For years, residents in the Fredericksburg region looked north for opportunity and higher-paying jobs.
But more homegrown jobs and remote work are signs of change for the area, says Curry Roberts, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance, which includes Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford. “We’re developing a distinct economy from Northern Virginia,” he says, including jobs with similar pay.
A few years ago, Amit Kapoor, president and CEO of First Line Technology, was looking for property to expand his emergency response equipment manufacturing business in Northern Virginia. Founded 18 years ago, First Line was based in Chantilly, near Dulles International Airport.
Priced out of Fairfax and Arlington counties, “we started looking at Prince William and Stafford,” and landed on a 24,000-square-foot facility in Stafford, where the company expanded in fall 2019.
Kapoorsaysthatmanyofhis25 employees had long commutes to Chantilly, including First Line’s head of operations, who lives in King George County and often spent up to two hours on the road each day. “She was exhausted,” he says, and the move to Stafford has helped her and other employees reclaim their time. “Just the savings in money, the savings in time, the toll on your car. It also improves their time in the office.”
Also, he notes, purchasing property in Stafford saved the company about 50% compared with buying in Fairfax or Arlington, and First Line is able to pay everyone at the same salary level, no matter where they work. “We put a commitment on hiring folks from the Fredericksburg region,” says Kapoor, who splits his time between Chantilly and Stafford. “It’s been incredibly successful.”
Commuting from Fredericksburg to Northern Virginia or Washington, D.C., has largely been driven by economics, a 2019 commuter study indicated. People who commute north from Fredericksburg earn a median paycheck of $80,000, compared with $50,000 for those who work locally, according to the study by the University of Mary Washington, the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and the alliance.
The number of people commuting outside the region also rose — from 37% in 2013 to 42% in 2019. However, notes Roberts, the number of local jobs has grown in that time. “In 2019 and for the four years prior, we were in the top three [regions in the state] for job growth per capita, [according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership]. In 2019, we were first.”
“We’re developing a distinct economy from Northern Virginia,” says Curry Roberts, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance, which represents Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford. Photo by Will Schermerhorn
Over the past decade, the largest localities in the alliance have also seen solid demographic gains.
Fredericksburg’s population jumped by more than 18%, from 24,286 in 2010 to an estimated 28,766 in 2020, and Spotsylvania’s population rose 11% during that time to 140,032, according to the U.S. Census. Meanwhile, Stafford County’s population surged more than 20% to 156,927 in 2020.
As a whole, the region has a dynamic and ready workforce to meet employers’ needs, says Roberts, who served as the state’s secretary of economic development under Gov. Gerald Baliles.
In 2019 the region’s workforce participation rate — the number of people either working or actively seeking jobs — was pegged at 68.9%, which Roberts says was 3.4 points higher than the state average.
The state’s workforce participation rate dropped to 62.9% in August, reflecting the nation’s labor shortage, so Roberts estimates the Fredericksburg region’s rate to be about 66% for the month.
Companies and site consultants some-times view the region as being part of Northern Virginia — but that’s not the whole story, Roberts says. Land costs and taxes are significantly lower in the Fredericksburg area, with per capita local taxes averaging $1,639, compared with $2,978 in Northern Virginia, according to data compiled by the alliance.
Buying property south of Fairfax, Kapoor says he found land prices decreased by about 20%. He says First Line will still maintain a presence in Fairfax, but Stafford will be its primary facility.
Here are some of the other major economic development projects taking place around the area:
One of the biggest new employers coming to the region is a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic on a 48-acre site along U.S. Route 1. The VA expects to hire more than 300 people when construction is completed in 2023. Employment is projected to grow to 550 by 2026.
Kevin Marshall, Spotsylvania’s business development manager, says the economic ripple effects of the four-story, 450,000-square-foot clinic will energize everything from hotel development to nursing programs at local colleges.
“It’s a big win,” Marshall says.
But Marshall and Debbie Sanders, the county’s interim economic development director, hasten to point out that the clinic is not the only headline project for the county, which also is the site of the largest solar energy project east of the Rockies.
That’s particularly relevant these days, with the Biden administration’s recently announced goal that solar energy should make up nearly 45% of U.S. electricity by 2050 and the Virginia Clean Economy Act’s 100% carbon-free electric production goal for the same year.
