Richmond: Economy/Business/Real Estate

[drayrichmond]

Yeah when I saw this I was like "yay more density on the west end" but then a part of me was like "boo move it downtown".

Overall though great development, the denser the county gets the more open it will be to public transit and other urban ideas (like sidewalks and the grid system).

[Downtowner]

Facebook is coming to town. This is HUGE news. Building a data center in Eastern Henrico.

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/facebook-to-build-billion-data-center-in-eastern-henrico-county/article_cd4a106d-162c-53bb-92b4-af12cd9139ac.html

[eandslee]

30 minutes ago, Downtowner said:

Facebook is coming to town. This is HUGE news. Building a data center in Eastern Henrico.

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/facebook-to-build-billion-data-center-in-eastern-henrico-county/article_cd4a106d-162c-53bb-92b4-af12cd9139ac.html

So not Amazon...it's Facebook!!  I think someone on this board guessed Facebook. Will this put us on the map?

[RVA-Is-The-Best]

The new kid in town called it. RVAnouveau. Props to him. Maybe he can pick my lottery numbers too

 

Edit: will say something else. I think Eastern Henrico is starting to find its footing, Henrico county can plan as such for eastern part to be data center/tech and logistics hub (a la Loudoun County) while the western part densifies slowly into mixed use and suburban residential. These kinds of developments would be a boon for the eastern part of the county and bring some of that growth excitement to that side.

Edited October 4, 2017 by RVA-Is-The-Best

[RVAnouveau]

17 minutes ago, RVA-Is-The-Best said:

The new kid in town called it. RVAnouveau. Props to him. Maybe he can pick my lottery numbers too

 

Edit: will say something else. I think Eastern Henrico is starting to find its footing, Henrico county can plan as such for eastern part to be data center/tech and logistics hub (a la Loudoun County) while the western part densifies slowly into mixed use and suburban residential. These kinds of developments would be a boon for the eastern part of the county and bring some of that growth excitement to that side.

Thanks! Heh, just a pretty good guess  !  But this is pretty exciting. news.  Not only because of the jobs/opportunities it will bring, but because it's a vote of confidence. That's huge, especially when you've got NoVA right up the road, which is where this kind of high-profile project would normally go. We can look forward to having even more exciting projects in the future.

Edited October 4, 2017 by RVAnouveau

[eandslee]

27 minutes ago, RVAnouveau said:

Thanks! Heh, just a pretty good guess  !  But this is pretty exciting. news.  Not only because of the jobs/opportunities it will bring, but because it's a vote of confidence. That's huge, especially when you've got NoVA right up the road, which is where this kind of high-profile project would normally go. We can look forward to having even more exciting projects in the future.

I agree 100%.  This is a huge feather in Richmond's cap to get others to follow Facebook's footsteps and put their data center (or whatever else) in the Richmond area too.  HUGE leverage here folks!

[drayrichmond]

So on the new Facebook Data center:

I was just looking at some numbers and I really think that this is going to lead to really great things for the area.

Right now Virginia has about 650 data centers, mostly up  in NOVA, that employ about 13,500 people.

Henrico now has the lowest data center related business tax in the state. That being said, with Facebook's stamp of approval on the region we could definitely see a big influx of new data centers in the area, leading to a lot more than 100 jobs.

[eandslee]

Totally agree. Richmond also needs to do more to bring more high-tech, more higher paying jobs to the area. Data centers can do that, but since they don't hire THAT many people per center, there has to be other ways to attract these sort of jobs...unless there is an explosion of data centers that go up in Richmond (with the low tax rate, I can envision quite an influx). Facebook just might be leading the way to do just that.  I hope Richmond is also able to land more corporate headquarters. High paying jobs follow HQs and others service-related businesses to support them (IT services are one of those type services that pays a high wage). I can tell you that up here in NoVa there are tons of service-related businesses that are paying high wages, particularly IT support, to the many HQs up here.  I think Facebook coming is a huge step in the right direction.   I'm not suggesting that Richmond "NoVa-ize" itself, but in a way, I am. If Richmond can be smart about it's growth, it can avoid the pitfalls that plague NoVa...traffic being one of them. 

