French global tech company IDEMIA, which has its U.S. headquarters in Reston, announced Wednesday it has named Donnie Scott the new CEO for its North American identity and security business.
Scott, a 20-year veteran of the public security and IT solutions industry, was promoted from his current position as senior vice president and general manager of IDEMIA’s North America public security division, effective June 1, according to a company news release.
“I am honored to be leading I&S North America at a time when more than ever our society needs trusted, technology-enabled solutions to facilitate their travel, commerce and access to public services,” Scott said in a statement. “We have ambitious growth objectives as a team here at I&S supported by our long history of delivering market-leading identity and security solutions to both government and commercial customers here in North America.”
IDEMIA President and CEO Pierre Barrial said, “I have worked closely with Donnie for a number of years and know that he is the right leader at the right time to lead our efforts in such an important market for the group.”
Scott formerly was a sales leader at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Electronic Data Systems. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and currently serves as the treasurer of the International Biometrics Industry Association.
With several locations throughout the U.S. and internationally, IDEMIA employs approximately 15,000 people worldwide.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin raised $8.3 million over April and May, the highest amount in Virginia’s gubernatorial field, according to campaign finance reports issued Wednesday. However, $6.5 million was from his own bank account, in personal loans made to his campaign over the past six weeks.
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe continues to dominate the field of Democratic contenders for governor in terms of fundraising, increased his campaign war chest from $8.5 million in early April to $11.3 million over the past two months. However, McAuliffe’s campaign also spent more than $8 million in April and May, and was left with $3.2 million on hand by the end of May, the Virginia Public Access Project reported. Youngkin, the former CEO of The Carlyle Group, started April with a balance of $3.2 million and had $4.3 million cash on hand as of May 27.
With less than a week left until the June 8 Democratic primary, McAuliffe remains the candidate to beat in the governor’s race, both in polling and fundraising. Former state Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy raised $1,027,753 over the past two months, building on her April 1 balance of $2.3 million, closely followed by state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who raised $1,014,414 between April 1 and May 27 but started with a $442,042 balance. Del. Lee Carter and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax lagged far behind, raising less than $20,000 apiece during the same period.
In the attorney general Democratic race, incumbent Mark Herring outearned Del. Jay Jones during the past two months, bringing in $1.3 million in donations, doubling his starting balance of $1.3 million on April 1. Jones, who received Gov. Ralph Northam’s endorsement and started April with a $1 million balance, raised $674,306 over the past two months.
Del. Jason Miyares, the Republican nominee for attorney general, raised $247,891 since April 1, adding to his starting balance of $341,065. Winsome Sears, who won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, raised $326,931 over the past two months, in addition to her $64,020 April 1 balance.
As for the six-person Democratic field of lieutenant governor candidates, Del. Mark Levine leads the money race with $658,906 raised over the past two months, although he lent $530,000 to his own campaign during the period. Del. Sam Rasoul raised $543,973 since April 1, on top of his balance of $952,667, and Del. Hala Ayala raised $478,069 over the past two months, adding to her $154,960 balance.
Early voting in the Democratic primaries started in April and concludes Tuesday, June 8. Republicans chose their nominees last month in a nominating convention.
Sentara Healthcare and Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health have abandoned plans for a merger first announced in August 2020, according to a joint statement released Wednesday from the two health care systems.
The Sentara Healthcare Board of Directors and the Cone Health Board of Trustees came to the mutual agreement to end affiliation plans late last week, according to the announcement.
The two health care systems, which would have had a combined $11.5 billion in annual revenue, with 17 hospitals in Virginia and North Carolina, began working in earnest to merge earlier this year, after announcing their deal last August.
In Wednesday’s statement, Sentara officials said, “As this work progressed, we realized that each of our communities and key stakeholders require support and commitments from our respective organizations that are better served by remaining independent. The decision was a difficult one, but both organizations remain dedicated to advancing our common goal of providing outstanding care for our respective communities.”
The two systems were expected to finalize their merger sometime this summer, although a specific date was not announced. In recent weeks, Sentara announced the hiring of Virginia Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne as the health care system’s senior vice president and chief of staff, and Melinda S. Hancock of the VCU Health System as Sentara’s senior vice president and chief administrative officer, with both starting in July.
