An estimated 4,600 Henrico businesses received PPP loans

More than 6,100 businesses from ZIP codes that are wholly or partially contained within Henrico County received Payroll Protection Program loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration, according to long-awaited data made public Monday by the SBA.

The loans ranged in amount from more than $5 million (awarded to nine Henrico businesses) to $125 (awarded to a business in the Near West End ZIP Code of 23230).

Determining the exact number of Henrico businesses that received a PPP loan – designed as part of the federal CARES Act to help companies pay their employees, their rent and their utility bills – is impossible, because eight of Henrico’s 15 primary ZIP codes overlap with Richmond, Hanover or Goochland and because the SBA did not provide the names or addresses for those businesses whose loans were less than $150,000. (Several other Henrico ZIP Codes exist for Post Office Boxes only, and Richmond international Airport in Sandston has its own ZIP code as well.)

Using the available data and applying the known locality ratios of each split ZIP code to the SBA data, the Citizen estimates that about 4,600 or more Henrico businesses received PPP loans.

The 9 Henrico businesses that received the largest PPP loans – between $5 million and $10 million, according to the data – were:
• Glen Allen-based Atlantic Coast Dining, Inc. (which operates a number of TGI Friday’s restaurants in Virginia);
• Glen Allen-based Morton G. Thalhimer, Inc. (a commercial real estate firm);
• Glen Allen-based Snagajob.com, Inc. (which operates a website for part-time jobs);
• Glen Allen-based Winebow, Inc. (which imports and distributes wines worldwide);
• Sandston-based WACO, Inc. (a general contractor with eight Virginia locations, one in Maryland and one in North Carolina);
• Draper-Aden Associates (an engineering firm based in Northern Henrico);
• Fire & Life Safety America (a fire protection firm in the West End);
• NCGCare, Inc. (a counseling group based in the Near West End);
• OrthoVirginia (an orthopedics firm based in the West End).

Each of those businesses, according to the data, used the money in part to save 250 jobs or more apiece.

There was much speculation nationally that many of the small businesses for whom the PPP seemingly was intended may not have received the loans they critically needed in order to weather the COVID-19 storm.

But data for the Henrico ZIP codes seems to indicate that the majority of loan recipients were small businesses. The data provides a column titled “Jobs retained” for each business and shows that about 62 percent of the 6,162 businesses from the Henrico ZIP codes – just shy of 3,850 in total – used the loans to pay between 1 and 30 employees apiece.

However, it was unclear if those numbers reflected actual jobs saved or merely the number of jobs at each business upon which the loans were based.

Only 107 of the recipients retained 100 or more jobs apiece, according to the data.

On the flip side, the “Jobs retained” column reported no number or a zero for nearly one-third of the businesses from those Henrico ZIP codes who received PPP loans.

There are some obvious errors in the data, which the Citizen reviewed extensively but not exhaustively; for instance, one business in the Henrico ZIP Code of 23229 received a loan of $20,800, which was reported to have saved 500 jobs.

Among the recipients in the Henrico ZIP codes were 302 nonprofits.

Businesses in the 23230 ZIP Code (which roughly includes the West Broad Street corridor from Willow Lawn into east into Richmond) received 826 PPP loans – easily the most among all Henrico ZIP codes. Next was the Glen Allen 23060 ZIP (638 businesses) and the Far West End ZIP of 23233 (579).

Only 43 businesses in the Highland Springs 23075 ZIP code received PPP loans, the fewest in any Henrico ZIP.

Statewide, more than 16,100 businesses received loans of more than $150,000, according to the SBA data.

The SBA guaranteed the loans, which are forgivable if businesses use at least 60 percent on payroll and the rest for rent or utility payments. Banks and other lenders administered the loans.

Among the businesses in the Henrico ZIP codes that received PPP loans, Atlantic Union Bank was the top lender, completing nearly 1,200 loans. It was followed by Truist Bank (766 loans), Wells Fargo Bank (542), Bank of America (506) and Village Bank (399).

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Disclosure: The Henrico Citizen's parent company, T3 Media, LLC, received a PPP loan for less than $8,000.     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});