Economic healing
Petersburg aims to become pharma hub
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Over the years, Petersburg has become accustomed to bad economic news. After Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Petersburg’s largest employer for decades, left the city in 1985, Petersburg suffered an economic downturn from which it’s never quite recovered. More recently, in 2016, Petersburg city government had a roughly $12 million shortfall in its operating budget,
2021 Virginia Business Person of the Year: Bruce Thompson
Gold Key | PHR CEO realizes Cavalier Resort vision
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Standing on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the Cavalier Hotel is a callback to a time when Virginia Beach was a sleepy little resort town inside Princess Anne County. Opened in 1927 as the largest brick building in the state, the Cavalier was a product of the Jazz Age. Over the years, the Y-shaped
Program aims to boost Latino entrepreneurship
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Arlene Guzman had a small restaurant in Puerto Rico, but “I never felt like I had the training” to be an entrepreneur, she says through a bilingual interpreter. “This is why I sought this opportunity.” A mother of two and grandmother of two, the 52-year-old Richmond-area resident is in the inaugural class of Richmond’s Latino
GreenCity arena hopes to draw sports, music acts
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When developers unsuccessfully pitched Navy Hill, a $1.5 billion mixed-use project and arena that sought to reinvent Richmond’s downtown, they posed a question: If a major draw like Beyoncé came to town, where would she perform? Now those same developers are aiming to host artists like Justin Timberlake, Green Day and John Legend at GreenCity,
Roanoke region anticipates outdoor events boon
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For more than a century, Roanoke has been known as a rail town. But in recent years, the city has endeavored to rebrand itself as a trail town. Since 2008, the Roanoke region has worked to leverage its vast outdoor assets to attract business investment and talent with its high quality of life, as well
Chesterfield eyes zoning overhaul to boost development
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In 1980, developer George Emerson stood in a wooded area of Chesterfield County’s Bermuda district and told a contractor where he wanted to build a road. Without any formal plan endorsed by the county, Emerson built the Walthall Industrial Parkway, opening the adjacent land for industrial development. Times have changed, and so has the process
Mary Baldwin to launch nursing practice doctorate
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You could say Christina Feggans-Langston was destined to become a nurse. “I was named Christina after one of the nurses that my mom had when she was delivering me,” says Feggans-Langston, who works for UVA Health, the same health system where she was born. “Now that I’m a nurse, I want to just keep giving
Banking on bitcoin
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While MicroStrategy may be hogging the bitcoin limelight lately, two other Virginia companies recently made their entrances onto the cryptocurrency stage. On Feb. 3, Charlottesville-based Blue Ridge Bankshares Inc., the parent holding company of Blue Ridge Bank, announced that its customers are now able to purchase and redeem bitcoin at its ATMs, making it the
The Prophet
MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor preaches the bitcoin gospel. Will his $2.2 billion gambit reap a heavenly reward?
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When Michael Saylor was a younger man, his good looks and cocky attitude drew comparisons to Tom Cruise. And like Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Cruise’s flying ace of “Top Gun” fame, Saylor is returning to screens everywhere after a decades long hiatus. Just over 20 years ago, Saylor was Northern Virginia’s premier hotshot tech exec.
Cavalier Resort takes shape in Virginia Beach
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In 1975, Bruce Thompson was the night watchman and grass cutter at Virginia Beach’s Cavalier Hotel. Today, he’s transforming the hotel and its 21 surrounding acres into a major mid-Atlantic resort. Built in 1927, the Cavalier at various times hosted luminaries like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Muhammad Ali and every president from Harry S. Truman through