Local eye doctor buys Spotsylvania property
Fredericksburg-area ophthalmologist Dr. Binoy Jani last month purchased an office suite off State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County that will serve as his company's new local home.
Jani runs Vista Eye Specialists, which also has a Culpeper office that will be unaffected by the purchase. Jani will move his local office out of its current subleased location near Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg after the new office is ready, perhaps sometime in November.
At about 3,500 square feet, Jani's new office at 927 Maple Grove Drive, behind Gander Mountain and Bed Bath & Beyond, will allow his firm to expand. The office is in the Westpark Corporate Center, whose undeveloped portions project lender Cardinal Bank took over earlier this year at a foreclosure auction.
Jani, through an LLC, purchased the two Westpark office condos for $707,455, which includes the price of finishing the vacant space to his firm's specifications. Johnson & Glazebrook broker Mike Wood represented Jani in the sale.
Federal contractor leases Stafford space
A government contractor named Five Stones Research Corp. has leased 1,200 square feet in the Aquia Park shopping center at 2769 Jefferson Davis Highway in Stafford County.
Company officials say the office's interior is now being built out, and they hope to move in by early December.
Donna Hart with Virginia Properties Inc. brokered the lease.
Fredericksburg firm wins another contract
Fredericksburg-based Lifecycle Construction Services Inc. recently received a $22.6 million contract from the U.S. Army to provide design-build services at three military installations in Georgia and one in North Carolina over the next year.
That comes on the heels of Lifecycle's being awarded a U.S. Navy contract worth up to $75 million for construction services on three military installations in South Carolina.
Lifecycle, whose 3,000-square-foot office is at 1315 Jefferson Davis Highway near Allman's, this year placed 153rd on the annual Inc. magazine list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Fourteen of the company's 30 employees work in the Fredericksburg office.
Lifecycle President and CEO Sean Haynes, who has had a long career in project design and construction, started the company in the Washington area five years ago. Since then the firm has won more than $1.2 billion in long-term contracts with federal and state agencies.
Haynes moved the company to Fredericksburg in 2009 because he and his wife didn't want to raise their family in Northern Virginia, and he saw the region as a central location to reach Lifecycle's customers. He said Fredericksburg's inclusion in the HUBZone program played a big role in his decision.
Haynes said his firm will probably stay in its current office for another year and then look to expand by buying an office or building a new one. He anticipates hiring more people locally.
Five Below opening North Stafford store
Five Below will open a store Friday at the Stafford Marketplace shopping center off Garrisonville Road in North Stafford.
The 7,500-square-foot Five Below will be next to a Michaels store in line with the Target at Stafford Marketplace. A women's clothing store called Deb used to be in that space.
Stafford Marketplace now has just one vacancy, a roughly 5,000-square-foot space in part of the former Borders bookstore, according to Kimco Realty's website.
The North Stafford store will be Five Below's third in the Fredericksburg area. The retailer also has locations in Fredericksburg's Central Park and Spotsylvania County's Cosner's Corner.
--Bill Freehling