Hill Phoenix Inc., a Georgia-based designer and manufacturer of commercial refrigerated food display cases and application systems, will expand its presence in Chesterfield County. The company announced yesterday it will lease 317,319 square feet at 1301 Battery Brooke Parkway. The expansion is due to space constraints at the company’s plant on Ruffin Mill Road, which opened in 1995.

Richmond Times-Dispatch President and Publisher Thomas A. Silvestri has been elected chairman of the American Press Institute. The institute, based in Reston, is a nonprofit, independent education center that provides training and leadership development in the news industry. It offers seminars, workshops and custom programs for newspaper professionals and organizations.

Housing Virginia, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to affordable housing, and the Virginia Association of Realtors announced yesterday that they will produce a quarterly housing-affordability index for the state beginning in January. The index will be a broad measure of housing affordability that compares housing and rental costs with household incomes.

After 22 years, Spinnaker’s Restaurant in the Chesterfield Towne Center has closed. The eatery officially shuttered Sunday after an issue with The Macerich Co., the California-based company that owns regional malls. Gregg Gregory, the owner of the local Spinnaker’s, said his lease was supposed to end next month, but the company told him last week that it was time to go.

The State Corporation Commission says Virginia’s goal reducing electricity consumption by 10 percent by lowering demand and improving efficiency is realistic. The General Assembly passed legislation this year requiring the report, which the SCC submitted to the legislature and Gov. Tim Kaine yesterday. Time Warner will spin off Internet business AOL Inc. as a separate company Dec. 9.

A Thanksgiving meal will cost Virginians less than usual this year. The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation says it’ll cost about $4.37 per person for a typical Thanksgiving meal. The informal price survey of basic items found on Thanksgiving tables puts the average cost of a traditional meal for 10 adults this year at $43.72. The menu includes turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, rolls, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

A multimillion-dollar coal-contract dispute that went to the U.S. Supreme Court has again resulted in a ruling in favor of Richmond-based Massey Energy Co. For the third time in nearly two years, West Virginia’s Supreme Court has overturned a $50 million jury verdict against the coal producer. The 4-1 ruling was again written by Justice Robin Davis and again concludes that Harman Mining and its president should have pursued their claims in Virginia.

Tobacco company Star Scientific Inc. has six months to get its stock price above $1 per share or face possible delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange. The Petersburg-based company said it was notified by Nasdaq officials on Nov. 5 that it was not in compliance with the exchange’s minimum-bid rules because its closing per-share bid price was below $1 for 30 consecutive days.

International Paper’s chief executive says there will be no reconsideration of the decision to close its Franklin mill. CEO John Faraci responded to a letter from five members of Congress by saying he doesn’t want to create false hopes for any of the plant’s 1,100 workers. It is set to shut down in the spring. The World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond is sponsoring a talk today by Romesh Ratnesar, Time magazine’s world editor and deputy managing director, on the “20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.“

Philip Morris USA and two other cigarette companies can stop making payments to tobacco farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania through a decade-old settlement. North Carolina’s highest court ruled yesterday that Henrico County-based Philip Morris, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds could stop making payments to those growers under a 1999 agreement, which stemmed from the national tobacco settlement with the states a year earlier.

The Martin Agency and five other agencies are competing to handle advertising for General Motors Co.‘s Cadillac division. GM said it narrowed its list of candidates to six agencies, a month after announcing it was dumping boutique agency Modernista! as its longtime ad partner. GM said it will hold visits with the candidates in Detroit before Thanksgiving, with finalists making presentations to company executives in January.

Star Scientific Inc. said yesterday that it plans to introduce the CigRx nutraceutical product developed by its Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals subsidiary for worldwide marketing and sales in partnership with inVentiv Health Inc. “Our goal is to make CigRx available to adult smokers worldwide who wish to maintain a nicotine-free metabolism,“ said Jonnie R. Williams, Star Scientific’s CEO.

Commuters who drive alone on some of the most congested highways in the Washington region could earn $2 a day by carpooling to work. Commuter Connections, a network of transportation groups coordinated by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, launched a three-month pilot program recently. The program is open to commuters who currently drive alone on the Capital Beltway between Bethesda and Tysons Corner or between the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Interstate 270 and on Interstate 395 from the District across the 14th Street bridge into Northern Virginia.

The State Corporation Commission has authorized Dominion Virginia Power to sell up to $1.5 billion of its stock to parent company Dominion Resources Inc. The electric utility, which originally sought approval to sell up to $3 billion in stock, says it will use the money to retire short-term debt and pay for capital investments. The commission staff recommended that the SCC authorize the sale of $1 billion in common stock this year and an additional $500 million in 2010. Dominion Virginia Power agreed with the staff recommendation for the smaller offering.

A subsidiary of Markel Corp. has bought a privately held company in Texas that makes panels, wall systems, casework, furniture, and countertops and other stone-related products. Terms of the deal for Markel Ventures unit to acquire Panel Specialists Inc. were not disclosed. Henrico County-based specialty insurer Markel occasionally buys privately owned firms outside of its core insurance business as long-term investments.