Richmond: Economy/Business/Real Estate

[Downtowner]

I tell ya what were doing awesome. Hopefully 06 will be an even better year Job wise. Lets see if we can increase some of our rankings.

[wrldcoupe4]

Too bad Velocity couldn't have partnered with Circuit City. They could use a boost though I heard they did better than expected over the Holidays. So who wants to contribute to the "Jeff wants an expensive gaming computer" Fund???

Agreed... it would have been nice seeing a Richmond company lend a fellow Richmond company a helping hand. Ukrop's does it all the time with small food startups (switch beverage etc...).

[wrldcoupe4]

More good news from the world of Richmond Business:

Richmond-based Genworth to Acquire Continental Life

excerpt:

Genworth Financial Inc. has agreed to acquire a company that will more than double its Medicare supplemental insurance business.

The Richmond insurance and investment-products company will pay about $145 million to buy Continental Life Insurance Co. of Brentwood, Tenn.

Continental Life has 4,200 agents.

[wrldcoupe4]

New US Embassy in Baghdad has a Richmond Touch

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, has a Richmond connection. Hankins and Anderson Inc., the Richmond-based consulting engineering firm, provided the engineering design services for a site master plan for the $600 million project......

"Embassies are quite involved," Matthews said. "They need to be able to operate as a separate entity."

Hankins and Anderson should know.

The firm has completed 223 embassy projects in 104 countries, including 144 embassies since the Sept. 11 attacks. It began working on embassy projects about 20 years ago, he said.

[wrldcoupe4]

Let's take a look at some of the fastest growing companies in the Richmond Region....

Richmond's Rising 25 - Top 5 compete for honors

One publishes a magazine. Another offers phone and Internet service. One's an information-technology consultant, and another customizes trucks. One manages health-care financial transactions.

On the surface, these five Richmond companies might seem to have nothing in common, but think again: They are the fastest-growing private companies in the Richmond area. They also exemplify the diversity of the Richmond economy.....

A closer look:

Amentra Inc.

"Amentra, formerly Distributed Objex Inc., had revenue of $7.78 million in 2004, up 733 percent from its founding year in 2000. In October, Amentra landed on Deloitte & Touche LLP's Technology Fast 500 for North America (No. 216) and Fast 50 for Virginia (No. 19). The listings honor the fastest-growing tech firms in different regions. Most recently, aside from Rising 25, Washington SmartCEO magazine recognized Amentra as one of the fastest-growing companies in the greater Washington area on its Future 50 listing. Amentra has an office in Reston and another Charlotte, N.C., in addition to its headquarters in the Riverside on the James complex."

Cavalier Telephone

" the privately held company is one of the top four local-phone competitors in Virginia...From its beginnings in Richmond, Cavalier has expanded and now serves customers in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia and in parts of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. Today, according to spokesman Andy Lobred, Cavalier serves 210,000 residential customers, 30,000 high-speed Internet customers and 35,000 business customers. Cavalier also provides wholesale communications service to 100 other carriers......Cavalier had 86 employees when it launched and has 1,100 now, including 800 in the Richmond area."

Cape Fear Publishing

"Revenue climbed 900 percent in the past five years. Paid subscriptions for its flagship magazine, Virginia Living, increased by a third since last year......For years, the company's main business was publishing the Richmond Guide, a what's-going-on-in-town magazine that is distributed free at hotels, stores and restaurants. The guide is still going strong, distributing 80,000 copies four times a year. But the real growth engine is Virginia Living, which chronicles the good life, and other interesting stuff, in the Old Dominion..... The every-other-month magazine has 23,000 paying subscribers across the state. It sells 12,000 to 15,000 copies at retail outlets, and it sends an additional 30,000 or so free to businesses, hotels and doctor offices."

PayerPath Inc.

"In eight years, Payerpath Inc. has built a thriving business on making it easier for physicians to process insurance claims and other document-intensive transactions....Payerpath's customers log on to a Web site that connects them with its office on Stony Point Parkway, where the company handles transactions for 15,000 customers in 10 states.....Payerpath's services attracted not just small medical practices but large firms. It now handles 4.2 million claims a month, or about $1 billion in transactions.Brady said the company has about a 20 percent market share in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, and it is planning to expand into 30 states. Its rapid growth helped earn the company the No. 284 spot last year on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America."

