HAMPTON — Peninsula Town Center opened another 250,000 square feet of retail space last week as part of several phased grand openings for the mixed-use project.  Entertainers and special events will be held through Easter to mark the latest round of new tenant openings. Bryant and Stratton College, a private educational institution, announced that it will open its third Virginia campus at the town center. The massive renovation project, which included the demolition of the former Coliseum Mall, will eventually include about 800,000 square feet. Currently, about 400,000 square feet is open and occupied.

HENRICO COUNTY — Virginia Credit Union Inc. has purchased the former Ham’s Restaurant on West Broad Street for $1.4 million. The credit union will use the property for one of its operations. Thalhimer handled sale negotiations.

RICHMOND — The law firm of McSweeney, Crump, Childress & Temple renewed a 13,885-square-foot-lease for space at Shockoe Center in Shockoe Slip. Jones Lang LaSalle handled lease negotiations while Thalhimer represented the landlord.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Food Lion has extend its lease for 31,262 square feet of retail space at College Park Square I while Bojangles’ Restaurant has leased a 32,000-square-foot outparcel at Regency Hilltop shopping center. In both deals, S. L. Nusbaum Realty Co. represented the landlord.

The grant will allow the city to improve infrastructure and install high-speed broadband connections.

“With the expansion of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Company by the funds provided through this block grant, 30 new jobs will be created in addition to the 631 jobs already in place,” Gov. Bob McDonnell said in a statement. 

The Community Development Block Grant is a federal fund that is administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. 

The awards program, which is in its fourth year, recognizes companies that have productive and engaged work forces.

The winners were selected following a survey involving at least 1,000 employees, with at least 80 percent responding, and the submission of a detailed best practices portfolio.

Bon Secours is one of 10 health-care related companies on the Gallup list. It is part of Bon Secours Virginia, the state’s fourth largest health-care system. The Richmond-area Bon Secours health facilities include St. Mary’s Hospital, Memorial Regional Medical Center, Richmond Community Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center.

Customers will also receive a refund for higher base rates that have been in effect since Sept. 1 and refunds for two rate adjustment clauses.

An average customer using 1,00 kilowatt-hours each month will pay $99.07 per month instead of $108.36 that current customers pay, a savings of $9.29 each month. The

An average residential customer will receive $153 in bill reductions, including $80 over the next nine months and $32 in 2011 and 2012. The order also includes a reduction in transmission rider charges over eight years that will total $41.

The plan keeps Dominion’s base rate the same through Dec. 1.  2013, although fuel and other rates could change.

The Virginia Water Protection permit will allow construction of the expansion and mitigation plan.

The Virginia Port Authority is planning to build a fourth marine terminal in Portsmouth to allow it to handle increased shipments expected after the Panama Canal expansion is completed in 2014

The general consensus by speakers at the 15th annual Hampton Roads Real Estate and Market Review sponsored by the E. V. Williams Center for Real Estate and Economic Development at Old Dominion University is that the worst is probably over. They look for 2010 to be a time when the industry can begin moving up from the bottom.

Bill Throne, a commercial sales and leasing associate with Thalhimer, said he knows of four major deals in the works now. One of them, a bid by an Atlanta developer to convert the former Ford assembly plant in Norfolk into site for alternative energy manufacturing, would take 2.3 million square feet of empty industrial space off the market. Closing just that single deal would make a dent in the region’s overall industrial vacancy rate of 12.9 percent.  “In 2010, I look at commercial real estate as an Easter egg hunt,” said Throne. “You have to search for those hard-to-find eggs and get your equity piece secure.”
In the office sector, the region’s vacancy rate stood at 14.5 percent at the end of 2009, below a national rate of 16 percent.  The only new major project going up is the Wells Fargo high-rise tower in downtown Norfolk. With little else in the construction pipeline, Craig Cope, a vice president with Liberty Property Trust, noted that Hampton Roads experienced positive absorption of its office space for the fifth straight year, a trend that’s chipping away at the overall office vacancy rate.

Retail had the lowest overall vacancy rate for 2009 at 9.8 percent. There was good news in this sector. Grocer Harris Teeter opened three stores in the region last year, new players such as hhgregg and the Restaurant Depot entered the market, and the Peninsula Town Center in Hampton continues to open new space. David Machupa with the retail services group of Thalhimer, said the center — site of the old Coliseum Mall —  will open an additional 250,000 square feet today as part of an ongoing renovation that is bringing new tenants to the market. 

The quarterly profit is up from a $108 million loss in the same period last year.

“The third quarter demonstrated the ongoing strength of our packaged meats business, which continues to deliver very strong margins,” C. Larry Pope, president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are extremely focused on this part of the business, it is paying dividends and the restructuring program is beginning to have an impact.“

Sales fell 12 percent to $2.9 billion, partly due to one less week in this year’s third quarter, compared with the third quarter a year ago.

“Much of the success of the Pork Group restructuring plan is attributable to the benefits received from shuttering underutilized plants,” Pope said. “These plant closures, combined with the rationalization of unprofitable business, have allowed this organization to realize strong bottom line growth.”

The company hopes to improve its profit $55 million in the current fiscal year and $110 million in fiscal year 2011 because of restructuring in its pork segment. The process included the closure of six underutilized plants.

The company’s packaged meat segment had an operating profit of $145.3 million, compared with $115.9 million.
Hog production losses improved as hog market prices grew 12 percent and raising costs fell 16 percent.

The contract was awarded by the Navy’s Program Executive Office (PEO) of Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I).

The contract is a multiple award contract with a three-year base period and two one-year options. Work will be mostly preformed at PEO C4I’s headquarters in San Diego.

The PEO C4I provides integrated communications and information technology systems for the Navy. SAIC will design, engineer, develop and integrate C4I technology.

Mims served as Gov. Bob McDonnell’s chief deputy attorney general until McDonnell resigned last year to concentrate on his gubernatorial race. Mims then succeeded McDonnell and served the rest of his term. Since January Mims has worked at law firm Hunton & Williams.

“We need individuals of Bill’s character and intelligence in public service, and while he may have thought his time serving Virginia was over, today’s appointment is welcome news to all of us who know just how uniquely qualified and decent a person he is,” McDonnell said in a statement.

Sperry Marine will supply five new MK 39 Mod 3C systems to the navy, with two Gotland-class and two Södermanland-class submarines and a third reserved for training and spare parts. These systems are more advanced and have shock and vibration resistance.