The 620-megawatt Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center is currently under construction and will encompass about 6,350 acres. Approximately 3,500 acres will be developed as part of the solar project and about 2,000 acres will be remain undeveloped.
About 800 temporary construction jobs are expected to be generated by the project, but only 35 permanent positions. Meanwhile, the economic development office remains on overdrive.
“We’re not slowing down,” Marshall says. “Last year, we opened up 200 new businesses.”
A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic is expected to open in Spotsylvania in 2023, employing up to 550 people by 2026. Carnegie Management and Development Corp.
Stafford County
When he became Stafford’s economic development director in 2018, John Holden had a revelation: “One of the first things we did was to restructure and reposition some things that put us in position to attract a number of distribution and warehouse projects,” he says. “I knew that market was expanding and Stafford’s geographic position [along Interstate 95] … was pretty much designed for that kind of product.”
It’s worked out pretty well. In 2020, DHL Supply Chain invested $72 million to establish a distribution center in Stafford, yielding about 600 jobs. In September, Amazon.com Inc. announced that it would open a 200,000-square-foot delivery station, creating 100 jobs.
“Within the last three years, there will be permitted or built2.5 million square feet of flex industrial/ distribution space in Stafford,” Holden says.
On another economic development front, there has been long been talk of creating a “Downtown Stafford,” but the original vision has recently changed from the idea of a conventional downtown to something much more high tech.
Working in conjunction with the Center for Innovative Technology, Stafford is the site of Virginia’s first Smart Community Testbed, an initiative for testing new technologies in a real world setting.
Plugged by state officials as a “living laboratory for entrepreneurs,” pilot projects will focus on public safety, data security and training, economic development and tourism, as well as 5G technology. McLean-based OST Inc., a systems integrator that works on local, state and federal government projects, is a founding partner and will integrate the testbed’s projects.
Holden suggests that the development of a “smart city” model could be a big step in further diversifying the county’s economy as new technologies emerge.
The Fredericksburg Nationals baseball team debuted this year after a one-year delay due to the pandemic. Matt Christian/Fredericksburg Nationals
Fredericksburg
Among area localities, the city of Fredericksburg is the only one that has more workers commuting into the city than going out. Bill Freehling, the city’s economic development and tourism director, is proud of that.
But he also points to a number of big projects that have been in the works and are now completed or close to being finished.
One is the $90 million redevelopment of what used to be The Free Lance-Star newspaper’s headquarters, a 4-acre property that is being completely transformed into class A office space, along with new restaurants, residences and a hotel.
“People are interested in class A office space downtown,” Freehling says. Downtown Fredericksburg is eminently walkable, he says, with opportunities to stroll down to the Rappahannock River, which runs through the city, or to just duck into a nearby restaurant.
Another measure of pride for the city is its fielding of a Minor League Baseball team, the Fredericksburg Nationals (aka Fred Nats), which has a 5,000-seat stadium and attracts fans from throughout the region. The team debuted in 2021 after a one-year delay due to the pandemic.
Caroline County
Caroline has been having what economic development director Gary Wilson calls “a banner year.” Taking advantage of a surge in distribution centers along I-95, Wilson says the county recently rezoned land in Ruther Glen for a 1.1 million-square-foot speculative distribution center facility named Caroline 95 Logistics. It’s set to be available in the third quarter of 2022.
“It’s huge for us,” Wilson says.
On top of that, another developer also has plans to build an additional million-square-foot distribution center space.
In May, M.C. Dean Inc. broke ground on an 84,000-square-foot modular manufacturing and systems integration facility at its Center for Innovation and Industry in Caroline. The groundbreaking marks the second phase of a $25 million expansion announced in 2019, expected to create 100 jobs.
Headquartered in Tysons, M.C. Dean has a product line that focuses on large-scale, fully-integrated, modularized power, electronic security and telecom systems and rooms that are pre-commissioned before being transported to project and construction sites across the nation.
Caroline 95 Logistics, a 1.1 million-square-foot spec distribution center, will open this fall in Caroline County’s Ruther Glen area. Caroline County
King George County
The convergence of three major projects in 2023 could change the face and future of King George’s nearly 27,000 residents.