Sentara President and CEO Howard P. Kern said in a statement Wednesday, “Sentara Healthcare and Cone Health are high-performing, well-respected, community-focused organizations. Those similarities served as the basis for efforts toward an affiliation. I am confident that this mutual decision will not alter either organization’s ongoing commitment to meet the needs of our respective communities. Sentara and Cone Health remain aligned and in agreement that our first priority is to those we serve, and we believe this will be better done as independent organizations. I have no doubt that Cone Health will remain a top tier health system and will continue to pursue new and innovative ways to provide value for North Carolinians for years to come.”
Sentara has 12 hospital locations in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. The health system employs more than 1,200 physicians and 30,000 people who serve in other roles. Sentara’s Optima Health Plan and Virginia Health Plan serve 850,000 members in Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio. The Cone Health system includes five hospitals in North Carolina, and the health system employs more than 13,000 people. Through its Medicare Advantage health plan, HealthTeam Advantage, it serves 15,000 members.
Thirty-nine Virginia-based companies made Fortune magazine’s 67th annual Fortune 1000 list, which was released Wednesday. The list ranks the 1,000 largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Twenty-two companies made the elite Fortune 500 list, including Fortune 500 newcomer CACI International Inc., which was ranked at No. 473 this year. It was ranked No. 549 on the 2020 list.
Notably, McLean-based global hotelier Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., which saw major revenue losses during the pandemic, fell off the Fortune 500 list this year, plummeting from No. 338 on the 2020 Fortune 500 to No. 596 on the 2021 Fortune 1000. Hilton reported $720 million in losses for 2020 and its per-room revenue dropped more than 56%.
Companies that moved up significantly on the Fortune 500 this year include Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (+59); Science Applications International Corp. (+54); Leidos Holdings Inc. (+41); CarMax (+37); NVR Inc. (+34); and Huntington Ingalls Industries (+30).
Richmond-based Arko Corp., a holding company for the nation’s sixth-largest convenience store chain, GPM Investments LLC, debuted on the 2021 Fortune 1000 list at No. 681. With brands including Fas Mart and E-Z Mart, GPM has been growing aggressively and acquired the ExpressStop chain in May.
Ten Fortune 500 companies and 18 Fortune 1000 companies on this year’s list are headquartered in Fairfax County. Seven Fortune 500 companies and 12 Fortune 1000 companies are based in the Richmond area, including Goochland, Hanover and Henrico counties.
These are the Virginia-based companies that made the 2021 Fortune 1000 list, in order of ranking:
47)Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (“Freddie Mac”),McLean, Virginia
Arlington-based Accenture Federal Services (AFS) has entered into an agreement to acquire Novetta, a McLean-based federal contractor specializing in advanced analytics, machine learning, cyber services and cloud engineering.
Terms of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory review, were not disclosed in the announcement released Tuesday by AFS.
With 1,300 employees, Novetta is a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group, the Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm where Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin was co-CEO until his retirement last year.
“Novetta will bring expanded capabilities, broad client relationships and unique assets that complement our work in the national security sector and add greater scale to our digital capabilities,” Accenture Federal Services CEO John Goodman said in a statement. “By joining forces, we will help clients in all government sectors become leaders in using sophisticated analytics and emerging technologies to solve problems in new ways and transform how they meet their missions.”
“I am extremely excited about joining Accenture Federal Services,” said Novetta President and CEO Tiffanny Gates. “Because of our deep commitment to our staff and customers, it was critical to find the right fit, and AFS is an ideal home. They will provide new growth opportunities for our people, enable expanded capabilities for our customers, and allow us to accelerate our growth trajectory. I couldn’t be more proud of the outcome and I look forward to our future together.”
AFS has 10,500 employees and is a subsidiary of Irish Fortune Global 500 company Accenture. AFS has clients within the national security, federal health, military and civilian services industries. Last year, Accenture reported more than $40 billion in revenue.