[eandslee]

Great article here from Virginia Business about millennials ditching the burbs for a place to live and work downtown.  Talks about some of the recent success stories in Richmond.  It also talks about the Norfolk area and then ends with a section about Tyson's Corner up in Fairfax.  A developer there is planning a 48-story residential/hotel tower that will be taller than any building between Philly and Charlotte!  Wish Richmond could land one of those!  Check it out here:

http://www.virginiabusiness.com/news/article/back-to-the-center

[wrldcoupe4]

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/general-assembly/richmond-regional-economy-paces-state-as-jobs-loom-large-in/article_4409b059-2fd8-52a6-add1-2ce5c833fc38.html

Interesting read about job growth in Richmond and the state in general. Richmond MSA basically matched Northern Virginia job growth with 10,500 and 10,700 jobs added respectively between September 2016 and 2017. 

 

[eandslee]

3 hours ago, wrldcoupe4 said:

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/general-assembly/richmond-regional-economy-paces-state-as-jobs-loom-large-in/article_4409b059-2fd8-52a6-add1-2ce5c833fc38.html

Interesting read about job growth in Richmond and the state in general. Richmond MSA basically matched Northern Virginia job growth with 10,500 and 10,700 jobs added respectively between September 2016 and 2017. 

 

Now that's pretty awesome!  Come on, Richmond - keep it up!

[eandslee]

This is good news for Owens & Minor, currently HQ'd in Hanover, but soon will be moving their Client Engagement Center to downtown Richmond along with 500 personnel.  I wonder if this might affect the number of employees they will move downtown...probably not, but this means the company is healthy and that is always good news!

They are acquiring Georgia-based Halyard Health Inc. (a surgical and infection prevention business) for $710 million...cash!

 

http://www.richmond.com/business/local/hanover-based-owens-minor-to-acquire-surgical-and-infection-prevention/article_b8b386e9-c039-54de-b8aa-040a7ab8ae48.html

[drayrichmond]

It looks like the area around the airport is doing pretty well, an unknown industrial development is getting ready to be built on some land owned by the Ukrops. More jobs for the area!

http://www.richmond.com/business/ukrop-s-site-in-eastern-henrico-is-under-contract-for/article_8d5f6103-f26d-5631-91b7-30d7d253406e.html

On top of that the area around the Port of Richmond is building up too, lets not forget the huge warehouse they going to build down there!

 

[jbjust]

Huge expansion for Dominion Energy!

 

http://dominionenergy.mediaroom.com/2018-01-03-Dominion-Energy-SCANA-Announce-All-Stock-Merger-With-1-000-Immediate-Cash-Payment-To-Average-South-Carolina-Electric-Gas-Residential-Electric-Customer-After-Closing

[eandslee]

24 minutes ago, jbjust said:

Huge expansion for Dominion Energy!

 

http://dominionenergy.mediaroom.com/2018-01-03-Dominion-Energy-SCANA-Announce-All-Stock-Merger-With-1-000-Immediate-Cash-Payment-To-Average-South-Carolina-Electric-Gas-Residential-Electric-Customer-After-Closing

How come this hasn't hit the news yet?  Seems like a big deal, but is anyone taking notice?  Or is it not a really big deal?

[jbjust]

10 minutes ago, eandslee said:

How come this hasn't hit the news yet?  Seems like a big deal, but is anyone taking notice?  Or is it not a really big deal?

It's a big friggin' deal.  I bet it's Dominion's biggest acquisition ever in terms of additional customers.  

[eandslee]

15 minutes ago, jbjust said:

It's a big friggin' deal.  I bet it's Dominion's biggest acquisition ever in terms of additional customers.  

You go jbjust!  You were the first to make this announcement!  You even beat out the local news!  It is just now hitting the airwaves and, like you said, this is a HUGE deal!  Nice!

Okay after reading the article, this is a big deal for Dominion Energy, but maybe not such a big deal to Richmond in that it looks like all of the employees of SCE&G will be maintained, the name will be maintained as well as the HQ in SC will be maintained (looks like Dominion will just take an owning back seat).  While this makes Dominion an even stronger company (which I am all in favor of), this probably does nothing to the number of employees Dominion Energy will have in downtown Richmond (something I am keeping an eye on since we are looking at another Dominion Energy tower going up in place of their current HQ downtown...currently planned as a 16-story tower).  This is very good news though and if Dominion was considered a behemoth before, it is certainly mammoth now!!

Edited January 3, 2018 by eandslee

[jbjust]

21 minutes ago, eandslee said:

You go jbjust!  You were the first to make this announcement!  You even beat out the local news!  It is just now hitting the airwaves and, like you said, this is a HUGE deal!  Nice!

