RiverYuppy

I was more so referring to the section bounded by Broad, Belvidere, i95, and the river. The the area between the Convention Center and MCV is pretty dead too. There are pockets of things. Penny Lane & Green Leaf. Tobacco & City Dogs. However, a walk around the area on a Saturday night would make it feel like the entire area is abandoned with the exception of people who commuted to those couple of attractions.

I like the new development and I like seeing a nice skyline, but walking around Downtown on a Saturday often feels abandoned. It's completely devoid of life. I would really like to see a lively downtown area, but I think that would require a lot of new housing there.

Let's try to refrain from personal attacks. Everybody on this board wants Richmond to grow. I think more housing in Richmond sucks the oxygen out of Henrico sprawling expansion more than it does from other organic Richmond developments. I'm bullish the second one will happen. I doubt Farrel wants to be seen as using Dominion shareholder resources for what (to shareholders) seems like a petty local political dispute.

Nothing like the smell of the rivah

Imagine there is a private lot of land that is a surface parking lot in the TIF area. It is assessed by the city at $200k. That means the developer pays $2,400 in taxes to the city each year. If as part of the development a new hotel gets built on that lot of land the assessment will go up. Now the property assesses for $50m. The property owner will now pay $600,000 in property tax. $2,400 of it will still go to the city's general fund and the rest will go towards paying of the bonds used to finance the coliseum. The idea is that if the Navy Hill project doesn't go through, then the hotel won't be built and the city will continue getting about $2,400 either way. To finance the coliseum the city is going to issue $300m in bonds backed by the TIF. If assessed values don't go up in the TIF area to pay back the bonds, then the bond holders are out of luck and have no recourse against the city. So if the value of all the property in the TIF area at the beginning of the project is X and the value assessed in a given year is Y, each year the amount paid towards the bond will be Y - X. The city will continue getting paid only X until the bonds are paid off or 35 years is up. There are many things that make up the project, such as new hotels, apartments, a new GRTC transfer station, renovating the armory, the coliseum, etc. For the most part everything but the coliseum (including the new GRTC transfer station) will be financed by the developers of the Navy Hill corp. The coliseum will be paid for by the city in the way described above. There is a caveat that there are certain incidentals and external costs. For example though Navy Hill group is building a new transfer station for free, it isn't free for GRTC to handle everything that goes along with moving to a new transfer station. Also more residents use more city resources, which costs money. I'm not aware of any that will be removed. However, there will be 280 income based housing units added within the project area. Also by "income-based" it means that 280 of the apartments can only go to people making below a certain income. There is no stipulation on what they have to pay. However, generally prices have to be dropped if you want to fill up those rooms, since you can't accept high earning applicants who would otherwise fill up the units at market rates. At least 112 of the 280 apartments will only be rented to people making 60% of the area median income (AMI) or less. PDF Source From Richmond BizSense "Filling out the development would be more than 2,000 market-rate apartments, 280 income-based housing units within the project area and potentially hundreds more elsewhere downtown that would be funded with surplus revenues and through philanthropic support. Stoney mentioned $10 million in support specifically from The Community Foundation and Atlantic Union Bank that would be earmarked for 200 income-based units beyond the project footprint."

I just don't get where stuff like this comes from. The city isn't paying for the building. The fact that you think that or have read that just boggles my mind regarding how much disinformation about this project has been put out there. The city isn't paying for *ANY* development that will be owned by private developers. In fact it isn't even paying for all of the development that it will own.

I think that the comment section draws the most vocal people. If you take a look at the RVA subreddit it would appear so many have made up their minds. However, if you scroll to the end of a census about the users for that subreddit, you'll see two thirds were undecided about the project as of then.

Richmond Bizsense did a recap of commercial real estate in 2019. What was y'alls favorite developments in 2019 and what do you look forward to most in 2020?

D.C. firm to relocate HQ to Richmond; taking entire building in Sauer Center Another abandoned building bites the dust.

I'm getting pretty excited about Broad Street. Whole Foods and CarMax are coming near Lee's Chicken. New apartments are going along Broad near Scotts Addition. UMF is having a major development on its property abut Broad. The old DGIF area is being redeveloped. The general assembly building is being redeveloped. Anything I'm missing? When is that old hotel on Broad slated to be redeveloped?

There was also an article about it in Richmond Bizsense. I'm really hoping the Chaymberlayne corridor takes off a bit with new apartments that have been planned. Now if only we could get rid of the rest of those motels along the corridor.

This article about the Sauer properties makes the future of Broad Street a bit more bright.

Yeah, I believe the $600m is non-deflated worst case scenario of the price + financing costs. If my house is $300k I might end up spending $600k total after 30 years of minimum payments. Saying my house cost $600k would be ridiculous. Nobody quotes the schools or any other projects with financing costs baked in.

Where in the Richmond Bizsense one does it say $600. I didn't see it. From what I read the Arena and some other stuff will cost $300m.

Where are people seeing that it is $600 million in debt? It's my understanding that number is essentially a lie spread by the anti-NH crowd. Also not paying $300m for the coliseum doesn't mean we have an extra $300m to pay for a school. We just have essentially the same budget and one less billion dollar redevelopment project.

Schools are a valid issue to be concerned about. We should be trying to give kids good education. Also schools are a huge reason for population loss in RVA. However, preventing the NH development isn't going to change the concentration of poverty that plague our schools. If anything I think this project will be a longterm benefit for the schools and the city. I'd like to see the people so upset about schools redirect their frustration towards RRHA.

I don't think they extend under the bridge. There is a gap between them and an old warehouse that is under renovation to be part of the apartment complex. I wonder what they're going to do with the space below the bridge.

The new apartments on Oliver Hill Way are coming along and look pretty good!

Another abandoned building is getting renovated and filled! The Sauer Center is getting another tenant to fill a building it is renovating. It's great to see more businesses taking interest in being in the city rather than the suburbs.

I go past it constantly as that is the way from my house to downtown. I'm surprised at how well it turned out. Now only if they would repave Oliver Hill Way. It is one of the worst roads to drive down.

More good news about RIC. October was the second-busiest month on record!

More than a big new building, I'd really like to see more headway made on vacant buildings. Seeing that the old hotel building is to be renovated was great news this morning! With the CarMax office and Whole foods going up, the corridor near the fan is starting to look like it will be alive soon. The majority of the Broad Street corridor downtown still seems abandoned though. Shiny new buildings might make the skyline look a bit nicer, but until we make more headway on renovations of long-abandoned buildings I think the city is going to be held back. People come visit our city and stay someplace nice like Quirk only to walk outside and be hit with a wall of dilapidated buildings that have been abandoned for decades.

Some pretty good news coming out of my neck of the woods. A developer with a good track record in our area recently acquired an abandoned theater on the boulevard. A new Kombucha brewery is opening up and a former gas station is to be converted into an art gallery. Interest in the corridor seems to be accelerating. I think the revitalizing of Northside will be a huge win for RVA.

A friend of mine is one of the first to be in the new Lock's apartments. It has an industrial look on the inside, with about half of the finish being exposed concrete. It's hard to tell from the glare, but he has a great view of the dominion center. A cool pic of cranes Also snapped a picture from one of the top rooms in the omni. A view we don't see as often.

MCV has a Wendy's and a Chick-fil-A.