wrldcoupe4

It’s back up

To be fair, there wasn't to be any office space phase I of the project, so office demand has basically zero impact on the project commencing. As a refresher, Phase I was to consist of the stadium, about 1,200 residential units (rent and purchase), a 180 key hotel, and retail space (plus parking for all of the above). Future phases would include office. Hotel demand is strong, so not really an issue there. Retail space will fill at that location. Residential demand isn't like it was a year or two ago, but also shouldn't be an issue at this project.

1650 Willow Lawn Drive is for sale. It's about a block from the Willow Lawn Pulse stations. Scrape and do a park & ride with ground floor commercial space or something above.

The original project was for sale condos (and office and hotel and etc etc eventually)? The for sale residential condo market was wiped out the last recession and never really rebounded well in Richmond it seems. Maybe the market was never really ready to absorb that many for sale units? maybe they never intended to build it and proposed the big project to jack up the value of the land to sell it on? Maybe no one bit and they decided to do something smaller? Maybe just priorities changed? I’m not sure how active they’ve been in the past decade based on their website (which isn’t necessarily an accurate depiction) everything else they did in Richmond was pretty modest, too. https://www.goodsteindevelopment.com/properties/

Dominion has sold a lot of its gas transmission business the last few years. Haven’t heard anything about its electric utilities though. https://news.dominionenergy.com/2023-09-05-Dominion-Energy-Advances-Business-Review-Announces-Agreements-to-Sell-Gas-Distribution-Companies-to-Enbridge but I can’t imagine a buyer of Dominion would care much about the land around their building. If they were to actually ever be acquired I would envision a smaller footprint in Richmond. Why would a buyer ever want the land?

Agree it would be a huge mistake. Not opposed to an occasional closing but nothing permanent.

https://www.vcuhealth.org/community-memorial-hospital/patients-and-visitors/maps-and-directions

Spy Rock project

They do have hospitals in other parts of the state.

Thanks for sharing and visiting. When you come back to explore, there's tons of neighborhoods that each have their own bit of character. Here's a few more to add to your list that are outside of the downtown core: Bellevue Westhampton (Libbie Ave at Grove/Patterson Aves) Scott's Addition Forest Hill / Westover Hills Byrd Park / Maymont Agreed on the city infrastructure in general. It's improving though.

I had heard they were looking for a different, smaller space to operate from, but no idea about the status of the site other than that.

And to clarify -- Dulles vs RDU for this reason. I would definitely opt for Richmond if it ever had a direct flight to London or somewhere in Europe. Connecting flights with family/kids can be a pain, especially when the luggage disappears.

I’d go Dulles for European flights. More options if there is a cancellation, and would think a shorter flight.

Kinsale putting more than their people at the anthem site at Broad and Staples Mill: https://richmondbizsense.com/2023/11/10/kinsale-looks-to-transform-corner-of-staples-mill-and-broad-with-massive-development/ “The publicly traded specialty insurance company led by CEO Michael Kehoe, with the help of Marchetti Development, is planning a $450 million redevelopment of the former Anthem Inc. campus at the northeast corner of West Broad Street and Staples Mill Road. According to documents filed in Henrico County, they’re looking to build nearly a million square feet of new construction on the 29-acre plot, with plans for 692 apartments, a 147-room hotel, more than 350,000 square feet of new office space and over 32,000 square feet of street-level retail.”

We also structured ours differently. Everyone else voted first whether to have a casino or not and then selected location and operator later.

The Pamunkey can’t get their Norfolk site out of first gear, what makes you think they can do both at this point?

Time to move on. Richmond won’t see a 3rd chance even with a new process. Hopefully this site can be repurposed into an industrial investment that helps South Richmond.

Is that the new office building or the Spy Rock project next to Sauer Center? I think both are coming out of the ground.

The unfortunate thing is that the back of the building faces Main with a pretty depressing sidewalk interaction. Pocahontas bldg at least addresses Main. The state doesn’t care. Main used to bustle. Will look good from Bank Street.

Ed Slipek review of the grand new General Assembly Bldg. https://richmondbizsense.com/2023/11/03/architecture-review-handsome-new-general-assembly-building-opens-on-historic-turf/

Gosh I wonder how long before we could actually have a rail connector from MSS to the airport. I feel like we’d have flight to Europe before then

Believe our runways are too short for a 787

Assume there will be some sort of screening.

Exactly.