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Richmond: Economy/Business/Real Estate


wrldcoupe4

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In some of these cases I wonder how much of the media "buzz" is actually covert advertising on the part of the company involved. Additionally, I wonder how many tax breaks are given to these companies to "attract" them to a given region. I wonder what the tax deal was for IKEA to locate there?

In the case of Walmart, Home Depot, Bass Pro, and others, companies are given enormous tax breaks to build in a community. They end up killing off small locally owned business owners who are forced to pay taxes to support their own demise. Then everyone shakes their head and says, "But that's the free market at work." No, it's not a "free" market. It's socialism for corporations while less powerful players are forced to "compete." 

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Question for you guys. What do you think Union bank will do once all the martins stores are gone? Do they have any stand alone locations other than what's in the martins stores? I'm worried they might not be prepared once martins is gone. You can't simply rely on a bank branch inside a grocery store that's about to be gone.

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23 minutes ago, Downtowner said:

Question for you guys. What do you think Union bank will do once all the martins stores are gone? Do they have any stand alone locations other than what's in the martins stores? I'm worried they might not be prepared once martins is gone. You can't simply rely on a bank branch inside a grocery store that's about to be gone.

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I didn't know they didn't have any stand-alone branches. Is that correct?  Seems weird that they would not have any stand-alone branches out there. I don't see them at all up here in NOVA, so I will have to rely on what you all know. At any rate, they'd have to be prepared for this.  Surely they saw this coming. 

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3 hours ago, Downtowner said:

Question for you guys. What do you think Union bank will do once all the martins stores are gone? Do they have any stand alone locations other than what's in the martins stores? I'm worried they might not be prepared once martins is gone. You can't simply rely on a bank branch inside a grocery store that's about to be gone.

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After a quick look at locations it looks like only about 1/3 of their Richmond locations are in Martin's stores.  The rest are stand-alone.

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Oh ok I was wondering because I wasn't exactly sure as I haven't really noticed the stand alone branches. But I'm very glad to hear it. I guess I don't see them as often because of all the Suntrusts and wells fargo's of the world. But thanks for clarifying that. If they ever go all across the east coast or more than just virginia I would so have them as my bank but its kinda hard when you need money and are visiting another state if you need cash for something. Normally I use my bank card but there have been instances where I have needed cash so yeah thanks for clearing that up with me. Glad to know they have that many branches outside of martins.

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As a community bank, I'm not sure they will ever expand outside of Virginia. Plus I think Virginia law prohibits it (I think that's how we lost all of our banks in the 1990s - they got bought out because they couldn't expand outside the state).  I'm actually surprised that a national bank hasn't bought them out yet. As they get bigger, it may be inevitable. I do know that they do some business outside of Virginia. There was an article in the RTD in the past couple weeks indicating that they just opened up an investment business in Charlotte.  I hope they get really big, but I'd hate to see them get bought out and lose another HQ in Richmond. Would love to see this bank take off, stay in town and do great things for Richmond...its skyline, etc. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
1 hour ago, blopp1234 said:

200-250 new jobs downtown in riverfront plaza!!! It should be close to being fully leased. That's one complex down and 2 to go!!!

http://m.richmond.com/business/local/article_01d8e94c-56a4-593e-aa12-a0e70512a2b9.html?mode=jqm

Yeah, this is really great news!  I think that there should be a lot more companies in the DC area that should invest in Richmond. What makes this announcement all the sweeter is that I know that Henrico had been trying to court DC area business to move down to the west end and look, a company moved down, but chose downtown Richmond instead!  I'm ready for the downtown area to take off!  If we can get rid of the high taxes for businesses in the city and the corruption in city hall, downtown will really see some major investment...eh, well, more than there already is!  Could this announcement be a turning point?  We shall see!

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Nice round up on recent goings on in the CBD;

As SunTrust leaves their current tower they plan on doing improvements to the tower to make it more appealing ect..,

RiverFront Plaza, 85k sq/ft taken up in the last 2 months, 25k of which is by the new company from DC and they will hopefully expand as they say they will hire more people in the long run. They currently have approx. 230k sq/ft, 150k sq/ft after the new tenants move in.

James Center still has about 330k sq/ft available.

Downtown vacancy rate is 12% and the market is tenant friendly, hopefully this will push prices down and get more companies downtown.

We're seeing a lot of new attention downtown, BOA tower is getting refurbished, James Center is under new ownership getting fixed up, and now the current SunTrust tower plans on doing improvements; looks like downtown is really pushing to be appealing and top of the line, a lot of money being invested in the CBD.

http://richmondbizsense.com/2016/08/02/suntrust-center-riverfront-plaza-get-a-jolt/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Big news as Aldi and Niagra bottling are investing in the region. Aldi will build a 500,000 square foot warehouse in dinwiddie and Niagra will build a 600,000 square foot facility in meadowville tech park that was dubbed project "buzzard".

http://m.richmond.com/news/local/chesterfield/article_ec2b7aca-28a3-5dc5-ad68-360c4f7fac49.html?mode=jqm

http://m.richmond.com/business/local/article_2bc7855c-7264-5005-a3fc-c385be488728.html?mode=jqm

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This should translate to a decent amount of new jobs for the region, good to see!

 

More good economic news, Elephant Auto Insurance is expanding into two more states: 

http://www.richmond.com/business/local/article_5341f68e-a8b2-562d-9b99-b4e49ed57e77.html

Richmond could be home to a huge insurer if these guys keep growing.

Edited by drayrichmond
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Co-star to bring over 700 new jobs to downtown! YES! If the vacant space downtown keeps filling at this rate, we could see a new office tower very soon! Another amazing thing is who we beat out. Charlotte and Atlanta! This is huge.

http://richmondbizsense.com/2016/10/24/sources-d-c-real-estate-firm-to-top-off-westrock-building/

Edited by blopp1234
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59 minutes ago, blopp1234 said:

Questar to bring over 700 new jobs to downtown! YES! If the vacant space downtown keeps filling at this rate, we could see a new office tower very soon! Another amazing thing is who we beat out. Charlotte and Atlanta! This is huge.

http://richmondbizsense.com/2016/10/24/sources-d-c-real-estate-firm-to-top-off-westrock-building/

Whoa!  This is awesome news!  Wowsa!:yahoo:

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3 hours ago, blopp1234 said:

Questar to bring over 700 new jobs to downtown! YES! If the vacant space downtown keeps filling at this rate, we could see a new office tower very soon! Another amazing thing is who we beat out. Charlotte and Atlanta! This is huge.

http://richmondbizsense.com/2016/10/24/sources-d-c-real-estate-firm-to-top-off-westrock-building/

*CoStar, but yes very good news for downtown with Westrock pushing people to Georgia. 

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  • 2 months later...

This is great, it looks like they're going to pump quite a bit on money into updating the buildings. With a high-profile business like CoStar having moved here I can see others taking notice and possibly moving offices downtown. Hopefully our vacancy rate will decrease enough to see some new buildings going in.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars,” Galanti said of planned renovations for the office towers. “This property has been neglected for quite some time…and given the momentum occurring in the downtown market, this was a strategic purchase.”

The firm is in talks with designers to update the buildings’ lobbies, elevators and common areas, Galanti said. Upgrades to outdoor plazas are also planned, although Galanti said that would not involve removing the facility’s prominent statues.

http://richmondbizsense.com/2017/01/20/james-centers-new-owner-this-property-has-been-neglected-for-quite-some-time/

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