Nick Minor, the county’s economic development and tourism director, cites broadband expansion, a $750 million four-lane bridge (replacing an existing two-lane structure) that will connect King George with Charles County, Maryland, and zoning updates that will open the way for more industry.
Also, there is the rapid evolution of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren into a digital proving ground for artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other technology areas that will be critical to the future of modern warfare. That in turn could provide new opportunities for technology transfer into commercial uses, and better paying jobs in the county.
With important changes on the horizon, Minor has high expectations about the future: “We can’t move quick enough.”
When Kristy Johnson moved to Halifax County from Georgia in 2008, the community welcomed her family with open arms, she says.
Now she has the opportunity to return the favor as the new executive director of the county’s Industrial Development Authority.
Johnson’s no stranger to the organization. She’s worked for the IDA since 2009 in various roles, starting as operations manager, then in marketing and business development before moving up the ladder to deputy director. Prior to that, she was mayor of the town of Halifax and served on several local chamber of commerce committees.
Johnson became the IDA’s executive director in mid-September, replacing Brian Brown, who was terminated by the IDA board in October 2020 after a little more than a year on the job. A few months after the firing, IDA board member Rick Harrell said, “We made that change because we saw an operational weakness. It wasn’t any … malfeasance of any kind.”
That’s not a problem he sees in Johnson. “She is strong in the operational area,” says Harrell. “One of the things I know she’s going to concentrate on is existing business.”
Johnson sees the major focus of the IDA as supporting the area’s existing businesses, promoting retention and expansion. Her role in that? “Getting to visit our existing industries and hear their challenges and opportunities and support them in their endeavors, and improving our community that way,” she says.
Johnson would like to be more targeted about recruiting outside industries that would complement existing industry, for example, needed suppliers or services. She plans to do that by meeting with existing industry plant managers, HR managers and others on a regular basis. The biggest challenge she’s heard so far from businesses coming out of the pandemic is re-establishing a feeling of safety for employees who may have left the workforce.
In her new role, she has done a lot of listening. And at the end of the day, she says, the IDA needs to re-establish itself as a partner “not just in words, but in action.
“My goal is for us to continue to do good work and those relationships will begin to repair themselves and our efforts will become evident that we mean what we say when we say we want to be a community partner and support and try to recover from this turbulent period.”
Ashley Apple has advice for those hoping to understand the burden nurses face as COVID-19 surges once again while hospitals suffer staff shortages.
“Think of the worst day you’ve ever had at work. Then add in poor staffing and multiple human deaths. Then repeat it every day for 18 months,” she says. “That’s sort of where we are.”
Apple was an emergency room nurse at St. Francis Medical Center in Chesterfield County during the early days of the pandemic. Today, she is a family nurse practitioner with KidMed Pediatric Urgent Care. While her career transition was already in the works, Apple admits that the pressures of COVID-19 hastened her exit.
Also commissioner on government relations for the Virginia Nurses Association, Apple is troubled as she hears from colleagues choosing to leave their hospital jobs.
“This is not sustainable,” Apple says of the rate of turnover among nurses. “We have to do something, or we are going to face dire public health consequences.”
Hospitals across Virginia are struggling to retain and recruit nurses as the pandemic nears the two-year mark.
In its 2021 industry report, national nurse staffing firm Nursing Solutions Inc. found that in its Southeast region, which includes Virginia, turnover among registered nurses working at hospitals during 2020 was 24.6% — a 4.7% increase over the previous year, and higher than the national average of 19.5%.
Amid a COVID-19 surge in recent months, the challenge facing many hospitals has not been having enough licensed beds, but having enough staff members available to care for the patients who occupy those beds, says Julian Walker, vice president of communications for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.
Enrollment applications are up at VCU’s School of Nursing, says Shelley Conroy, associate dean of graduate programs, but it’s difficult to find enough faculty members. Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown
The situation is forcing hospital administrators to make difficult decisions about whether to cancel or delay nonemergency procedures, divert ambulances or hire expensive travel nurses — contract workers who are hired for temporary positions at hospitals around the country.
