Posted on September 2, 2026
When Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the state budget into law in June, it allocated $20 million toward development of the long-awaited inland port at Washington County‘s Oak Park Center for Business and Industry.
For years, Southwest Virginia lawmakers have pushed for adding a second inland port to the Port of Virginia system, saying it could bring jobs and investment to their corner of the state, which has suffered from the coal industry’s decline.
The budget allocates funding for “site readiness, infrastructure and targeted industry recruitment.” The bulk will be used for site development, according to Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Abingdon, adding, “The money that’s in the budget is basically to start construction.”
Another champion of the project, state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Abingdon, served this year as a budget conferee. “I kind of made sure that this project stayed at the forefront,” he says, “so I’m excited.”
Advocates point to the success of the Port of Virginia’s existing inland port in Front Royal, which opened in 1989 and has generated more than 8,500 jobs, as a model for expanding to Southwest Virginia.
The next step is for the Virginia Port Authority to report to the state secretaries of finance and transportation on the scope of the proposed site work and estimated expenses.
While it would be premature to estimate when groundbreaking will occur, O’Quinn says, state lawmakers wouldn’t have invested $20 million if “there wasn’t the intent to move forward with the project itself.”
In 2023, Washington County’s industrial development authority voted to donate necessary acreage for the Southwest inland port at the Oak Park industrial park. The same year, a state study identified Oak Park as the preferred site for the project.
The county has reserved three lots, totaling more than 158 acres, for the port, according to Washington County Director of Economic Development Alicia Roland. She’s eager to learn how much land at Oak Park will be used for the inland port so the county can market any remaining parcels. “We have prospects that may want to go there,” she says.
“It’s a nice piece of property,” O’Quinn adds. “It’s already flat. It abuts the railroad track. … [It’s] probably one of the few, if not the only, locations in Southwest Virginia that you can pull this project off.”