Dynetics Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Reston-based Fortune 500 government contractor Leidos Holdings Inc., has received a potential $90 million contract from NASA to produce a laser air monitoring system (LAMS) for the agency’s Orion spacecraft, beginning with the Artemis III mission, which plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972’s Apollo 17 mission.
Derived from an air monitoring system flown on the Mars Curiosity rover, LAMS is a new air monitoring technology that will measure oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, temperature and pressure within Orion during Artemis missions to the Moon. The system is accurate enough to detect unsafe levels of these elements in cabin air composition, giving crews time to respond.
Dynetics also created the first version of the system for NASA to use in the Artemis II Orion spacecraft, scheduled to be the first manned mission in NASA’s Artemis lunar program.
The contract is valued at $17.8 million for production of the Artemis III LAMS unit, as well as a qualification unit, design modifications and long-lead procurement items in support of the Artemis IV and V missions, but the contract has a maximum potential value of $90 million, should additional flight units or components be needed for the Orion program or other NASA programs and projects. The period of performance extends through 2025, according to the release.
Located in Huntsville, Alabama, Dynetics offers engineering, scientific, IT solutions to the national security, cybersecurity, space and critical infrastructure sectors. Dynetics is currently protesting NASA’s $2.89 billion contract award for the design of the human lunar lander to billionaire Elon Musk’s California-based SpaceX. Dynetics and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company were also in the running and both have entered formal protests of the contract award.
Dominion Energy Inc. has reached an agreement with two companies to charter its offshore wind turbine installation vessel to assist with construction of two offshore wind farms in the Northeastern U.S.
It will be the nation’s first offshore wind vessel in compliance with the Jones Act, which requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be carried on U.S.-flagged, U.S.-built ships. Charybdis will be 472 feet long, 184 feet wide, 38 feet deep and will be made of 14,000 tons of steel, with nearly 10,000 tons sourced from the U.S. The vessel can hold up to 119 people, including somewhere between 20 and 30 maritime crew and 30 to 100 wind turbine workers, depending on the vessel’s mission at the time.
“A Jones Act-qualified installation vessel is a game changer for the development of the U.S. offshore wind industry,” said David Hardy, CEO of Ørsted Offshore North America, in a statement. “This investment will enable us to unlock the economic benefits of offshore wind, not just for the Northeast, but for the Southern states as well. We’re proud to partner with Dominion Energy and Eversource on this historic milestone.”
The $500 million watercraft, Charybdis, is expected to be sea-ready by late 2023, and will be responsible for carrying materials and assisting in the construction of offshore wind farms.
It will first be deployed out of New London harbor in Connecticut to support the construction of Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, both under joint development by Ørsted and Eversource, according to Dominion’s release.
The projects are set to serve nearly one million homes in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. Once complete, the two farms will generate more than 1.6 gigawatts of energy.
The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project will support roughly 900 jobs, with about 60% in Hampton Roads, leading to more than $143 million in economic output. Once construction is completed in 2027, more than 1,100 workers in Hampton Roads would operate and maintain the wind farm. That could translate into $210 million in economic output for the region, generating nearly $6 million in local tax revenue, according to Dominion.
Sentara Healthcare is allocating $40 million to expand its Healthier Communities Fund across Virginia and northeast North Carolina, with an aim to address health disparities that have been magnified by the impact of COVID-19 among underserved populations.
Today’s announcement follows an initial $10 million the Norfolk-based health care system pledged in January to address health disparities and bolster regional health sciences programs, according to a Sentara news release.
The $10 million will be disbursed during a two-year period among Sentara’s partner universities, including Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University; as well as Eastern Virginia Medical School and organizations in Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg and Suffolk. The funding will go to community-based health efforts such as mobile clinics, community clinics, health screening, testing, behavioral health services and access to nutritious foods as well as academic scholarships for underrepresented students, according to a Sentara spokesperson.
The fund will allow for more engagement of community members, including faith-based leaders, in the distribution of the funds and will include an employee-led fund that allows Sentara team members to directly influence the distribution of funds.