A chronic problem
While the pandemic has highlighted the nursing shortage, the problem is not new. In 2010, the Virginia Nurses Association published a study warning that by 2020, one in three Virginians would not receive necessary health care because of a shortage of registered nurses.
As the most recent wave of the pandemic floods emergency departments, some in the profession worry that the impact on nurses’ mental health will have ongoing repercussions that will be a long-term burden on this workforce.
“I am seeing a level of post-traumatic stress disorder in individuals now going through the second wave with COVID,” says Linda Shepherd, chief nursing officer at Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon, which is owned by Ballad Health. Shepherd is also president of the Virginia Nurses Association.
Hospital administrators and human resources executives are seeing nurses retire early, transition into nonclinical roles or leave staff jobs for higher-paying travel nurse positions.
“A surprising number are leaving health care altogether, which is really breaking my heart,” says Wendy Horton, CEO of the University of Virginia Medical Center.
The UVA Health system‘s voluntary turnover rate among registered nurses this September was 19.1% — significantly higher than the 10% to 12% rate Horton is accustomed to seeing at the hospital. “This is the first time in my career that I have seen this type of turnover,” she says.
“We are seeing the fatigue of this marathon of COVID,” notes Paul Hudgins, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke. “Folks are getting out of bedside care and looking at other types of jobs.”
‘Tradeoffs every day’
As a result, hospitals are forced to decide how to allocate their staff.
At Johnston Memorial Hospital, Shepherd says that managers and other nonclinical staff are jumping in to take on tasks such as answering phones, which can free up nurses to focus on caring for an increased patient load.
Several Virginia hospitals have had to request emergency medical services to temporarily divert ambulances to other hospitals, a measure Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital took twice in late August and early September, officials told local media outlets. Diversion orders lasted at most four hours.
“Staffing is a big part of it and a big contributor to why you are seeing hospitals and health systems take unprecedented steps,” Hudgins says.
The Old Dominion EMS Alliance, which includes 25 hospitals and 100 emergency
medical services agencies in Central Virginia, operated under “code black” — meaning at least eight of its member hospitals were diverting ambulances — for an unprecedented 35 consecutive days ending Sept. 22, according to Executive Director Heidi Hooker.
Hooker emphasizes that code black allows ambulance dispatchers to evenly distribute patient load among hospitals that have capacity — but adds that patients with critical issues will always be taken to the nearest hospital.
In late August, UVA Health announced that it was postponing some nonemergency surgeries due to rising patient loads and staffing concerns — a step that other hospitals around the state have also taken during the most recent wave of rising COVID-19 cases.
Horton says this is one of the many options hospital leaders examine daily to manage available resources while also balancing extra work related to the pandemic, such as testing and vaccination drives. “There are tradeoffs every day,” she says.
Meanwhile, the nationwide shortage of nurses has boosted the pay rates for travel nurses as high as $7,000 to $8,000 a week. By comparison, a registered nurse in Virginia earned about $1,488 a week in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ mean wage report.
“In Virginia we are not seeing the super-high rates we are seeing in some of the other states, but the nurses are,” says registered nurse Diana Wylie, who is vice president of business development for FlexRN, a Fredericksburg-based nurse staffing agency that’s part of American Medical Staffing. “They see they can make $8,000 to $10,000 a week in Florida or Texas or Louisiana. Now you are pulling on a workforce that maybe wasn’t willing to travel before, but can now go make double or triple their normal wage if they leave Virginia.”
Horton says the salary boost in other states presents problems for hospitals here to attract contracted nurses.
“We can’t even get travelers to come here because they are very attracted to those very high rates and also to the hotspot areas,” Horton says. “Many are breaking their contracts early and going to hotspots.”
For staff nurses, watching a temporary employee make multiple times their pay for the same job can be demoralizing, says Apple.
It also highlights a problem that predates the pandemic: Nurses already felt overwhelmed as nurse staffing levels declined in many hospitals in an effort to contain costs.
“Going into the pandemic, they were already burned out, working mandatory overtime — things like that,” Apple says. “It has compounded an already stressful situation.”
