Commercial Real Estate
New construction

Virginia Business
December 2006

Bringing the world to Fredericksburg?
Fredericksburg - The Silver Cos., a real estate development and investment firm, has announced its latest project: a multibillion-dollar, retail development off I-95. It will be located at Silver's existing Celebrate Virginia project, a retail-resort venue along 2,400 acres in Fredericksburg and Stafford County.

WorldStreet is being touted as an innovative model for commercial ownership and selling. For the first time in a major indoor shopping venue, vendors would be given the opportunity to own showroom space. "This is the first project that blurs the lines between retail and wholesale and invites exporting manufacturers to sell along with retailers," says David Mignatti, president of WorldStreet Development, a division of the Silver Cos.

To sell the concept, Mignatti has hit the road. "We have signed and committed partners and operators both domestically and internationally," he says. For instance, Mignatti says a Virginia-based wholesaler of Vertice Coffee plans to build a coffee pavilion that would feature samples of coffee and coffee beans from throughout the world.

Helias Boutique in Georgetown, which sells upscale Iranian women's clothing, wants to add a location at WorldStreet, he adds.

Companies outside America also are expressing interest. "I just got back from a two-week trip to China where we presented the idea to 102 private companies of which 27 of the exporting companies plan to come to Virginia to tour our site," says Mignatti.

Site grading and preliminary work are under way, with the project slated for completion in 2008. WorldStreet is being designed as a tourist destination with 750,000 square feet that would include showroom and distribution facilities, specialty shops, European-style boutiques and a variety of themed restaurants. The Silver Cos. plan to roll out WorldStreet at other locations in metropolitan markets across North America. The projects will offer multichannel marketing, says Mignatti, through a store's physical location, e-commerce and a WorldStreet television channel.

Construction begins on high-tech operations center
Russell County - Construction is under way on a $23 million data center that will create about 400 jobs in Southwest Virginia.

Northrop Grumman, a global defense contractor based in Los Angeles, is building a 101,000-square-foot facility. The company is the state's partner in a public-private partnership to modernize Virginia's IT infrastructure. Northrop Grumman will provide core IT services to Virginia, and the Russell County center will serve as the company's East Coast service delivery hub. An estimated 90 percent of the labor pool will come from local counties and towns.

Northrop Grumman is the anchor tenant in the Russell Regional Business Technology Park. The Southwest Virginia Enterprise Solutions Center is scheduled to be ready by next fall. As part of the 10-year, $2 billion deal with the state, a new $40 million, 192,000-square-foot data center also is being built in Meadowville Technology Park in Chesterfield County that will house 600 Northrop Grumman and state employees. The project should be ready by next summer.

Long & Foster builds a new headquarters
Chantilly - The Long & Foster Cos., the largest privately-owned real estate company in the country, is building a new corporate headquarters.

Work began in October on a five-story, 285,000-square-foot building off Route 28. The brick, Class A, Williamsburg-style building is going up on a 39-acre parcel called The Ellipse at Westfields. It will provide much needed space for the company's growing support staff, now housed in an 81,000-square-foot building in Fairfax.

Long & Foster purchased the corporate campus site last year. It is zoned for more than 1 million square feet of office and eventually will include several buildings and perhaps a hotel. Scheduled for completion in summer 2008, the corporate headquarters will house 500 employees and the heads of Long & Foster's affiliated businesses: mortgage, title and insurance.

The company has 2,300 workers and a sales force of 18,000 agents in 250 residential real estate sales offices throughout the mid-Atlantic region. Last year, sales for all the companies' affiliates totaled $65.8 billion.

The project's general contractor is James G. Davis Construction Corp. of Rockville, Md. Soma Architects of Alexandria and Beery Rio Architects of Springfield designed the building. Long & Foster's in-house construction department will manage the project.

The company recently expanded its commercial division by opening a satellite commercial office in Washington, D.C.