Danville and Pittsylvania County economic development officials have been working for nearly two decades to ready the 3,528-acre megasite at Berry Hill for tenants. Two developers have now claimed portions of the industrial site, which is the largest in Virginia, leaving only about 200 acres up for grabs.
With the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill almost full and many of the city and county’s other jointly owned industrial parks at or nearing capacity, the region is now looking to develop new sites alongside its continuing work on existing ones.
“We have already started evaluating what is available within the community and throughout the region, and what utility infrastructure aligns with industrial sites,” said Corrie Bobe, who was the city’s economic development director before leaving earlier this month to join the Danville Regional Foundation.
In February, the Italian rocket manufacturer Avio announced its decision to locate a facility at the Southern Virginia Multimodal Park in the Pittsylvania County town of Hurt, with a promise of $500 million in investment and over 1,500 jobs.
Less than a month later, a local performance agreement revealed that a Colorado-based company with ties to a data center developer plans to buy 2,990 acres at the Berry Hill megasite — almost all of the remaining land — for an AI data center campus project.
The agreement, which still needs to be signed by local officials, outlines an expected $73 billion investment and 2,050 new jobs over a 30-year span.
If expectations in the draft agreement are met, this would be the largest economic development deal in Southside history, topping the 2024 announcement that Microporous, a Tennessee-based lithium-ion battery separator manufacturer, would locate at the megasite and bring $1.3 billion in investment and 2,015 jobs.
These three recent announcements gobble up much of the existing industrial land in the region.
In 2023, the Danville-Pittsylvania region boasted more “shovel-ready” sites than any other place in Virginia — meaning the sites had reached all the necessary grading and infrastructure requirements for development. At that time, there were more than 20 shovel-ready sites across Danville and Pittsylvania’s industrial parks.
The region can still claim that title today, said Linda Green, executive director for the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance, a regional economic development group — even though about 85% of the shovel-ready sites in jointly owned parks are spoken for.
“At one point, we had almost half of the available shovel-ready sites in the state,” Green said. “It’s not that high now, but a huge percentage of the state’s sites are still in our region.”
All told, the region’s industrial parks encompass over 6,800 acres of land. Of that, about 5,780 acres have been claimed by developers. This leaves just over 1,000 acres available across nine of the region’s 10 industrial parks, with lots ranging from 5 acres to 200 acres.
And while economic development officials look to create new industrial parks, the work doesn’t stop at existing sites.
“It’s really imperative that we continue to pay that forward and continue making those strategic early investments in site development now for the next 10, 20-plus years,” Bobe said. “It takes that long to develop industrial sites, especially those that could bring in truly impactful projects. So getting started on those now is critical.”
What’s spoken for? What’s left?
Most industrial parks in the region are jointly owned by Danville and Pittsylvania.
The four jointly owned parks cover more than 5,700 acres: Cane Creek Centre, the Cyber Park, the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill and the Southern Virginia Multimodal Park.
Another three parks are solely owned by the city, encompassing 870 acres: the Airside Industrial Park, the Coleman site and the Riverview Industrial Park.
And three parks are owned solely by the county, totaling more than 300 acres: the Ringgold East Industrial Park, the Brosville Industrial Park and the Gretna Industrial Park.
With the exception of the Southern Virginia Multimodal Park, all of these sites have at least some acreage left available for new development, though some are fuller than others. The websites for Danville and Pittsylvania have exact breakdowns of the available lots at each site.
The region has benefited from the “vision to begin investing in our industrial sites, especially the megasite,” which began over 20 years ago, Bobe said. This effort has included due diligence on potential sites, site development and investments in infrastructure, she said.
There’s still space for new companies to locate in the area, Bobe said, and recent announcements may also result in suppliers connected to those developments coming to the region, too.
With larger sites like Berry Hill potentially nearing capacity, smaller industrial sites in the region would be more suitable for suppliers, said Green.
“Now that three major projects are underway, we can be looking at what their supplier needs are,” she said. “That helps counties that may not have the opportunity to have a large site, but they could handle the supplier part.”
The work doesn’t stop
Even though Danville and Pittsylvania have started to see the payoff of decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars in site development, the work continues.
Economic development officials are still working to attract companies to the remaining available sites in the region. They’re also working with those companies that have already announced a location at one of these sites, and they’re thinking ahead about where new sites can be created.
“There are many conversations leading up to a shovel going into the ground after the announcement,” Bobe said. “The hard work just does not stop.”
Officials work with companies on permitting, construction logistics and workforce needs even after an announcement has been made, she said. The region continues to prioritize housing and workforce development to meet the demands of these industries.
And eventually, new land will have to be developed into industrial sites as existing space fills up.
Both Danville and Pittsylvania need to “constantly be replenishing” industrial park acreage that fills up, Green said. Both localities are already looking, individually and collectively, about where they need to grow, she said.
In 2019, Danville and Pittsylvania partnered on a joint regional economic development strategic plan that local officials are now working to update, Bobe said.
That plan evaluates new industry trends, and there will be more information coming about that in the future.
“What are the key industries that will be attracted to the skill sets we offer within the region, as well as the utility infrastructure that is here?” Bobe said. “It’s about understanding not only national but global trends in industry, and what key sectors we’ll see grow over the next 10 years.”
In the meantime, the city has acquired about 120 acres off of the Danville Expressway, and plans to start due diligence there soon with the intention of developing it into another industrial park, she said.
The economic development growth in Danville and Pittsylvania remains important, even as deals continue to land, because of its vast ripple effects, Green said.
“As it starts to grow exponentially, as it starts to bring in suppliers, you’ll start to see the tax base increase, which takes away the burden on taxpayers individually,” she said. “Better jobs, better wages and a better gross domestic product from the companies you’re bringing in.”
For many economic development announcements, there’s a multiplier effect for jobs announced, she said. That means that every direct job created can lead to additional jobs with supplier, construction and maintenance companies.
“That’s where you start to get exponential improvements of the tax base,” Green said. “So you really hope that the livelihoods of the people in our region continue to improve because of what you’re doing.”
