VFP moves forward on $30M expansion in Scott County

With data centers driving economic growth throughout the country, VFP will invest $35 million in expanding its Scott County facility to meet demand for new power utility infrastructure and generator shelters for the energy-hungry monoliths.

Then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, alongside VFP and other officials, announced the project in October 2025 as the company founded and based in Roanoke County celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Riding high on the telecom wave of the 1990s, VFP opened its Scott County manufacturing center in 1997. Steve Jones, VFP’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, says the company has grown tremendously in the last three years, almost doubling to around 500 employees, and expects to hire 200 more over the next two years.

“We had one building,” Jones says. “Now we have four buildings. We’ve done expansions on two of the buildings already. And then with the expansion that we just announced, we’ll have six buildings on our 50-acre campus here in Duffield.”

VFP’s previous campus growth included a $5 million expansion announced in 2024 and a $7.2 million investment announced in 2021.

Employee-owned VFP specializes in manufacturing heavy concrete and flexible, lightweight electrical equipment structures for domestic and international data centers, energy utility companies, satellite arrays and broadband internet providers. The company boasts a global reach, with products on all seven continents.

VFP’s recent growth parallels the proliferation of data centers throughout the state. The timing has worked well for the company.
In 2016, Jones says, about 85% of VFP’s business was with Verizon, but the company took a new tack.

“We haven’t sold Verizon a shelter in the last three or four years, and so VFP pivoted to the utility industry,” he explains. “Now our shelters are used in the electrical utility industry inside substations. The utility industry since 2018 has really grown quite a bit, especially in the last three or four years. A lot of that has been because of electrical demand [from] data centers.”

While the national data center market is heavily concentrated in Virginia, Jones notes there are additional opportunities elsewhere, citing recent VFP sales in Africa, Japan and New Mexico.

At the Duffield manufacturing facility, where most of the company’s employees work, construction on a 135,000-square-foot building that includes a new customer visitor center has already begun.

Later this year, builders will break ground on a 90,000-square-foot prefabrication shop scheduled to open in 2027. Jones says the company will also add more parking and an access road.

“They’ve really been an outstanding company; really they’ve become a bedrock of the economy in our region,” says Jonathan Belcher, executive director and general counsel for the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority. “We’ve assisted them with multiple expansions at their facility there, and this latest one is definitely the largest. It’s going to be a big boost to the economy and really positions them as the largest manufacturer in our region.”

VCEDA provided a $3 million loan to VFP to help cover the cost of equipment acquisition for the expansion. The authority also approved a $312,500 grant to support workforce development and training.

“They’ll draw a lot from vendors and suppliers in the region, so it’s going to have a trickle-down effect,” Belcher says. “It’s going to be a big benefit to all the other businesses there in Duffield and the Scott County region. Another part of the project is that there’ll be so many jobs created that the county is going to have to do some additional housing.”

To meet new residential demand, the state also is providing a $1 million award to subsidize the development of “middle-income housing” through the Virginia Workforce Housing Investment Program. A developer has not been publicly named, but Belcher says the funds, as well as a $100,000 grant from VCEDA, will support a 50-unit housing development in the Weber City area.

Duane Miller, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, says the VFP project will have a positive impact on neighboring Lee and Wise counties and the city of Norton.

“I think anytime you can have growth of something that’s a proven commodity, that’s as equal, if not better, as having a new company that may be unproven,” he says. “It’s extremely exciting, not only for Scott County, but for the entire region.”