A fear of losing even more staffers has caused some Virginia hospitals to stop short of mandating COVID-19 vaccines for their staff members — even as health care officials urge the public to get vaccinated to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
So far, Carilion Clinic has not mandated vaccinations for employees, but has instead strongly encouraged it, even offering $150 bonuses for employees to get vaccinated by Oct 1. “Staffing was a part of that discussion,” Hudgins acknowledges. “If there was a statewide mandate, obviously we would do that. If all of our brethren in health care went down this path, I think we would have gone down that path as well.”
Meanwhile, HCA Healthcare, which runs 13 hospital campuses and dozens of smaller facilities in Virginia, and Ballad Health, which operates seven hospitals in Southwest Virginia, also have stopped short of requiring shots among employees.
Other health systems — including InovaHealth System, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, UVA Health and Valley Health — have all mandated vaccinations.
In Hampton Roads, the region’s major health care employers — Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, Riverside Health System and Sentara Healthcare — set a deadline of Nov. 1.
This patchwork of policies may soon be moot, however. The Biden administration was expected in October to issue guidelines requiring vaccinations for workers in most health care settings that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement, including hospitals. The mandate is anticipated to require vaccinations for the majority of health care workers.
Building a better pipeline
Shelley Conroy, associate dean of graduate programs at VCU’s School of Nursing, says she is seeing continued interest in nursing degrees, especially the advanced degrees VCU offers. “Applications are up, to the point that we can’t handle all of the students.”
Two challenges, however, are hiring enough faculty to teach these future nurses — nurses with advanced degrees can earn more money in practice than in academia — and providing students with clinical placements required for the degrees.
VCU has tried to bridge this gap by sharing the pool of nurses with advanced degrees with the university health system. These nurses spend 40% of their time teaching and 60% in clinical work.
In Charlottesville, Piedmont Virginia Community College is working to increase the number of nursing graduates from 100 to 150 per year, working closely with U.Va. to create a smoother pipeline of nurses ready to work.
The 50 new graduates would start work in January instead of August, to provide a more consistent stream of new employees to area hospitals. But the plan is contingent on hiring two new nursing instructors.
“We are searching right now,” PVCC President Frank Friedman says. “It is very difficult to find qualified nursing faculty.” He also notes that while PVCC typically receives 250 to 300 applications for its 100 nursing spots, the pandemic may have an impact on student interest.
“We have seen some current students withdraw from our program out of fear,” he notes. “They don’t want to work in a hospital. They are afraid to expose themselves to COVID. We [also] had about seven individuals withdraw this semester because vaccinations are mandatory” at area hospitals.
Apple, Shepherd and others say that in order to attract and retain nurses, employers need to offer more professional respect, increased mental health support and decreased nurse-to-patient ratios.
While many hospitals are adding mental health resources and experimenting with more flexible scheduling, Horton admits that compensation is a challenge.
In October, UVA Medical Center announced that the health system would commit more than $30 million during the 2022 fiscal year to increase compensation and make market pay adjustments for much of its workforce.
Dorrie Fontaine, former dean of the U.Va. School of Nursing, says she has been getting calls from many hospitals, asking her to talk to their staff about managing stress and anxiety. She recently published a book, “Self Care for New and Student Nurses.”
“Self-care is great,” she says, but hospitals can greatly help their recruitment and retention efforts by ensuring that nurses are supported with adequate staffing and appropriate recognition for the work they do. “Until you have hospital systems who treat nurses with the respect and dignity they deserve, all the yoga in the world is not going to be enough.”
Apple also worries that the current stresses on nurses will have long-lasting impacts on the health care workforce if these professionals aren’t better supported with adequate staffing and appropriate recognition for the work they do.
“We didn’t sign up to be soldiers. We are caretakers,” she says. “We have found ourselves on a battlefield, and we need help.”
On a September afternoon, Stuart Wright was trying to persuade a tourist to bring her son back to visit the town of Damascus in Washington County.
“Bring that little boy down here and he can play in the river, he can hike, he can bike the trail,” Wright coaxed. “Bring him where he’s got something to do.”
Wright, who owns a number of vacation cabins in the area, along with a lodge, an inn and an RV park, serves as the unofficial cheerleader for tourism in Damascus, his hometown.
