By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
With more than seven grocery market chains in Hampton Roads, grocers are fighting for real estate as much as they are customers.
The Kroger Co. has plans to expand rapidly in the region. Its former 55,000-square-foot store in the Virginia Beach Salem Crossing Shopping Center is being converted to a training center for employees to accommodate the growth.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
USAA is moving more than 500 employees from Norfolk to Chesapeake.
In mid-December, the financial services company plans to move the employees who deal with insurance claims from its mid-Atlantic regional office at 5800 Northampton Blvd. to the Battlefield Technology Center.
At 81,000 square feet, the new location is 10 percent larger than the current space, said Matt Walters, a USAA spokesman. At the new location, he said, employees will provide support claims for 9.6 million clients.
By Jared Council
jared.council@insidebiz.com
Just a few months remain before hundreds of military and civilian personnel are scheduled to begin moving into more than 200,000 square feet of Suffolk office space in two buildings that have been vacant since August 2011.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
The sign may be blue, but Haynes is really trying to be green.
The Virginia Beach furniture store along Virginia Beach Boulevard just completed a $2 million renovation of its exterior that followed an environmentally friendly design.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
REITs are trending in the stock market.
In the last three months, six companies have filed initial public offerings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public as a real estate investment trust, just two shy of the eight IPOs filed in all of 2012, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
A Norfolk-based private real estate investment and management firm has been named among the top 50 real estate owners and managers in the country.
Harbor Group International was named the 45th largest owner and the 42nd largest manager of apartment properties by the National Multi Housing Council for 2013.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
When Jacoby Development Inc. purchased the former Ford Motor Co. plant in March 2011 and planned to turn the property into a green industrial site, local officials were hopeful the redevelopment would return some of the 2,400 jobs lost when the car manufacturer closed in 2007.
The Atlanta-based company renamed the 100-acre site it purchased for $14.2 million off Indian River Road The Renaissance Center, but green industries had interest elsewhere.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
Wendell Franklin, until recently a senior vice president of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., has left the firm, taking his son and about eight other people with him, including two longtime associates.
Last week, his son, Taylor Franklin, former partner and vice president of multifamily development at S.L. Nusbaum, announced the departure and formation of The Franklin Johnston Group.
By Bill Cresenzo
bill.cresenzo@insidebiz.com
In 2005, Majora Carter got a phone call that literally changed her life.
She had just emerged from a New York City subway station, and saw that she had a message on her cellphone - a message that was very cryptic.
"Please call the president's office," the caller said in a soft, British accent. She left a Chicago-based phone number
"The president of what?" Carter thought.
By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
Virginia Beach-based developer Armada Hoffler is taking the company public and plans to raise up to $201.3 million in its initial public offering.
Armada Hoffler Properties Inc. filed paperwork with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission on March 26, announcing its plan to qualify as a real estate investment trust and list common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "AHH."
