Bob Mackin
An early leader for the biggest eye-opening real estate deal of 2026 by a British Columbia company.
Media outlets in Richmond, Va., are abuzz with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal to buy the 552,000-square foot Genpak warehouse on Interstate 95 in Hanover County and transform it into a detention centre for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Genpak is privately held Jim Pattison Group’s food packaging manufacturing arm. Jim Pattison Developments paid US$7.6 million for the land in 2022.
The Jim Pattison Group’s Ashland, Va., warehouse in Winding Brook. (Holladay Properties)
The governor of Minnesota and mayor of Minneapolis are demanding Donald Trump remove ICE agents after the shooting deaths of two anti-ICE protesters in less than three weeks.
A Jan. 21 DHS letter to the Hanover County Planning Department said it is consulting the local government and four tribes.
Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the ICE detention facility “would be linked to a proposed 10,000 bed centre sought in Stafford County.”
Hootsuite and DHS
Pattison is not the only B.C. company doing business with DHS.
The Globe and Mail reported that social media monitoring and management company Hootsuite has a US$95,000 contract with DHS that could turn into a seven-figure contract.
Back in 2012, the Vision Vancouver majority city council gave Hootsuite a favourable lease in a former Vancouver Police Department building when the company threatened to leave the city.
Vision Vancouver used Hootsuite for campaigns. Its leader was then-Mayor Gregor Robertson, who made a comeback as a Carney Liberal MP in the 2025 election.
More, more, more
Meanwhile, former Pattison Food Group president Darrell Jones is expected throw his hat in the ring for Conservative Party of B.C. leadership on Jan. 27.
He would become the seventh candidate. The party plans to choose the replacement for fill-in opposition leader Trevor Halford on May 30.
Jones began as a clerk in 1976 in the Cranbrook Overwaitea foods store. He was president of Pattison Food Group between March 2012 and February 2025. Since then, he opened the McGregor Jones retail consultancy.
One of Jones’s last duties for Pattison was appearing at a February 2025 news conference with Premier David Eby at a Save-On-Foods store to promote the NDP government’s Buy B.C. program.
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