Ashby's Inc./Crenshaw Corp.

"Under Ashby's ownership, Crenshaw's sales have tripled, and the expected figure for 2005 is $9.1 million. With plans to build a large truck repair and cus- tomizing facility next door, Ashby and his 53 employees seem to be in a fast lane of growth at 1700 Commerce Road. "I need the building to get bigger," he said of a planned 115,000-square-foot facility with 17 repair bays on a 5-acre lot beside his brick office and shop. After the new facility is built this year, Ashby said, he can handle more custom jobs and equipment sales, perhaps topping $30 million in annual sales by 2009."

The Top 25 list, as well as the winner, should be announced by the end of the week

[urbanvb]

^ great find, Coupe!

[wrldcoupe4]

Mississippi Leaders to Visit Richmond...

About 85 business and government leaders from Jackson, Miss., will spend three days in Richmond next week to learn how economic development, regional cooperation and other issues are tackled here....

The group is expected to hear about Richmond's efforts on transportation, regional cooperation, teacher recruitment, leadership development, public safety, housing, minority-business use and economic development.

The group also will look at development along the James River and in downtown, including the Greater Richmond Convention Center.....

"We're always glad to have others come to look at our region," Dunn said.......

[wrldcoupe4]

500 IT jobs relocated from Richmond to Chesterfield

While this is good news for the region's goal of becoming a major center for biotech and IT on the east coast, it sucks that downtown is losing 500 jobs...

excerpts...

When Northrop Grumman opens shop in Chesterfield County, more than 500 state information-technology jobs will leave downtown Richmond.

As part of the state's $1.9 billion, 10-year plan to overhaul its information-technology infrastructure, Northrop Grumman will be making a capital investment of $240 million in Chesterfield County, officials said......

Northrop Grumman will also build a $34.6 million, central-operations center in Chesterfield that the company will use to support the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and for its own business.

Additionally, Chesterfield expects to see 20 to 25 related companies locate near the data center.......

Northrop Grumman has about 100 data centers, but it plans to prune the number to eight, "and then make the Chesterfield center here one of the major hubs," the company's Hugh E. Taylor told VITA employees.

The article also mentioned that there are currently over 83,000 people that work downtown. The article also mentioned that the Richmond Region's unemployment rate stands at 3.2%....

VITA currently leases most of its space in the 6-story Richmond Plaza building...one of the least asthetically desirable buildings downtown IMO. With VITA vacating the space, perhaps we could improve that block?

500 jobs seems like a lot, but it's only a small proportion of the 83,000 already working downtown. Also, by the time these jobs shift to the county, Philip Morris' research facility will be finished, more than compensating with over 500 high paying jobs.

Edited January 30, 2006 by wrldcoupe4

[burt]

Boy, it really is sad to see 500 city jobs move to...Ches Ch Ch Ch. I just can't say the word lol!

The latest figure of 83,000 downtown workers is considerably higher than any number I had seen recently. When I responded some months ago on a SSP post that the number was in excess of 75,000 I was rebuffed (by someone in Roanoke, I believe) and told with assurance that the number was way out of line and much smaller.

River's Bend/Meadowville is ready to explode as well as the Tri Cities area (including Dinwiddie and Prince George) with thousands of new military and civilians moving into Ft. Lee.

The Phillip Morris Research Center with upward of 700 new jobs offsets the downtown job loss, but Northrop Grumman's transfer of employees is a big blow.

Richmond Plaza, though ugly, is one strong solid multi-storied structure. With imagination perhaps it could be remodeled into a vertical shopping/entertainment complex with FREE parking on its lower levels.

Edited January 30, 2006 by burt

[wrldcoupe4]

Burt, do you have any idea if the facade beneath the current hideous one is attractive on the Richmond Plaza building?

[burt]

Burt, do you have any idea if the facade beneath the current hideous one is attractive on the Richmond Plaza building?

I don't recall, coupe, but I seem to remember it looking like maybe the Canal Lofts building at 15th and Dock. But I could be making that up. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it had an industrial look. There ought to be archival pictures somewhere since it was a major tourist attraction with its tours of the cigarette production line.

[burt]

I thought I had gone crazy again when I couldn't find the above posting along with the Ligget & Myers pictures! You switched threads on me!