Okay after reading the article, this is a big deal for Dominion Energy, but maybe not such a big deal to Richmond in that it looks like all of the employees of SCE&G will be maintained, the name will be maintained as well as the HQ in SC will be maintained (looks like Dominion will just take an owning back seat).  While this makes Dominion an even stronger company (which I am all in favor of), this probably does nothing to the number of employees Dominion Energy will have in downtown Richmond (something I am keeping an eye on since we are looking at another Dominion Energy tower going up in place of their current HQ downtown...currently planned as a 16-story tower).  This is very good news though and if Dominion was considered a behemoth before, it is certainly mammoth now!!

I guarantee that Dominion will centralize as many operations as possible here in RVA for cost-saving purposes, probably most back-office functions.  They're only committing to no job cuts until 2020, which is how long it will take them to figure out who they want to fire anyway. 

[drayrichmond]

2 hours ago, jbjust said:

I guarantee that Dominion will centralize as many operations as possible here in RVA for cost-saving purposes, probably most back-office functions.  They're only committing to no job cuts until 2020, which is how long it will take them to figure out who they want to fire anyway. 

Exactly, it takes years for a merger to fully take affect, they'll keep the status quo for the time being but I'd put money down that Dominion is going to be moving quite a few of the operations and administrative jobs to RVA in the next couple of years.

[eandslee]

47 minutes ago, drayrichmond said:

Exactly, it takes years for a merger to fully take affect, they'll keep the status quo for the time being but I'd put money down that Dominion is going to be moving quite a few of the operations and administrative jobs to RVA in the next couple of years.

I wonder what the implications are of this merger, if any, to the height/number of stories planned for the second Dominion Energy tower?  Certainly, Dominion Energy didn't plan on this happening when they decided on 16 stories for their second tower (I'm assuming).  If they do, indeed, move quite a few operations and administrative jobs to RVA from SC...does that translate into more people needed in RVA, and if more people, will that mean a taller second Dominion Energy tower?  Lots of questions I'm sure none of us can answer yet.  It's definitely an interesting development which could have some effect on our skyline!  I would love to see the second tower at least the height of the first, but a bonus if taller!

[meegwell]

5 hours ago, jbjust said:

It's a big friggin' deal.  I bet it's Dominion's biggest acquisition ever in terms of additional customers.  

Questar acquisition brought 1 million natural gas customers to Dominion about 2 years ago (Utah, Wyoming, Idaho) now called Dominion West or something similar.

Dominion purchased Carolina Gas Transmission from SCANNA also a few years - believe that was a smaller one.

Dominion bought Louis Dreyfus in a 2.3B deal years ago

and CNG in a ~7B deal maybe circa 2000 (OH, PA)

This is the first big electric utility merger for them at least in any sort of near recent history.

They bought significant non-utility electric assets such as big Nukes (Kewaunee in in Illinois and Millstone on the long island sound in CT - still run by Dominion today). These represent Billions$ and 1000s of employees in all....

 

For what its worth - all these company's have the Dominion name in front of them as wholly owned subsidiaries of the parent holding company (currently Dominion Energy formally Dominion Resources) and many of the services related functions are ultimately consolidated to the parent companies HQ city of RVA.

 

 

[blopp1234]

https://richmondbizsense.com/2018/05/30/bank-beef-presence-revamped-james-center/

10,000 more square feet occupied in James Center. While it’s not much, this company sounds like they want to expand in downtown as opposed to the burbs, which could potentially help fill more space in the future. Also Riverstone keeps hinting throughout the article that they are on the brink of landing a “white whale” tenant who could almost completely fill up the building and won’t give out signage rights for the building. I think we might be seeing a big move to RVA soon!

[drayrichmond]

Good to see we have quite a bit of industry moving in south of the river:

https://richmondbizsense.com/2018/06/22/vacuum-maker-grabs-part-former-chinese-paper-factory-site/

Bissel (vacuums) moving in on 611k square foot facility

plus we also have:

Sabra (hummus) moving in on 40k square foot facility expansion

PepsiCo moving in on 220k square foot facility

DevonUSA building a new 320k square foot facility

Jobs and more jobs, hope this keeps up, it'll help our population numbers!

 

[jbjust]

I assume that the Bissel plant is an actual factory, no?  Wouldn't make sense to just build a standalone distribution facility for vacuum cleaners would it?  

[drayrichmond]

18 minutes ago, jbjust said:

I assume that the Bissel plant is an actual factory, no?  Wouldn't make sense to just build a standalone distribution facility for vacuum cleaners would it?  

I'd have to imagine it's for manufacturing or assembling; I don't think bissel would distribute like that. Plus it's 600k square feet, which is huge, way to big for distribution.