Suffolk gains a new reputation as a high-tech hub

by Elizabeth Cooper
for Virginia Business
May 2007

Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson can’t help chuckling when she tells people that she represents the Sleepy Hole Borough. Home to burgeoning residential, retail and commercial developments, as well as a flourishing high-tech industry, the northern Suffolk district is anything but drowsy. Indeed, it represents Suffolk’s transformation from an agricultural and manufacturing economy into a diversified high-tech market.

Growth all across this land-rich Hampton Roads city is so robust that Suffolk ranks 74th on the U.S. Census Bureau’s list of the top 100 fastest-growing localities in the country.

Fueled by the presence of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which concentrates on computer modeling and simulation to improve warfare, northern Suffolk has become a magnet for about 20 defense contractors, including industry giants such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics, along with Old Dominion University’s Virginia Modeling and Simulation Center. They’ve all set up shop along the Interstate 664 corridor, spawning hou­sing and retail developments and creating high-tech jobs that helped generate a major spike in Suffolk’s annual median household income. According to 2005 Census Bureau figures, Suffolk’s annual median income rose from $46,630 in 2000 to $60,484, placing the city second in Hampton Roads behind Chesapeake.

Johnson, whose borough is home to many of those high-tech workers, believes Suffolk could become one of the top spots in the nation for the modeling and simulation industry. “We have a great location on the East Coast with the Navy nearby and the triangle of 664 makes us convenient to every Hampton Roads area,” she says. “High-tech jobs are bringing in more people from other areas.”

Defense contractors claim more than 1 million square feet of office space in the Harbour View development, including EchoStorm Inc.’s 15,000 square feet of office space in the new Bridgeway Technology Center III. The 4-year-old defense contractor, which supplies the military with near-real-time video data services, has grown tremendously in the past year and expects to add 100 highly skilled workers by the end of the year.

EchoStorm, the recipient of a contract worth more than $7 million from the Joint Forces Command, had been housed down the street in the Harbour View Professional Center. Its new facility offers a large data center with the capability to run 500 computers and room to stage equipment for shipment to Iraq and other military hot spots. “If you look at the Joint Forces Command and Harbour View Boulevard, all of the large systems innovators have set up shop there,” says EchoStorm President David Barton, who started the company with his brother, Jason, in their parents’ garage. “It’s just beginning to really see growth.”

That growth will no doubt continue to escalate with the opening of the MAST Center at Hampton Roads. A 32-acre research, education and technology park straddling the Suffolk-Portsmouth city line, the center will have ODU’s Tri-Cities Higher Education Center and VMASC as its centerpiece. While the Tri-Cities Center will be in Portsmouth, the VMASC facility will call Suffolk home. Both are expected to open this fall.

Developer Robert T. Williams, the force behind Harbour View’s development as a mixed-use community 20 years ago, believes that the MAST Center will stimulate high-tech firms to relocate to Suffolk from hubs in Northern Virginia and Orlando. “I think we’re going to get our share of it,” he says.

A former city manager for Portsmouth, and now the CEO of Harbour View Partners, Williams attributes the development’s success not only to its location but also to the construction of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel and the Western Freeway connection to downtown Norfolk. The connectors all sit within three miles of Harbour View.

Next up for Harbour View is a 120-acre mixed-use project between Harbour View Boulevard and I-664, including 800 residential units and 750 hotel rooms. “This is going to be Harbour View’s town center,” Williams says. “We’re very excited about putting some density right in the middle of Harbour View with some taller buildings.” Plans also call for the development of 120,000 square feet of retail space next door, anchored by a Harris Teeter supermarket, while the east side of Harbour View will house a Kohl’s store, a major office supply retailer and a Bed Bath and Beyond shop. “Residential growth probably has exceeded our expectations,” Williams says. “Most or our projections indicated that a lot of the housing and jobs would be on line before we’d get retail.”

Health-care systems are also jockeying for a share of the northern Suffolk market. Bon Secours recently opened an ambulatory surgical center in Harbour View, while Sentara Healthcare plans to build a comprehensive outpatient medical center in the new BelleHarbour section, less than one mile west of the I-664/Route 17 interchange. The first portion of the project with a 24-hour emergency department, advanced diagnostic imaging, a laboratory, physical therapy, sports medicine and physician offices will open next spring.
With high-tech industry, high-end grocery stores and comprehensive medical services, Suffolk’s reputation as a sleepy agricultural community has been put to rest. The challenge now, according to Suffolk Economic Development Director Thomas A. O’Grady, is keeping up with the growth. “Suffolk has become a much more suburban development area,” O’Grady says. “With that comes more jobs and a more diversified economy. We’re trying to focus on attracting new job opportunities to Suffolk so our citizens can work and play here.”

To manage Suffolk’s growth, the city has adopted a 2026 comprehensive plan with the I-664/Route 17 corridor and downtown Suffolk as its urban development districts. “Future growth is going to occur in those two districts,” O’Grady says. Downtown Suffolk is already experiencing a renaissance with the $20 million Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts housed in the historic former Suffolk High School, the 150-room Hilton Garden Inn and Suffolk Conference Center and a variety of restaurants and coffee houses.

Mayor Johnson, who moved to Suffolk in 1963, believes the city’s growth will continue to mushroom, albeit in a managed fashion. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” Johnson says. “The trick is to do it in such a managed effort to make sure the services match the growth.”

However, with 434 square miles, much of which is easily accessible to all of Hampton Roads and beyond, city officials will continue to manage growth as they position Suffolk for its share of the economic and housing markets. As Johnson says, the city has the most land and therefore all the options. “There’s no limit to where we can go.”