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Former Colortree factory to be taken over by new company
Moore DM Group's $31M investment will bring back 239 jobs to Henrico printing plant.
Tulsa, Oklahoma-based marketing conglomerate Moore DM Group will invest $31 million in reopening the Henrico County printing plant formerly operated by Colortree Group Inc., which abruptly went out of business in June, leaving 240 employees out of work. The new plant will be run as Richmond Print Group, a subsidiary of Moore DM Group. Richmond
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Cyclical patterns
Volvo Group’s New River Valley employment ebbs and flows
Last June, Volvo Group announced plans to invest nearly $400 million, add 350,000 square feet to its Dublin complex in Pulaski County — already the largest Volvo truck plant in the world — and hire 777 new workers over the next six years. Five months after that announcement, though, Volvo said it would lay off
Banner year
With Merck and Hershey deals, valley hits investment record
You’d be hard pressed to find an economic development official who had a better first year on the job than Jay Langston did in 2019. With Langston at the helm, the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, a regional economic development group, announced a record $1.5 billion in business investment last year, anchored by Merck & Co.’s expansion of its longstanding pharmaceutical production facility
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Changing times
A demographic revolution is transforming how Virginians live — and vote
Town houses and apartments, storefronts and restaurants, grassy medians, pocket parks, sidewalks everywhere. Doesn’t this look a lot like a downtown? Picking up his mail in slippers and shorts on a brisk January day, Tandy Harris pauses to consider the question. “It does,” he agrees. “It’s got all the bells and whistles.” That’s one reason
A continuum of learning
JMU, BRCC partner to secure Merck investment
While grocery shopping one evening in February 2019, Melissa Lubin received a phone call from Jay Langston, the new executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership. A major employer in the region was looking to expand its operations, Langston told her, with more than 100 high-paying jobs and a multiyear investment that could reach $1
Healthy and wealthy
Carilion, manufacturing industries step up operations
Roanoke County’s main street — Electric Road (state Route 419) — is getting a big boost from the region’s largest employer. Carilion Clinic announced in September it had leased 150,000 square feet at Tanglewood Mall to accommodate Carilion’s growing children’s outpatient practices. Carilion, the Roanoke nonprofit that operates nine hospitals and more than 200 practice
Eggs in several baskets
A diversified job market develops in Southern Virginia
Southern Virginia ended 2019 with some of the largest investments the region has seen in recent years and strong economic momentum — a far cry from 15 to 20 years ago when the area experienced downfalls in employment and capital investment after the textiles industry moved operations outside the country. Last July, the positive energy
Moving beyond coal
Stalwart Paul’s Fan Co. diversifies its business, creates jobs
In 1923, the number of people earning a living mining coal in the United States peaked at 862,536. Now, that number is around 52,000, and many people and companies who relied on coal for income have fallen on hard times. That’s one reason the 2019 expansions of Paul’s Fan Co., which has been tied to
Followups: Amazon begins work on HQ2 site
In late January, Amazon.com Inc. began clearing the site for the first of its two, 22-story HQ2 East Coast headquarters towers in Arlington, demolishing an old warehouse at Metropolitan Park near Pentagon City. And in related news, the Crystal City Business Improvement District’s board of directors voted on Jan. 23 to change its name to
Port of call
Deep-water harbor drives local economy
Hampton Roads’ deep-water port continued to be a dominant factor in attracting companies to the region in 2019, especially cold storage and warehousing and logistics firms. “As we try to bring industry into this area, the port is a significant driver of our economic development,” says Doug Smith, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads