Peninsula In Passage

Don Perry For a man whose dream was a career as an economics professor, the idea of worrying about bulldozers digging up explosives might have seemed farfetched. But for Don Perry, a Richmond native, it was a reality when he was involved in the early commercial development of Harbour View with the Bridgeway Commerce Center on Harbour View Blvd. Perry is President of Continental Properties Corporation. A series of life events stopped Perry 12 hours short of PhD and left him a widower with two children to support and mountains of medical bills to pay for his wife who died at the age of 28. Tired of scrimping along, Perry left school and worked for a bank, taught economics at Virginia Commonwealth University and sold mutual funds. Then the mayor of Richmond connected him to a firm constructing spec industrial facilities and he moved into financing commercial properties. All of that background came into play when he

started Continental Properties in 1973 in Richmond and did seven deals in the first year. Fast-forward to the development of North Suffolk and Perry’s group was awarded the contract to lease and manage spec buildings constructed by W. M. Jordan Construction Company. Knowing that the Bridgeway Commerce Center was being built near the Pig Point munitions dumpsite concerned Perry. He remembers - I worried about the construction, worried that a bulldozer would dig up a shell and blow up the driver. I probably went a year without sleep over Bridgeway but interest in the project came out of the woodwork and we had 125,000 square feet leased before the roof was on and the second building leased out within a year. We are very happy with North Suffolk. That area is so close to the peninsula and the other South Hampton Roads communities that it can draw employees and customers from both sides. It has a great quality of living and amenities.

202