BizSense Beat is a weekly collaboration between VPM News and Richmond BizSense that brings you the top business stories during NPR's Morning Edition on Fridays.
Here’s a recap of of the week of February 7, 2025:
Designs for a new state government office building for Downtown Richmond were recently unveiled
Reported by BizSense’s Mike Platania
The Virginia Department of General Services presented the 316,000-square-foot proposal, which is projected to cost around $400 million.
The office would be located at 1401 E. Broad St., where the 15-floor Virginia Department of Transportation Annex office currently stands.
The new building would effectively replace the James Monroe Building where state agencies like the Virginia Department of Education and the state Treasury, currently reside.
The Monroe Building was built in the late 1970s and is the city’s tallest building, but it’s faced a number of safety issues over recent years.
The building's general design is inefficient and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance is not up to par with typical building practices.
With those deficiencies in mind, DGS began reconsidering the state’s office needs about four years ago.
In 2023 Youngkin had proposed moving many state offices out of downtown and into private spaces in the suburbs, but a DGS study last year ultimately suggested the state needing a new office building downtown, per a Times-Dispatch report.
The fate of the Monroe Building and a potential new tower remains unclear for now
A developer is moving forward with its data center proposal after buying Azalea Flea Market site for $8 million
Reported by BizSense’s Jonathan Spiers
Developer DC Blox, an Atlanta-based firm, is once again attempting to rezone an area in Henrico County for a proposed data center despite opposition to its most recent proposal from neighboring residents and from the Henrico Planning Commission.
The developer has filed plans for a 65,000-square-foot data center that would rise on a roughly 5-acre site behind the CubeSmart self-storage facility on Richmond Henrico Turnpike.
The filing was made three weeks after DC Blox closed on the 30-acre property that includes the data center site and the grounds of the now-former Azalea Flea Market, which ended earlier this month after a four-decade run.
DC Blox was unsuccessful in its request last year to rezone the property. When a new request to rezone the 5-acre residential property went to the county’s Planning Commission in October, commissioners voted unanimously to recommend denial, citing citizen opposition to expanding industrial zoning.
The project’s approval now weighs on a decision from Henrico’s board of supervisors.
Developers behind the Magnolia Green project look to expand the development’s commercial space potential
Reported by BizSense’s Jack Jacobs
The New York-based firm Starfield Cos. is seeking to amend its prior zoning approval tied to the Magnolia Green project.
The residential side of the project has seen major progress as the golf course and hundreds of single-family homes, townhomes and apartments have been built at the 3,900-acre development in the Moseley area of Chesterfield County.
Meanwhile, the commercial side of the development hasn’t picked up speed.
Historically, Magnolia Green has been a tough sell to commercial users because of its westernmost location on Hull Street Road. But more recently, interest on the commercial front has picked up.
Starfield says the decades-old agreements put in place as part of the project’s original zoning request are too restrictive to build out commercial sites.
The project’s current zoning limits it to a total of 20,000 square feet of retail and office uses across the entire site.
Of that 20,000-square-foot limit, retail development specifically is limited to being no more than 12,000 square feet and no single retail or office building can be larger than 5,000 square feet, per a staff report.
Starfield wants to do away with those restrictions on 88 acres across the site, to hopefully attract potential developers.
The proposal wouldn’t increase residential density at the project. Magnolia Green is zoned for a maximum of nearly 4,900 residential units, which includes about 1,500 apartments.
By late January, the project had seen 2,100 houses and apartments built, with more dwellings actively underway. Magnolia Green’s residential areas could reach full build out in three to four years.
A new cafe and wine lounge opens its doors in Cartown as a complement to farm located in Varina
Reported by BizSense’s Mike Platania
Trevor and Kay Ferguson, the owners of Nouveau Farms in Varina, are preparing to open what they hope is “the ultimate date-night spot” in Carytown.
Nouveau Provisions will open in the coming weeks at 3423 W. Cary St. and features coffee, wine produced by the Fergusons’ main business, Nouveau Farms, as well as desserts from local confectionery JC Desserts.
The Fergusons launched Nouveau Farms in 2020, growing such produce as lettuce, basil, cilantro and chives.
It began as an indoor operation off Hull Street in South Richmond and has expanded to a 6-acre farm off Burning Tree Road in Varina.
The initial plan for the pair of entrepreneurs was to open a venue at their Varina facility, then branch out with satellite locations under the Nouveau brand, but the owners are now doing things in the reverse order.
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