Back in the 1970s when Washington County leaders first started talking about converting an abandoned 35-mile Norfolk and Western Railway corridor into the Virginia Creeper Trail, a hiking and biking destination running from Abingdon through Damascus to the Virginia-North Carolina line, Wright wasn’t on board.
“I fought to keep the train here,” he recalls. “I thought we needed the train but, boy, I was wrong.”
Even amid a pandemic, Wright says, tourism thrives in Damascus, a town once known for its now-departed timber and furniture industries. As proof, he points to Brinkwaters, the downtown boutique hotel that began welcoming guests in August. It sits near the Appalachian Heritage Distillery, which will open a tasting room and store in October not far from the new Appalachian Trail Center scheduled to open during Damascus’ Trail Days celebration in May 2022.
“Damascus is the poster child for what tourism can do for a community,” Wright says.
Trey Waters had listened to his buddy Wright kvetch so much about having to turn away potential guests because his properties were always booked that Waters, a pharmacist and real estate developer, decided to transform a downtown building he owned into the Brinkwaters hotel, which he says is more accurately described as “a big box of Airbnbs.”
Waters, who splits his time between Montana, North Carolina and Damascus, partnered on the project with his friends Eric and Emily Brinker, who own a Raleigh-based construction company. Brinkwaters is a combination of the partners’ last names.
In addition to sleek modern furnishings, some of the hotel’s 13 suites include full kitchens and sleeping lofts. A bike rack sits in front of the building for guests who come to pedal the Virginia Creeper Trail.
Word about the hotel seems to be out. “We’ve been at capacity for the last several weekends,” Waters says. “That’s tremendous.”
Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. announced the elections of two board members Wednesday and its third quarter earnings Thursday.
Marjorie M. Connelly and R. Matt Davis joined Altria’s board of directors.
“Both Marge and Matt bring a tremendous amount of senior-level public company experience,” Altria Board Chair Kathryn McQuade said in a statement. “I believe that their significant expertise, including in operations, business strategy, consumer insights and public policy, will enhance the board’s strategic oversight.”
Connelly was the chief operating officer of Cincinnati-based customer management company Convergys Corp., now integrated into Fremont, California-based Concentrix Corp., from November 2014 until December 2017. She has also held leadership positions with credit card company Barclaycard, now-defunct Wachovia Securities and McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. Currently, she serves as a director of Norfolk-based debt collector PRA Group Inc. and as an adviser to Philadelphia-based MissionOG, a venture capital firm. Connelly will serve on several Altria committees: audit; innovation; and nominating, corporate governance and social responsibility.
In 2018, Davis retired from his roles as Dow Inc.’s president of North America and senior vice president of global corporate affairs, a position he had held since 2016. From 1987 to 2016, Davis held varying roles with Dow Inc. Since 2019, he has served as president of leadership training company Driftwood Leadership LLC. He will serve on the following Altria committees: finance; innovation; and nominating, corporate governance and social responsibility.
John T. Casteen III, a director since 2010, will retire from service on the board when his term ends.
Altria reported almost $6.79 million in third-quarter profits Thursday, bringing the company’s year-to-date revenues to nearly $19.76 million.
Altria wholly owns Philip Morris USA Inc. and has exclusive U.S. commercialization rights to the IQOSTobacco Heating System, which the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in late September the companies must stop selling and importing. The decision was the result of a patent case brought by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The ban will take effect near the end of November, after the conclusion of a two-month administrative review. Philip Morris has said it plans to appeal the ruling.
The company is trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “FLNC.” As of 3:55 p.m. Thursday, the shares were trading for $35.43. The IPO, which could raise $868 million, is expected to close on Nov. 1.
Fluence has offered underwriters 30 days to purchase 4.65 million additional shares at the public price minus underwriting discounts and commissions.
The company, already valued at more than $1 billion, could raise its valuation to $4.7 billion. Fluence said it expects revenue of up to $699 million for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a jump from the $561 million earned in the previous fiscal year.
All outstanding shares of Class B-1 common stock will be held by AES Grid Stability, Siemens Industry and respective subsidiaries, which will represent more than 90% of the voting power of common stock, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission S-1 form that Fluence filed Oct. 19.
