THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512060012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Norfolk can only wish every week were as good as last week. There were groundbreakings and announcements that altogether mean more than 2,200 new jobs in Norfolk - many of them highly paid - and hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.
``Christmas has come early to Norfolk,'' said Mayor Paul Fraim.
On Monday:
St. Louis-based Trans World Airlines broke ground for its East Coast reservation center in Norfolk's Lake Wright Executive Center on Military Highway. The center will add 500 jobs and a $16 million payroll to the local economy.
Sources said The New York Times Co. would lease 25,000 square feet in the east wing of the World Trade Center for a financial processing center employing 100 to 120 people. A source said the company looked at 45 communities before choosing Norfolk.
On Tuesday:
Official groundbreaking was held at North Military Highway and Norview Avenue for South Hampton Roads' first Super Kmart, a gargantuan, 190,000-square-foot store, to employ 500.
The city received favorable national publicity when the first of the new Ford F-series pickups roared through a simulated-brick wall at the Norfolk Assembly Plant in the Campostella section. Partly because of the high quality of its work force, the Norfolk plant was chosen as the lead plant in the introduction of the new F-series, which had not been redesigned since 1979. Ford increased the number of robots at the plant from 33 to 181 and added 450 workers.
On Wednesday:
The U.S. Coast Guard announced it will move its Maintenance & Logistics Command Atlantic headquarters staff of 478 people into Main Street Tower. The payroll is $24.7 million. The vacancy rate of premier office space downtown dropped last week from 23 percent to 15.8 percent, a spectacular improvement.
On Thursday:
Universal Air Products Corp., which produces pollution-control and air-compression equipment, announced it will shift its manufacturing and distribution operations from Pittsburgh to Norfolk, where it will employ 25.
On Friday:
At a press conference in Richmond, Target Stores announced it would enter the Hampton Roads market in 1996 with stores in Norfolk, Chesapeake and Hampton, each employing 150 to 175.
Norfolk Director of Development Robert B. Smithwick said of the newcomers, ``This is not drop-in stuff. This is planning the work and working the plan.''
Clearly the city's business-recruitment plan is working, and residents can reasonably expect more good news. by CNB