“As we continue to face the impact of a pandemic of unprecedented magnitude, never has our community commitment been more vital,” Sentara President and CEO Howard Kern said. “In order to drive lasting change, we must forge new partnerships, strengthen longstanding relationships and marshal resources to build stronger, healthier, more equitable communities together. Based on the overwhelming response to the Sentara Healthier Communities Fund, Sentara is proud to be able to provide additional support to tackle these pressing issues.”
In 2020, Sentara invested nearly $256 million to support communities through health and prevention programs, teaching and training opportunities for health care professionals, philanthropic giving and uncompensated patient care.
In a statement Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a 1981 VMI alumnus, said, “The investigation found that institutional racism and sexism are present, tolerated and too often left unaddressed. While VMI has taken incremental steps forward since this review began, much more is needed. The question is whether VMI is willing to acknowledge this reality. The commonwealth will study this report carefully and then take appropriate action. VMI would be wise to do so as well. VMI is an agency of state government, and we will hold it accountable.”
The Washington, D.C.-based law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP conducted the state-funded equity investigation into VMI beginning in January, interviewing cadets, alumni, faculty and staff. The firm’s final equity audit report describes the culture at VMI as “one of silence, fear and intimidation,” based on statements by current cadets, alumni and faculty — including during the investigation. “Interviewees reported that, in some sexual assault cases, members of the VMI administration have actively dissuaded victims from making reports. Interview respondents also explained that they perceived or experienced that VMI leadership puts a high priority on suppressing information and avoiding difficult situations, and less of a priority on addressing underlying problems. The [investigative team] had the same experience. VMI has taken affirmative steps to prevent negative information from making it into this report.”
VMI posted a new page Tuesday on its website titled “VMI Promise” that acknowledges the accusations and adds that the school is “a microcosm of society and not immune to the challenges of racism of sexual misconduct which occur on college campuses across the nation.” The statement notes, though, that “There are some who have made allegations that institutional racism is prevalent at VMI, but the facts simply do not support that position. Like many college campuses, we too have had incidences where racial slurs and racist acts have been perpetrated. That is not an experience that any of our cadets should have to endure, and we have taken action to address that concern. According to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, VMI has implemented systems and training programs to properly address those issues.”
The institute also promotes its initiatives to “strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion efforts” on the page, including the hiring of its first chief diversity officer in late May. However, the investigative team found that VMI lags significantly behind other military colleges in DEI programs and that it “does not have a DEI plan, just a statement of diversity.”
In March, the firm released an interim report in which alumni and current cadets said they heard racial slurs “on a regular basis” at the school. A Black alumnus said he was called the n-word “many times” between 2018 and 2021, and in the mid-1990s, an Asian graduate said he “routinely” was called “sand n-word” by an upperclassman.
The final report also notes that sexual assault, especially against female cadets, is “prevalent,” yet has been “inadequately addressed by the Institute.” Fourteen percent of current female cadets reported being sexually assaulted at VMI, while 63% said that a fellow cadet — both men and women — had told them they had been a victim of sexual assault during their time at the institute. The report says that 27% of current female cadets reported being sexually harassed at VMI, and female faculty members and staff also reported sexual harassment at the institute.
A current female cadet told investigators that a staff member told one of her female friends, “If you cannot handle sexual assaults, you should not be at VMI,” the report says.
Despite “extensive” sexual assault training, “female cadets report that male cadets treat it as a joke and an opportunity for misogynistic humor, without consequence.” Many women said they reported their assaults but that they went “unaddressed” by VMI administration, and that at times administrators “intimidated female cadets to reconsider assault reports.”
The report determines that “issues of gender inequity and sexual assault may not be unique to VMI. But the character, quantity and severity of the issues described … do not exist everywhere. These issues are worse at VMI and they need to be addressed immediately.”
VMI’s statement on its website, though, said, “It cannot be overstated — sexual harassment or sexual assault is not and will never be tolerated at this institution. Perhaps what pains us most is hearing some cadets and alumni say that they were apprehensive to bring issues forward out of fear of reprisal. No cadet should ever feel the administration, faculty, or staff at VMI are not here for them. Addressing these issues is of paramount importance.”
