LandAmerica Moving to Chesterfield

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., formerly Lawyers Title Corp., will move its corporate offices from Brookfield in western Henrico to the Gateway Centre One building in Chesterfield County this summer. Based on 1996 title revenues, LandAmerica will represent the largest family of title insurance companies in the United States.

The move also represents a headquarters consolidation and expansion that is expected to generate more than 100 new local jobs.

LandAmerica is the parent company for Lawyers Title Insurance Corp., which will continue operating in its local offices around town.

According to H. Randolph Farmer, senior vice president for LandAmerica Financial Group, the 260 employees in Brookfield will move in midsummer to Gateway Centre One, along with 30 to 40 people coming here from Philadelphia. The company expects to add more than 100 local jobs, depending on the number of people who move from Philadelphia. The changes will bring the number of employees at Gateway Centre One to 417.

The company’s corporate headquarters will occupy Gateway Centre One, a six-story, 126,896-square-foot building with a reflective glass and white granite exterior. Built in the late 1980s at the intersection of the Powhite Parkway extension and Midlothian Turnpike, it formerly housed operations of Signet Bank.

Factors in selecting Gateway Centre One, Farmer said, were the terms of the lease, flexibility of the floor plan, impact on employees and such amenities as parking and hotel access.

The 80-acre Gateway office park, owned by First Union National Bank, has about 40 acres left to be developed.