Transformational Opportunity Arrives in Southern Virginia
Realizing a promising opportunity requires a level of commitment equal to the promise — commitment of time, belief, work, capital and people.
In Southern Virginia, years of commitment have opened the door to an unprecedented opportunity to lead the nation’s clean-tech manufacturing resurgence and energy transition.
Battery separator manufacturer Microporous LLC in November 2024 announced it would invest $1.35 billion and create more than 2,000 jobs on a portion of the 3,528-acre Southern Virginia Megasite near Danville in Pittsylvania County, where over $200 million has been invested in site infrastructure over the years. The operation will manufacture coated lithium-ion battery separators for use primarily in the high-demand areas of electric vehicles and energy storage.
“At the end of the day, Virginia just blew us away,” says Microporous CEO John Reeves in an interview from the company’s headquarters in Piney Flats, Tennessee, alongside Vice President of Corporate Development Brad Reed. “The local folks were the differentiator.”
Fifty-three years ago, Microporous became a differentiator as an anchor employer along a new stretch of road in its home state. In its new Virginia home in November, a new stretch of road — Harville-Saunders Parkway, completing Route 311 and providing direct access to the megasite — opened for business the day before Microporous announced it would be an anchor once again.
The network of people, sites and programs from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), counties, cities, utilities and schools offers the most reassuring infrastructure of all.
Microporous will be eligible to receive a special appropriation of up to $60.6 million approved by the General Assembly’s Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission, subject to approval by the Virginia General Assembly. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, which has invested nearly $35 million in the Southern Virginia Megasite since 2008, approved up to $25 million in low-interest financing to bring natural gas service to the project. The company also can apply for grants from the Port of Virginia. Support for the project also is coming from Pittsylvania County, the City of Danville and the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance.
Turnaround At Hand
How did the company land in an area that’s seen its share of hard times? Partly because of those hard times, Reeves explains.
“It really started as we were focused on what the U.S. government is doing — and what the Chinese government has been doing for decades: incentivizing strategic industries,” Reed says. The company filed application No. 2907 for grant money under the Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling program created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the U.S. Department of Energy. Among its requirements? Placing production in an area whose economy has been affected by the closure of a coal mine or of a power plant fueled by coal.
The teamwork evident in the assembly and improvement of the megasite was just as evident in the building of that application. A forum held about a year ago saw between 20 and 30 organizations from Pittsylvania County and neighboring counties convene to discuss recruiting and development strategy and capabilities, Reed says. “One thing the DOE grant program looks for is local community development plans, which make up 20% of the grant application,” he says. Letters of support from 15 of those organizations went a long way toward the company’s application being looked on favorably, he says.
Microporous was selected for a $100 million grant.
“At the groundbreaking, I asked each of those organizations to stand and it was almost half the room,” Reed says, noting the company is committing $500,000 to a grant program for community development projects. Danville is already redeveloping quite well, revitalizing its downtown and building on a technically and mechanically savvy talent pool driven in part by a Department of Defense contract that sent people there for training in the nuclear-powered Navy.
When the search was underway for a location, it quickly narrowed to North Carolina and Virginia, Reed says. “What solidified Virginia over North Carolina was the significant investment they’ve already made in the infrastructure at the megasite,” he says, “and the unparalleled job recruitment investment they’d already made.”
Reeves says the idea of adding capacity was launched during the COVID-19 outbreak. “Planning, finding and hiring people and getting people trained was a real challenge,” Reeves says. “The notion of hiring 2,000 people for this new facility was pretty daunting.”
VEDP’s highly praised Virginia Talent Accelerator Program eased the worry. The Microporous executives had only to look at what the program did for the LEGO Group at its billion-dollar manufacturing project in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond.
The Southern Virginia Megasite has attracted a megaproject in the form of a $1.35 billion, 2,000-job investment from Microporous.
All images courtesy of VEDP and Microporous LLC
“Within just 36 hours of the announcement, the Talent Accelerator had accumulated over 3,000 highly interested candidates in a database linked to the website they custom-built for LEGO,” Reeves says. “Instead of talking about it or saying it’s on the way, they have examples they can point to.”
Carl Quesinberry, senior director of Avison Young Industrial Occupier Services, verifies the upgraded talent approach: “The workforce development programs have been greatly enhanced in Virginia,” he says, noting the Commonwealth’s strong network of community colleges. “These programs are huge differentiators for states.”
“VEDP and the Talent Accelerator have already launched a new job recruitment website” for Microporous, Reed says. The site notes that 249 of the 2,015 roles at the new operation will be high-paying maintenance technology roles for which applicants can apply now to be qualified through a partnership with Danville Community College.
Reeves adds that the labor shed within a 30-mile radius of Danville stretches into the northern part of Greensboro, North Carolina, and into Martinsville. “There are several hundred thousand people you can reach,” he says. “Our wage rate is about 10% higher than the average. The demographics are such that the people are there.”
Momentum in Southern Virginia and the Commonwealth has continued since the November project announcement. Cambridge Pavers, Inc. will invest $47.35 million to establish a new 55-job manufacturing facility at Ringgold East Industrial Park in Pittsylvania County, which beat out locations in five other states. And Governor Glenn Youngkin pledged an additional $50 million investment in his budget “to accelerate Virginia’s position as a national leader in business-ready site development.” The $50 million investment in 2026 will build upon the over $282 million previously committed to site development statewide.
“Investing in project-ready sites is essential for Virginia to achieve its transformational economic development goals,” said VEDP President and CEO Jason El Koubi, “including positioning the Commonwealth as a leading state for job growth while enabling every region of Virginia to participate in that progress.”
This Investment Profile has been prepared under the auspices of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. For more information, visit www.vedp.org.