Fluence, which was founded in 2018 as a joint venture of Arlington-based Fortune 500 energy company AES and industrial manufacturer Siemens, announced late last year that the Qatar Investment Authority will invest $125 million in the company, with AES and Siemens retaining approximately 44% shares each of the company.
Fluence has more than 3.4 gigawatts of energy storage in 29 markets globally, and more than 4.5 gigawatts of wind, solar and storage assets in Australia and California.
Erik Shannon will become the interim CEO of University of Virginia Community Health on Nov. 5, the network announced Thursday.
UVA Community Health is a network of outpatient services across Culpeper and Northern Virginia, with UVA Culpeper Medical Center, UVA Haymarket Medical Center and UVA Prince William Medical Center.
Shannon was most recently a partner at Chicago-based auditing and accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP, where he helped lead the integration of UVA Community Health into UVA Health after UVA Health became the full owner of the health system in July. Shannon will continue to work on the transition over the next few months.
“During his extensive health care career, Erik has led significant strategic initiatives across more than 75 health care systems across the country, in addition to having vast experience in community hospital leadership roles,” UVA Health CEO Dr. K. Craig Kent said in a statement. “Through his transition leadership role, Erik has accumulated deep knowledge of all of UVA Community Health’s operations, making him a clear candidate for the role.”
Shannon succeeds Al Pilong, who will be the president and CEO of Garnet Health in New York. UVA Health will conduct a national search to select a permanent CEO for UVA Community Health.
Virginia’s new unemployment claims rose by about 30% last week, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Thursday, but remained about 8,000 lower than the number filed two weeks ago.
For the filing week ending Oct. 23, Virginians filed 2,570 initial claims, an increase of 603 claims from the week before. Continued claims totaled 44,840, a decrease of 13,581 from the previous week.
Compared to the same week last year, initial claims were about 79% lower than the 12,352 recorded then. Continued claims were 65% lower than the 127,621 from the comparable week last year.
People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.
The majority of claimants who filed for benefits last week reported being in these industries: health care and social assistance; retail; accommodation/food service; and administrative and waste services.
The VEC has been under scrutiny this year for backlogs of claims and, most recently, for delaying the launch of its updated claims system from Oct. 1 to November. VEC is shutting down the current system at 5 p.m. on Monday to implement the new system, a process that it expects to take several days, WDVM reported.
Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 281,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised level and the lowest level for initial claims since the 256,000 reported on March 14, 2020. There were 732,533 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020.
Denver-based apparel and footwear company VF Corp. will create 82 jobs with a $10.2 million expansion within Henry County, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday.
The company will make upgrades within its 500,000-square-foot facility in Martinsville to increase distribution capacity and speed.
“VF Corp. has thrived in Henry County for nearly 20 years, and we are thrilled to see the company continue to invest in the commonwealth,” Northam said in a statement. “Virginia’s strong outdoor recreation economy supports the growth of companies like VF Corp. We look forward to the company’s continued success here in the commonwealth as our ecotourism industry grows.”
VF Corp. owns a family of outdoor, active and workwear brands including Vans, The North Face, Timberland and Dickies. The company, which has operated in Henry County since 2003, reported $9.2 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2021, sells products in more than 170 countries and produces 300 million units of apparel, footwear and accessories each year.
“We’ve proudly operated our distribution center in Martinsville for 18 years, and we know that continuing to invest in Martinsville is the right choice given its location and committed employees,” Cameron Bailey, VF Corp. executive vice president of global supply chain, said in a statement. “The planned investments in this facility, from enhanced technology to improved distribution equipment, as well as the 82 new full-time positions, will help deliver our products to our consumers in a more efficient and prompt manner.”
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. and the Virginia Office of Outdoor Recreation to secure the project, for which Virginia competed with California and Pennsylvania. Northam approved a $225,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Henry County. The company is eligible to receive benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, which is administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program will provide funding to support employee recruitment and training activities.
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)
Bailey
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)
People
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)
Maxey
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)
Shenandoah Valley
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)
People
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)
Southwestern Virginia
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)
Southern Virginia
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)
Central Virginia
Henrico County-based tobacco giantAltria 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)
Northern Virginia
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)
Tremaglio
PEOPLE
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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