Anyway, am I not fairly accurate in my description of the old look?

[wrldcoupe4]

More good news from Richmond's Biotech Sector:

New BioTech Park Company Closes $1 million Seed Financing Deal

Virginia Biotechnology Research Park's newest tenant, Vital Sensors, Inc., announced last week that it has completed a $1 million seed financing round, which is the largest seed financing deal in the park's history.

Vital Sensors, a medical device company that has developed a technology for measuring intra-cardiac pressure, established its corporate headquarters at the Park in December 2005 after it acquired German-based Vital Sensors GmhB................

[wrldcoupe4]

Ready for some more great news from the Virginia BioTech Park in Downtown Richmond?

Just in case you didn't realize this was a big deal....

[url=http://www.businessfacilities.com/bf_05_12_cover2.php]Philip Morris USA

Edited February 3, 2006 by urbanvb

[wrldcoupe4]

According to Expansion Management, Richmond is one of the top 50 hottest cities in the U.S. for Expansion!

15th best in fact

The only other Virginia metro was the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Md.-Va.-W.Va. MSA which came in at 48th.

Expansion Management's Hottest U.S. Cities 2006

[wrldcoupe4]

Also, here's a link to the Greater Richmond Partnership's Annual Report:

GRPVA Annual Report - 2005

[Downtowner]

coupe this is great news. Hopefully 06 will be a hot year Richmond.

[burt]

Also, here's a link to the Greater Richmond Partnership's Annual Report:

GRPVA Annual Report - 2005

Aw shoot! Adobe again!!!

[wrldcoupe4]

HOLY CRAP !!!!!!!!!!

This is huge!!! We just got ANOTHER Fortune 500 company!

MeadWestvaco(Fortune 500 company) relocating corporate HQ to Richmond!!!!

MeadWestvaco Corp., a Fortune 500 packaging and paper company, will announce today that it is moving its corporate headquarters to the Richmond area.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will officially unveil the move this morning at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership in Richmond........

The company, now based in Stamford, Conn., will join six other Fortune 500 companies based here. It is 267th on the list of the nation's largest corporations, ranked by annual revenue.

MeadWestvaco reported $6.2 billion in revenue in 2005.

It makes packaging, coated and specialty papers, consumer and office products, and specialty chemicals.....

[TBurban]

HOLY CRAP !!!!!!!!!!

This is huge!!! We just got ANOTHER Fortune 500 company!

MeadWestvaco(Fortune 500 company) relocating corporate HQ to Richmond!!!!

Does this mean they're building a headquarters here or are they just relocating to a current office building?

Edited February 15, 2006 by RVA_tommy

[Downtowner]

Lets hope they are relocating downtown this is great wonder how many employees there moving as well.

[burt]

Lets hope they are relocating downtown this is great wonder how many employees there moving as well.

I hope Lenny of Centennial Towers is listening! This new Fortune 500 company would be a nice fit. Corporate visitors flying into sleek new RIC would only have to take an elevator to their 50th floor suites at The Ritz Carlton after business meetings.

On the other hand, maybe the planned 260 foot tower at West Broad Village in SHORT PUMP, Virginia is courting this giant business.

[wrldcoupe4]

HOLY CRAP !!!!!!!!!!

This is huge!!! We just got ANOTHER Fortune 500 company!

MeadWestvaco(Fortune 500 company) relocating corporate HQ to Richmond!!!!

This move will bring 400 new jobs to the Richmond area!

[burt]

And you may be sure they wll be high-paying ones!

[wrldcoupe4]

Governor Kaine announces MeadWestvaco to Locate Headquarters in Greater Richmond Area

The permanent location for their new headquarters is yet to be determined... The company will begin leasing space in the region temporarily this summer, and will have a permanent new HQ by 2008. The new HQ will house the 200 employees already in offices in Chesterfield, as well as 400 employees from the Corporate HQ in Stamford.

Some nice quotes:

Virginia successfully competed against other states for the project, which will create 400 new jobs, including executive, administrative and corporate operations positions. About 200 additional jobs currently in Chesterfield County will locate to the new facility. MeadWestvaco plans to lease temporary space in the summer of 2006 and move to permanent facilities by the summer of 2008.

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