In its recommendations, the five-person investigation team writes in the report that VMI should be required to submit regular written reports to the governor, the General Assembly and other stakeholders, but it stops short of recommending that “any of VMI’s core policies, practices and traditions, including the Honor Code and Rat Line, be abolished.” The report also recommends “that VMI leadership examine how it can create an environment that does not disadvantage or impose disparate effects on minorities.”
In the introductory summary of the report, the investigative team wrote that the school “has sustained systems that disadvantage minority and female cadets and faculty, and has left VMI trailing behind its peer institutions. If VMI refuses to think critically about its past and present, and to confront how racial and ethnic minorities and women experience VMI, it will remain a school for white men.” Although the installation of retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins — VMI’s first Black superintendent — as interim superintendent in November has led to some positive change, the report says that “many in the VMI community, including senior leaders, perceive no issues or reasons to change.”
Specifically, the report says that 42% of current Black cadets responded that they are discriminated against “a lot” at VMI, and half say they “strongly or somewhat agree that there is a culture of racial intolerance at VMI,” while the number of white cadets who agree with these statements are much lower.
“Racial slurs and jokes are not uncommon on post,” the report adds, and VMI’s response is “insufficient,” with administrators sometimes excusing such offenses, although the school provides “education and training” to cadets who say racially or ethnically offensive statements.
The report also says that a common opinion among white participants is “that there is not a race problem, but a problem with a divide between athletes and nonathletes,” with nonathlete cadets feeling that NCAA athletes receive preferential treatment at the school. As for allegations that Honor Court and Honor Code cases are conducted unfairly, the report says that they are fair “when examined in isolation” although of 91 cases involving convictions over the past 10 years, 41% of dismissed cadets were nonwhite, despite making up only 23% of the corps.
“Elimination of the fundamental elements of the Honor Code or Honor Court is not recommended,” the report says, but the institute “should include a root cause analysis of these statistics, revisions to training and procedures to implement more equitable processes.”
The report also says VMI has an “outdated, idealized reverence for the Civil War and the Confederacy,” including traditions related to the era “given disproportionate attention.”
VMI’s Board of Visitors has scheduled a special meeting Wednesday afternoon that the school described as primarily a closed meeting “to receive consultation regarding specific legal matters … regarding to the ongoing equity audit of VMI.”
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) released the 150-page report Tuesday. “SCHEV will not reach any conclusions or make any recommendations on the … study until after we have had ample time to review it,” SCHEV Director Peter Blake said in a statement. “We look forward to engaging VMI as well as the broader higher education community to consider issues raised by the report and recommendations.”
According to the school’s VMI Promise webpage, there will be a cadet-led Cultural Awareness Training program that is in development, with a goal of enhancing cadets’ “understanding of cultural differences amongst members of the Corps and to promote civility and respect.”
Last year, The Roanoke Times and The Washington Post reported recent cadets’ allegations of racist behavior and words by fellow students and faculty, including a Black student who said he was threatened with lynching by another cadet in 2018. The public airing of cadets’ complaints led to the October resignation of VMI Superintendent J.H. Binford Peay III, a retired U.S. Army general who served as the school’s leader for 17 years, and the removal of the school’s Stonewall Jackson statue, which honored the former Confederate general and VMI educator. Until recent years, cadets were required to salute the monument as they passed.
In May, VMI hired Jamica N. Love as chief diversity officer. She will report to Wins beginning July 9.
With high-speed subsea internet cables landing on Virginia Beach‘s shores and massive wind turbines propelling off its coast, the state’s largest city is primed to welcome new businesses and industries generating high-end jobs.
“Virginia Beach is going to be the epicenter of economic development on the East Coast,” says Mayor Bobby Dyer. “I am convinced of that. That’s my personal mission.”
Focusing on technology and renewable energy, Virginia Beach seeks to attract more high-tech industries, including those that would use the trio of the world’s fastest subsea cables that come ashore at Telxius’ 24,000-square-foot landing station in the Virginia Beach Development Authority’s Corporate Landing Business Park. MAREA, owned by Microsoft, Facebook and Telxius, connects the city to Spain, while Telxius’ BRUSA cable links Brazil to Puerto Rico and Virginia Beach. Google’s Dunant submarine cable, which became operational earlier this year, connects Virginia Beach with Spain, Brazil and France. A fourth cable traveling from New York City to near Miami and branching off to Virginia Beach, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Jacksonville Beach, Florida, also is in the works, and city officials have discussed bringing in 14 additional cables in the near future.
