forecast

Virginia’s long-term is positive, according to the ‘s for Public Service’s inaugural released Monday.

Weldon Cooper economists predict Virginia’s gross domestic product in 2025 will increase 2.4%, outpacing national growth. The U.S. GDP’s growth is expected to be 1.9% this year, slower than the 2.5% growth seen in 2024, according to a December 2024 Moody’s Analytics Forecast.

Statewide will moderate, according to the Weldon Cooper forecast, and the consumer price index will rise 2.6%, a 0.1 percentage point decrease from the CPI growth measured in 2023 and 2024. The national CPI rise is also expected to be 2.6%, according to Moody’s forecast.

Virginia’s growth will slow, dipping below the national average, but the state’s rate will stay below the national average, according to the forecast. Weldon Cooper economists expect the state’s employment growth to be 0.71% in 2025, down from the 1.7% growth seen in 2024.

The predicted employment growth represents a net gain of more than 30,000 jobs. The forecast predicts the average Virginia unemployment rate will be 3.4% this year.

The U.S. nonfarm employment rate is expected to increase 0.73% in 2025, and the average unemployment rate is projected to be 4.1% in 2025, according to Moody’s forecast.

The sectors that will contribute the most to job growth will be (about 5,070 new jobs), retail (almost 4,700 new jobs) and professional services (4,400 new jobs), according to the Weldon Cooper forecast. The report predicts that professional and technical services jobs will represent 11% of the state’s workforce by the end of the year.

The industries that face a challenging 2025, though, are information services, manufacturing, and mining and logging. The information services sector will lose about 141 jobs over the next year, according to the forecast. While manufacturing is expected to lose fewer than 100 jobs by the next quarter, the industry will lose a predicted 847 jobs by the end of 2025.

The mining and logging industry might see short-term job increases in early 2025 because of its seasonal cycle, but the forecast predicts will lose 67 jobs this year, a 0.9% annual decrease.

The forecast released Monday is the first of a quarterly series that will track the state’s economic trends from 2024 to 2050. A team of Weldon Cooper economists, including Executive Director Eric Scorsone, João Ferreira, Terry Rephann and Matt Scheffel, developed the forecast in collaboration with Michael L. Lahr, a professor at Rutgers University.