Va. regulations chasing payday lenders away

Cruising down Broad Street between Virginia Commonwealth University and suburban Short Pump, you’ll see a string of businesses with names like Cash Advance, Cash-2-U and Fast Payday Loans. They’ll lend you money until your next paycheck – at interest rates critics call exorbitant. The 23230 Zip code has one of the highest concentrations of payday lending stores in Virginia, with almost one location for every 1,000 residents. The area is among the poorer sections of metro Richmond, with a median household income about $10,000 below the state average. Payday lenders offer short-term, high-interest loans to consumers using the borrower’s paycheck as collateral. Until last year, such businesses could charge $15 for a two-week $100 loan – amounting to a 391 percent annualized interest rate. The General Assembly capped the rate at 36 percent, making the fee for a two-week loan $1.38. So some payday ...

Va. solar biz prepares for $39 million stimulus

The sun hasn’t set on solar incentives yet. The General Assembly rejected a $2 million tax credit program for renewable-energy systems this past session, but that’s small change compared with the $39 million in federal stimulus money the state of Virginia wants to dedicate to fund development of solar and wind energy systems. That is more than half of the $70 million the state will receive from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund energy programs. The state Department of Mines, Minerals, Energy is in the process of divvying up those funds and seeking final approval from the federal energy agency, according to the Washington Business Journal. Officials said they plan to divide the $39 million three ways: one pot for local schools and government buildings, one pot for state-owned buildings including universities and prisons, and another pot to pay back residents and ...

“Gentlemen, start your economic engines”

Lagging attendance, sponsorship losses, and the auto meltdown in Detroit hover over NASCAR, but the Sprint Cup race this weekend at Richmond International Raceway will still have a huge economic impact on the area. There will be as many as 4,000 people working at the raceway complex over the weekend; the traveling vendors are still setting up shop; and RV parking will continue to provide a little extra income for nearby property owners. The raceway generates as much as $467 million in direct and indirect economic impact each year, according to a recent study commissioned by RIR. The financial impact of this race may be diminished somewhat, as evidenced by soft hotel bookings reported earlier this week by BizSense. But track officials are still hoping for a sellout, according to Richie Denzler who is RIR’s manager of community and public relations. “We remain optimistic for ...

Mixed-use development planned for Cary and Meadow

A mid-rise building for residential and retail use has been proposed for the northeast corner of Cary and Meadow streets in the Fan. A BP service station and coin laundry currently operate at the site, but West Cary Street Planning Committee chairman Ed Eck has produced a plan to build a three- to five-story residential complex with street level retail space on the site. “Right now, the committee’s number one priority is to develop the corner where the service station is,” Eck said. The West Cary committee is a group of residents and businesses that have worked to improve conditions along the five-block stretch of Cary Street east of Meadow Street for the past 18 years. There are two designs for the building, one an L-shaped layout and a higher density U-shaped layout. The building would add between 65 and 84 residential units and include ...

Hotel bookings in the pits for race weekend

Hotels across the metro region have dropped rates to lure NASCAR fans to Saturday night’s race at Richmond International Raceway. But even at lower prices, hotel managers expect to have plenty of empty rooms. “Quite honestly, I think the economy has really impacted people’s decision to come to the race this year,” said Fritz Schwartz, general manager of the Westin Richmond in the West End. Schwartz said there has been very little response to Westin’s special offer; the hotel is offering rooms for $179 during NASCAR weekend, about 5 percent off the regular rate. This is the first race weekend for the Westin, which opened in December. Schwartz said the hotel had originally planned to charge $299 a room this weekend, but like many other hotels decided to drop the high premium normally associated with Richmond’s semiannual race. “It’s not so much about dropping the ...

Ellwood Thomson’s D.C. expansion put on hold

Natural grocery store Ellwood Thompson’s announced Friday that plans to open a store in Washington have been put on hold indefinitely. The planned 15,000-square-foot location was slated to open this fall in the DCUSA  mixed-use development in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. “We are still talking to the developers. We love the location,” said company spokesperson Cyndi Watkins. “It’s just not prudent to expand into a new market with the economy the way it is.” There was no timeline announced for when they might go forward with the project. Watkins said that plans to develop a store there had been in the works for about two years and that Ellwood Thompson’s signed a lease there a year ago. The company, which is locally owned and operated, can not pull out of the lease and will continue to pay rent at that location, Watkins told ...

Monday Q&A: Will Virginia’s highway bailout be enough?

Virginia has $694 million of federal stimulus dollars on its way to fund highway construction projects. As you read this a slew of governmental bodies are hammering exactly how it will be spent. But how much of an impact will that really have on the state’s transportation infrastructure when the state has $3 billion worth of stalled projects on its plate?