Regional Quality of Life Video Released

Chesterfield County's southern regional economic development partner, The Virginia's Gateway Region, has teamed up with Dominion Virginia Power to create a quality of life video showcasing some of the amenities the region has to offer. Quality of life is important to prospective companies as they look to expand or relocate their business.

Chesterfield Firms Part of International Presence in Richmond

The Richmond-Times Dispatch has an article in the Metro Business section today about international companies doing business in the area. Several companies located Chesterfield County are among those referenced by Times-Dispatch staff writer John Reid Blackwell.

Foreign-based food companies seem to have a particular taste for the Richmond area.

Fiorucci Foods, an Italian meats company, has had a plant in Chesterfield County since the late 1980s. So has Maruchan Inc., a maker of those instant noodles that so many college students depend on for quick, inexpensive meals.

Goya Foods Inc., an international seller of Latin American cuisine, opened a $5.1 million distribution center in Prince George County in 2006 to ship some of its more than 1,500 products to markets in the Southeast, where demand for its products has been growing.

Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc., a Canadian-based company, announced plans in April to open a coffee-roasting facility in Ashland that will employ 85 people.

Last week, Sabra Dipping Co., a kosher, vegetarian food manufacturer, broke ground on a $59.3 million food-processing plant just north of Colonial Heights. Sabra is a joint venture between PepsiCo and Strauss Group, Israel's second-largest food and beverage company. The plant is expected to employ 260 people when it opens by mid-2010.

For food companies, it is often more practical and economical to manufacture products closer to their end markets, said Will Davis, Chesterfield's economic-development director.

"A $60 million investment and 260 jobs, even in an up economy, is a home run," said Pat Gottschalk, Virginia's secretary of commerce and trade. "Frankly, in a down economy, it is a grand-slam home run."

The entire Richmond area benefits from geographic advantages.

"Richmond was a very good location for us, because it is next to the port, and we import everything from Austria to Norfolk," Roos said. "It is a very central location."

Read the entire article on the Times-Dispatch web site. >>


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Sabra Breaks Ground on New Chesterfield Plant

Sabra Dipping Co. held a ground breaking ceremony on Tuesday, January 14, 2009 to celebrate the start of construction on its new $60 million manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

More information is available on Chesterfield Business News. >>

Sabra Dipping Co. targeted, reeled in

John Reid Blackwell has written an article in today's Richmond-Times Dispatch about the economic development effort that went into helping Sabra Dipping Co. select Chesterfield County for its new food manufacturing facility. The company will hold a ground breaking ceremony today to kick off construction of the 110,000-square-foot plant in the Ruffin Mill Industrial Park.

In the article, Blackwell writes,

The international flavor of food companies in the Richmond area was a key ingredient in attracting the region's newest maker of cultural cuisine, local economic developers said.

State and local economic development officials worked for about a year to land an investment by Sabra Dipping Co., a maker of kosher, vegetarian foods such as salads and hummus.

Read the entire article here on the Times-Dispatch web site. >>

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Olympic Training Facility in Chesterfield Proposed

The Richmond-Times Dispatch has an article today about a proposed new Olympic training facility in Chesterfield County.

Construction on a $100 million, 50-acre Olympic training facility in the Waterford Business Center in Chesterfield County could begin in February.

The project at Route 288 and Powhite Parkway, announced yesterday at Chesterfield's Department of Economic Development, is the brainchild of Steve Burton, CEO and chairman of SportsQuest, a company he developed for this purpose.

Read the entire article at timesdispatch.com>>

Building Progresses at Westchester Commons

American Infrastructure, the site contractor for Westchester Commons, has once again provided to Chesterfield Economic Development recent aerial photographs of the project. Westchester Commons is being developed by Zaremba Metropolitan Midlothian, LLC. Since June, a great deal of progress has been made on this project.

Westchester Commons is a 900,000 square foot retail shopping center located at the northwest quadrant of Route 60 and Route 288. Westchester Commons is part of the 640 acre Watkins Centre mixed use development.

Westchester Commons will consist of large, national retailers including Target, Petco, Jo-Ann Fabric and Regal Cinemas around the perimeter of the center, with a concentration of small shops along an interior, pedestrian-friendly Main Street. Books-A-Million will be opening a new store at one end of Main Street. And Gold’s Gym is building a new 45,000 square-foot, $8 million facility near the other end of Main Street. A grand opening scheduled in the spring of 2009.

Wako Chemicals USA: Little firm, big responsibility

The Richmond-Times Dispatch has an article in today's Metro Business section about the important work going on at Wako Chemicals USA here in Chesterfield County.

The somewhat arcane but vital business of keeping you alive is thriving in Chesterfield County.

In a nondescript building off an industrial stretch of Bellwood Road between Interstate 95 and the James River, a Japanese chemical company is busy producing a fine, white powder used to test the safety of injectable medications and artificial joints.

Read the entire article at timesdispatch.com>>

Alstom Power Expanding Chesterfield County Plant

Alstom Power, Inc., held a groundbreaking celebration on December 3, 2008 for its new Blade Manufacturing Facility at their Willis Road plant in Chesterfield County.



The new 20,000 square foot facility will enable them to manufacture turbine blades from 2” to 38” in length. They are currently able to manufacture approximately 7,000 blades each year at their present facility but expect that this expansion will allow them to more than double their annual blade production.

Alstom opened its operations in Chesterfield County in the early 1970’s and have undergone several expansions. They currently employ over 150 employees at the Willis Road plant and expect to add 25 new employees over the next 36 months as their blade production capacity increases. The $7.5 million expansion is scheduled to be complete in early June 2009.

Richmond BizSense Covers Details of Sabra Project

Richmond BizSense has a good article about the deal that brought Sabra Dipping Company to Chesterfield County.

http://www.richmondbizsense.com/big-biz/543-how-hummus-arrived-in-va.html

Sabra Dipping Company To Open New Plant In Chesterfield

Sabra Dipping Company will open a state-of-the-art food processing plant in Chesterfield County. The plant will produce award-winning Sabra branded dips and spreads including the country’s best-selling Sabra hummus and vegetable dips. Current projections estimate 260 new jobs will result from the facility, beginning in mid 2010. Chesterfield County successfully competed against two other states for the project. The 110,000 square foot facility will be located on 49 acres in the Ruffin Mill Industrial Park at the Walthall interchange off Interstate 95.

More information can be found on Chesterfield Business News.