Information for those who are wondering about what's going on in the area.

>The Richmond region continues to be a popular destination for the manufacturing and distribution sectors, as well as tech and pharmaceutical businesses. Much of that is due to its location near major highways, airports, railways and the Port of Virginia’s terminals in Richmond and Hampton Roads, Wakefield says.

I have to notice that what's on the list, attracting companies to Richmond, are all the innate benefits of the location - and not sweetheart tax refund deals.

>Henrico also landed a $144 million investment from QTS, a data center company that set up a network access point for three subsea telecommunications cables from Virginia Beach, which connect to data networks in Europe, South America and the United States. QTS announced in July it would expand its White Oak Technology Park data center by 1.5 million square feet, near Meta Platforms Inc.’s 970,000-square-foot data center.

I know that data centers take up a lot of energy, but do they actually offer a return of investment to the area?

The one I'm working at has fed over 1000 families for the past few years. We recently hit 10,000,000 man hours

We’re accessible to DC, on 95, have an airport, AND the port.

No surprise to me at all.

How many employees?

At full bore we've had around 1200 trades workers

Good point. Use that incentive money on infrastructure like public transit so everyone can benefit from it even more.

Like when they built it?

Yes. It's still being built. Buildings 1, 2 and 3 are operational. Buildings 5 and 6 have not been completed. The ten million man hours are in reference to the construction of the complex

Briefly and then are eye sores, noise polluters, and provider employment for an absolute skeleton crew in most cases.

Better than a parking lot but worse than everything else.

They've been using this as their 'unique selling proposition' since at least the early 1990s. Then the incentives came.