Economic development is a team sport, and on Thursday, June 26, nearly 200 players from Hampton Roads gathered at Nauticus in Norfolk focused on the same goal: driving the region’s economy forward.

The Hampton Roads Alliance Mid-Year Mixer served as both a scoreboard check and a strategy session. And by the numbers, the team is winning.

“We’ve changed our model, and it’s showing results,” Doug Smith, Hampton Roads Alliance CEO said to the attendees of business leaders, government officials and stakeholders. “The opportunities here are clearer than ever.”

The Scoreboard

To date in 2025, the Alliance has supported 13 company announcements across seven cities and counties, creating 1,810 jobs and bringing $397 million in capital investment to the region.

But, as Smith pointed out, the work pushing the economic vitality of the region forward isn’t just celebrated in groundbreakings and press releases. It’s also in the work in between.

This year alone, the team has:

• Hosted a SelectUSA spinoff event with the Port of Virginia to attract international investors.
• Secured a $100,000 planning grant to develop the Regional Investment Playbook.
• Awarded, to date, more than $6 million in GO Virginia grants to fuel growth.
• Completed nearly 500 business intelligence and real estate assists to date to help companies grow and expand.
• Launched a new investor newsletter to keep partners informed.
• Advanced plans for innovation corridor work.
• Strengthened international partnerships.
• Collaborated on major infrastructure initiatives.

“These are tangible results,” Smith said. “This is what happens when the region works together.”

A Playbook for the Future

While the scoreboard looks promising, the other headline of the evening was a preview of the draft of the Regional Investment Playbook, a framework designed to guide Hampton Roads through its next chapter of economic growth.

“In times of uncertainty, you need a vision. You need a strategy. You need a plan,” said Robert Duvall, Chair of the Hampton Roads Alliance Board of Directors. “That’s what the Playbook is. It aligns us as leaders in the region so we can all deliver strong, meaningful, and long-term economic development.”

The Playbook is more than a report, it’s a blueprint for action.

Bruce Katz, economic development expert of New Localism Associates, one of the architects behind the effort, explained that the document does more than just tell a story.

“What an Investment Playbook does is give you the ability to articulate a very clear narrative for a region,” Katz said. “It defines catalytic projects. It fleshes them out. It identifies implementation partners. And, most importantly, it helps figure out how to get them financed.”

From infrastructure investments to innovation hubs to workforce development, the Playbook lays out a prioritized set of projects designed to make Hampton Roads more competitive on a global scale.

Smith explained that the Playbook will be socialized through the summer, with another event coming fall of 2025 to start developing the actionable next steps for implementing the projects.

“This is a Hampton Roads moment,” Katz said. “You have what the global politics and market demands. You have legacy assets that have been completely revalued by major trends. Now you have to take advantage and respond.”

This is what can happen, Smith said, “when the region shows up together.”