Located between General Booth Boulevard and Dam Neck Road, Corporate Landing Business Park is on track to become a mid-Atlantic hub for intercontinental subsea cables. Taking advantage of the park’s direct connection to the subsea cables, Globalinx and PointOne are developing data centers designed to attract large cloud computing companies along the lines of Amazon.com Inc., Netflix and Facebook, as well as military and government tenants. “Our facility is designed to accommodate customers who use subsea cables, but it’s also designed for local businesses that need data enterprises,” says Colin Clish, chief operating officer of Alberta, Canada-based PointOne.
Virginia Beach City Council member Ben Davenport is focused on attracting more high-tech jobs for local college graduates. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Virginia Beach also wants to attract industries supplying components for East Coast offshore wind farms, including Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc.’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project. In a pilot phase designed to generate energy for 3,000 homes, Dominion installed two massive, 600-foot-high wind turbines
27 miles off the Virginia Beach coastline last summer. By 2026, Dominion plans to build a major offshore wind farm there, erecting 188 turbines in adjacent waters — enough to power more than 650,000 homes. Achieving that ambitious goal will require establishing a wind energy construction supply chain that economic development officials foresee as becoming an East Coast hub as future offshore wind operations come online.
“With that plethora of technology, there will be potential job opportunities as we attract companies,” Dyer adds. “This is a really desirous location for a lot of businesses, and we’re going to roll out the red carpet for them.”
Cable ready
A technology and innovation task force, chaired by former Virginia Beach City Council member Ben Davenport, is examining the city’s ability to attract high-end tech jobs and increase workforce-training opportunities. “One of the problems we have in Virginia Beach is a lack of job opportunities for recent college graduates,” Dyer says. “We want to create situations where people‘s children can find jobs here and keep families intact. That’s the ultimate economic development objective.”
Davenport, vice president of strategic development at Global Technical Systems, adds that the city is a prime location for technology enterprises. “We want to continue the momentum in building the technology ecosystem in Virginia Beach and ultimately in all of Hampton Roads,” he says. “If we continue down the road we’re on and make this an attractive place economically for internet ventures, we will have tremendous success. There are a lot of opportunities we are going to be chasing.”
Along with the subsea cables, Virginia Beach has one of the state’s lowest tax rates for data center equipment and one of the lowest municipal tax rates in the country, and officials worked with the U.S. Navy to establish the nation’s first cable landing protection area. “We’ve created a business environment that incentivizes the location of these activities,” says Virginia Beach Economic Development Director Taylor Adams.
Site work has been completed and the foundation poured for the first phase of NAP (Network Access Point) of Virginia Beach, a spec data center under development across from the cable landing station. The project was announced in late 2018, but work was suspended because of the pandemic. Now, PointOne is negotiating with potential tenants as it prepares to resume construction on the first of two 39,530-square-foot buildings on the 10.7-acre site. “We’re in the leasing stage with potential customers, but we don’t plan to start construction on the building until we secure a major tenant,” Clish says.
Additionally, the center will be able to accommodate growth from the existing cables, as well as new cables landing in Virginia Beach. “Virginia Beach is absolutely going to see two to five new cables in the next three to five years,” Clish adds.
Although there is room for more subsea cables, the city does not have available land to house massive data centers like Facebook’s 500-acre Henrico facility. “Virginia Beach doesn’t have that possibility,” Davenport acknowledges. “But we can work with other regional localities with more available landmass. As the region succeeds, our city succeeds.”
Wind energy
Virginia Beach also is spearheading efforts to boost Hampton Roads’ role in constructing a supply chain for the offshore wind industry. “Virginia Beach is a leader, but it’s too big of an initiative for any one city to act alone,” Adams says, noting that Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm is one of eight to 10 similar projects on the East Coast. “There certainly is enough volume to see some of the suppliers locally here. I don’t think anybody fully knows the ultimate opportunities of companies coming here.”
Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm also could help Hampton Roads attract data centers, adds Davenport. “Data centers are huge consumers of power,” he notes. “Dominion’s project paints the perfect picture of why Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads are one of the best places in the country for data centers. There will be an abundance of clean, renewable energy off the coast. Most in the data center industry see that as a big-time plus.”
To ensure local labor is prepared to support these emerging industries, the city has allocated $1 million for a Tidewater Community College program to teach skills to support offshore wind and is engaging with TCC and Old Dominion University to address high-tech workforce issues. Virginia Beach also is working with the military to ensure the more than 13,000 officers and enlisted personnel leaving the Navy each year can transfer their experience into local jobs.
“Many of those individuals come out with skill sets that are perfect for the technology industry,” Davenport says. “We have to create a technology economy here in Hampton Roads and ensure that we place them in opportunities where they will stay in Virginia Beach.”
Meanwhile, the city is partnering with Naval Air Station Oceana to explore economic development opportunities around the massive installation. Freeing up land around Oceana would help reduce the base’s overall costs and bring additional tax revenues to the city, says Dyer. “It’s still early in the process, but there is a plethora of potential there that the Navy is embracing with us.”
Overall, Virginia Beach’s economy remains strong despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, more than 1,700 jobs were created in the city, representing a nearly $228 million investment and projected tax revenues of $55.8 million over the next two decades. “We’re really an economic engine for the entire region,” says Adams, noting that manufacturing, defense, logistics, office and tourism sectors continue to perform well, while the city’s unemployment rate is recovering from the pandemic. “We’re confident we’re on the road back to where we were.”
Engine trouble?
Dyer attributes Virginia Beach’s economic growth to business owners’ tenacity and resilience. “A lot of credit goes to the strength of Virginia Beach and the people of Virginia Beach who live, work and have businesses here,” he says. “Our strengths are our people, [who] make Virginia Beach a true, desirable destination where people are welcomed.”
One of the state’s top tourism destinations, Virginia Beach recorded the country’s highest hotel occupancy for 18 consecutive weeks last year amid the pandemic. “Once the beaches opened, that certainly helped,” Dyer says. “People could come to the beach for a healthy weekend.”
Virginia Beach’s status as a landing point for intercontinental high-speed internet cables makes it an attractive environment for data centers, says city Economic Development Director Taylor Adams. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Many visitors attend events at the $70 million Virginia Beach Sports Center that opened last fall at the oceanfront. Featuring 12 basketball courts, 24 volleyball courts, a 200-meter track and seating for 5,000 spectators, the 285,000-square-foot facility has already welcomed several NCAA tournaments. “It hit the market during the pandemic and has been fully booked,” says Adams.
Expectations are high that Atlantic Park will enjoy similar success. A $325 million public-private partnership between the city, Venture Realty Group and music superstar Pharrell Williams, the project will include a surf park, apartments, retail offices and an entertainment venue on 10 acres between 18th and 19th streets. Construction is expected to begin late this year.
“Atlantic Park is a very big part of the oceanfront’s future,” says Dyer. “If you give people things to do that are fun and entertaining, it makes for a better situation.”
Tourism is one of Virginia Beach’s major economic engines, but the luster has faded in some areas of the oceanfront. In response, the city revived its Resort Management Office to enhance the 40-block commercial district. The office will interact with visitors, promote safety, address homelessness issues and encourage property owners to update signage, awnings and other infrastructure.
Safety at the oceanfront has come under increased scrutiny after two people died (including a cousin of Williams who was shot by a police officer) and eight others were injured during a chaotic night of gunfire in late March. In response, City Council approved a $1.87 million public safety plan, including adding security cameras and lighting and a gunshot
detection system.
Still, local officials stress that the violence was an isolated event, and they tout rankings in recent years listing Virginia Beach as one of the country’s safest large cities. “The city is being proactive, and we’re confident we will have a safe season going forward,” Dyer says. “We want people to come to the oceanfront, but we expect them to respect the law and each other.”
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