Richmond98

Everything I have heard about Aetna is they are getting ready to announce they are moving to NYC in Manhattan. It sounds like they were really only looking hard at NYC and Boston.

Here is an article from a friend at the Dogtown Dish about the PortRVA expansion. http://dogtowndish.com/2017/05/13/portrva-phase-2-plans-to-go-vertical-on-hull-street/

No that is not the same site as CapItal One. CapOne is building two new buildings and a parking garage (for 2000+ cars) right in the center of their campus. It will basically connect the about to be 10 main buildings, not including there Services building (Mail, etc.). The other 10 buildings (West Creek 1-8 (workspaces), WC Towncenter (conference center), and WC Commons (multi-pupose building - recruiting, food services and cafes, meeting spaces). The new parking garage is almost complete (Sep) and the two new buildings have the steel up and are moving to the rest of the outside fo the buildings. The CapOne site at West Creek will soon have 11 core buildings, 2 major parking garages, several smaller parking garages, and a sports complex. The leveled trees mentioned are not on the CapOne site, they are closer to CarMax.

Capital One will most likely never add a major presence in downtown. Unless they moved their bank footprint out of NY and DC which doesn't seem likely. If they did move some things out of NY you would see that expansion in McLean and Goochland, where they already have expansions plan in place. They currently have a 14,000 square foot space in the WIlliams Mullen building downtown for one of their commercial banking branchs. The new branch is staffed by a team of 15. The new space has room to add 30 more employees. Other than that CapOne is already in the process of adding 3 more structures to its 316 acre West Creek campus. It includes another 200k sq ft new office building (WC 8), an 85k sq ft meeting and conference building (in addition to a conference facility that they already have in WC), and a 2000 car parking garage. They also bought 2 new building in Innsbrook. They have a large presence in Innsbrook (5+ buildings) and West Creek (~11 buildings) as well as in Chester (James River Center). They also have some serious expansion plans in place for McLean in the future.

Actually Burt the size has always been 8,700 in order to match the current capcaity of the Robins Center. The RC used to be 9,100 but shrunk several years back when the put in the new floor. The size was necessary to get approval from the city and local residents. The community and city did not want to allow it to be any larger than the RC. Personally I think the city really decided to back the community becuase they were still upset that UR didn't opt to but the current stadium and land from them. I can tell you that there will be more than 8,700 at big games, though paid capacity will still be 8,700. I ahve been told that they will sell 8,700 tickets and that will not include student seating. According to some inside sources the way the announce current capacity at City Stadium is only paid ticket holders. That does not include the ~1000 students who usually attend or any ticekts given away to the community for free. I was told they give away ~5000 for each game and figure about ~2000-2500 of those tieckts attend. Attendence has been right around 8,700 this season but in reality there ahve been about 12,000 specators at each game. Last weeks attendence for the Villanova game was ~11,700 but it was really more like 15,000 This stadium can also be easily expanded. I was told that they used 24 in seats for both the chairback and bleacher seat sections. The ~2000 chairback seat will remian at 24 inches but normal size for bleacher seats is actually only 18 inches. This means that the remaining 6,700 bleacher seats can actually fit 9,000 if reconfigured to 18 inches. Also part of that 6,700 bleachers seats is a section of 1,500 seasonal bleacher seats that will be positioned in the one end zone. If they can get approval for further expansion they can easily add another 1,500 seasonal belacher seats at 24 inchces or 2000 seats at 18 inches. The size was about getting it approved and the community used to the events being held on campus. Once they get used to it they will see that it is not that big of an impact on the area traffic and noise. i expect that this stadium will have around 12,500 permanent seats in the next few years when all is said and done.

Flying Squirrels it is: http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/p...99518/#comments

I will never understand peoples obsession with AAA baseball over AA or A league ball. The majority of the talent is in class AA and A ball not AAA. Most of the players in AAA are career minor leaguers and potential major league bench players. Sure occasionally a major league star comes down for a rehab assignment but they go to AA just as frequently as they rehab in AAA. Sure a prospect usually goes through AAA before they get called up to the majors, but the best prospects usualluy spend the majority of time in AA and only a short period in AAA before the call up. I grew up in New England and have lived here in Richmond for over 14 years now, including college. As a diehard Red Sox fan I will you them as an example. If you look at the Red Sox farm system, now considered one of the top 5 in baseball, you will see that the best prospects are in AA and A. Of their top 40 prospects, only 3 played in AAA Pawtucket (only 1 in the top 20) at the end of this year. Portland (AA) had 11 of 40 or 5 of top 10, Lancaster (High A) had 7 of top 40, Greenville (Low A) had 7 of top 40, and Lowell (Short Season A) had 12 of the top 40. AA baseball could be the best thing to happen to this city, as long as it is the right team. Richmond needs either a team from a great franchise (Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, etc.) or one with a close proximity to Richmond (Washington or Baltimore). Last year the Red Sox bought the High A team in Salem, VA with plans to move from Lancaster to Salem. As much as I would prefer a AA team that would have been good for Richmond. A team with such a huge fanbase is what we need. Look at Richmond's attendance, not just this year but in year's past. The most attended games are usually against Pawtucket and Scanton (Yankees). Look no further than the success with their Greenville affiliate in Low A class ball. They built a beautiful new stadium, that if you haven't seen you should really check it out, I went for a few games this year. They are breaking every attendance record at that level. In three seasons they have had over 1MM in attendance. The stadium has capacity of about 5,700 (4,500 seats) and they had over 5,000 per game this past season. Greenville is much smaller than Richmond so you could easily double those numbers in Rochmond if you have a nice facility, in a good location, and a good franchise. Here is a quick quote from an recent article: Fluor Field, home of the Greenville Drive and our single-A baseball team, has set attendance records for each of the last three years since the new stadium was built. This year it averaged an attendance of 5,000 per game and it has only about 4500 seats! Many of the fans sit in the grassy field off the third base line and at the bar area down the third base line. There's plenty of activity around the playground area too. Since the stadium went into the West End of downtown Greenville three years ago, the economically beleaguered area has really taken off and the values of Greenville SC real estate have risen dramatically. The Field House behind left field is a popular condominium complex that features balconies overlooking the baseball field. Nearby, Pendleton West with its Charleston style homes has sold well too.