BizSense Beat is a weekly collaboration between VPM News and Richmond BizSense which brings you the main business news during NPR Morning edition on Fridays.
Here is a summary of the main news for the week of October 20, 2023:
JLARC set to review VCU Health in light of development failure
Reported by Richmond Bizsense Jonathan Spiers
Scrutiny of the failed downtown development, which cost VCU Health $73 million, is prompting a closer look from the Virginia General Assembly’s investigative arm.
A subcommittee of the Joint Commission on Audit and Legislative Review has included the health care system among the topics it is likely to study in the coming year, according to recommendations submitted to staff Monday of JLARC. Staff will then draft resolutions to be considered by the full committee at its Nov. 13 meeting.
VCU Health was one of several topics suggested by staff to the subcommittee during Monday’s meeting, specifically the aborted redevelopment of the former Richmond Public Safety Building and the governance structure of the health system, which attracted attention from Governor Glenn Youngkin.
‘Wait until they actually hear the deal’: Despite efforts, VCU Health’s doomed development couldn’t be saved
Reported by Richmond Bizsense Jonathan Spiers
In the days after Art Kellermann gave in and agreed to sign a costly downtown development deal that he had adamantly opposed, colleagues of the then-VCU Health CEO who had urged him to approve the project shared, via email, a collective sigh of relief. .
In a message to Karol Gray, a high-level administrator at Virginia Commonwealth University who helped ensure Kellermann’s compliance, fellow administrator Jay Bonfili said, “I met with Art this morning. I don’t think (the project) will continue to be a problem.”
“Thank goodness,” replied Matt Conrad, vice president of government and external relations for VCU and VCU Health, when Gray shared Bonfili’s email a few minutes later. “I am so grateful for your commitment.”
Gray and Conrad had lobbied Kellermann on behalf of VCU President Michael Rao, who is also the health system’s president and chairs its board of trustees. Kellermann’s signing signified the apparent end to months of internal consternation over VCU Health, which anchored the $325 million redevelopment of the city’s former Public Safety Building, at 500 N. 10th St., downtown.
Riverfront Amphitheater Project Accelerates This Week
Reported by Richmond Bizsense Jonathan Spiers
With another Richmond Folk Festival in the books, work is set to begin on the much-anticipated riverside amphitheater that is planned to rock Tredegar Hill.
Fencing is in place and work begins at the Richmond Amphitheater, the hall with a capacity of 7,500 seats from Coran Capshaw’s Red Light Ventures, scheduled to open in spring 2025.
The developer behind Charlottesville’s Ting Pavilion recently filed paperwork with the city’s permit office, including for a same-day building permit for temporary construction trailers and new buildings on the 4-acre site upriver of the Tredegar Iron Works complex.
Bruce Hazelgrove, chief administrative officer of NewMarket Corp., which owns the land and leases the site, said work was expected to begin this week as soon as the folk festival crews had finished packing up.
Fred Funk and Friends: Richmond’s other great golf tournament
Reported by Richmond Bizsense Michael Schwartz
As the Dominion Energy Charity Classic takes place this week at the Country Club of Virginia for the eighth consecutive year, another less publicized golf tournament was played at another lesser-known local golf course.
The Fred Funk and Friends Golf Gala was held Monday at the Kanawha Club in Goochland.
The event, quietly held each year as a sort of unofficial DECC kickoff event, brings together about two dozen of the same golf professionals who play on the PGA Tour Champions, which brings the DECC to Richmond every year since 2016.
Fred Funk and Friends was born, fittingly, from the friendship between Fred Funk, a longtime professional golfer who joined the Champions Tour in 2006, and Bobby Sandford, a local Air Force veteran and a seasoned pilot and flight instructor.
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