While 2020 was a tumultuous and challenging year for Portsmouth, the city saw plans for significant business investment.
In his first State of the City address, Portsmouth Mayor Shannon Glover said businesses pledged $435 million in various projects expected to come with 1,900 jobs — the biggest contributor being the upcoming Rivers Casino. Reflecting on 2020, Glover also commended many of the city’s residents and employees for their resilience and adaptability during the pandemic.
The Hampton Roads Chamber hosts State of the City addresses with mayors of several localities and various business and community leaders. Friday’s address was in the Renaissance Portsmouth-Norfolk Waterfront Hotel with a limited crowd and streamed online.
The largest ongoing business initiative in Portsmouth is the casino, which officials have framed as an entertainment center. Along with the casino, a $300 million project, the development is expected to include a hotel, restaurants, lounges and shops. That project is expected to create 1,300 jobs and is a centerpiece of the city’s efforts to boost tourism. Voters in Portsmouth approved the casino project in a referendum in November.
Fairlead Boatworks, a shipbuilding and repair company, purchased the vacant North Pier on the Elizabeth River to expand operations, which will create 225 jobs. A new community health-care center focused on serving the western part of Hampton Roads comes with 75 new jobs.
One business that opened during the pandemic is Columbia Care, a medical cannabis dispensary — one of five licensed to operate in the state, Glover said.
Glover said Portsmouth is equipped to become the region’s hub of the offshore wind market, citing a $40 million grant Portsmouth Marine Terminal received from the state for offshore wind infrastructure.
Looking ahead, Glover said the city wants to prepare students in schools and working adults for employment in new or developing industries.
Glover didn’t delve into some of the challenges the city faced in 2020 — what businesses closed, rates of job loss, specific case and death totals from the pandemic or the fallout from the racial justice and equity movement that came to a head as demonstrators destroyed and defaced the city’s Confederate monument. That night led to numerous charges — which were later dropped — against powerful Black officials and turnover in multiple key leadership positions in city government.
He instead focused on ways that residents adapted to change and persevered in a challenging year. He commended health care, public safety and education workers. The city’s public schools closed in the pandemic but provided students with meals as well as computers and internet hotspots so they could connect to virtual classrooms.
A video in his speech noted that with the help of a vaccine clinic operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, more than half the city’s at-risk population has been vaccinated. Portsmouth’s overall vaccination rate lags behind the state, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
As of Friday morning, 38.7% of Virginian have at least one dose of a vaccine, and about 26% of Portsmouth residents have received one dose.
Josh Reyes, 757-247-4692, joreyes@dailypress.com
