Wind power to the rescue? Hampton Roads, Virginia’s second-largest population center, is the anchor dragging down Virginia’s economic growth. Could that be about to change? The region has pinned its economic-development hopes upon leveraging Dominion Energy’s $9.8 billion offshore wind farm to become a manufacturing and supply- chain center for the burgeoning East Coast wind industry. Earlier this year, Dominion announced that it would invest $500 million to build a wind-turbine installation ship, but would build it in Texas — a seeming disappointment for Hampton Roads. However, the energy company announced yesterday that it had ordered 176 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. The turbine blades will be manufactured in a Portsmouth facility the Spanish company announced in October that it planned to open, investing $200 million and creating 310 jobs. So, there is hope after all that Virginia will capture some economic benefit from the super-expensive wind farm.
Hampton Roads hotels on the upswing. The hospitality industry was crushed by the COVID epidemic as Americans cut back on travel. But hotels in Hampton Roads have outperformed the industry compared to Richmond, Northern Virginia, the state as a whole, and even the U.S. After suffering a 9% contraction — much milder than elsewhere — the industry has rebounded smartly, according to data published in the “2021 State of the Commonwealth Report” published by Old Dominion University. (more…)
