Brent114

I haven’t looked for a link yet but I just heard on VPM that the old Rolls Royce plant is being converted to a glass manufacturer (for doors and windows). It will generate 650 jobs!

Give me a direct flight to Europe asap. I’m heading to London in March and am already dreading the drive home from Dulles AFTER an 8 hour flight (on top of sitting at Heathrow for two hours) with jet lag. Getting to Mexico from here is already very easy. The flights are short and you stay in the same time zone (the west coast is an hour behind). I created a really stupid travel itinerary once when traveling to Germany. I took Amtrak from Richmond to Union Station. From there I took the metro to National Airport where I caught the shuttle bus to Dulles. I won’t do that again lol.

Looks like we may soon get extra attention and inve$tment! The Feds named Richmond one of 31 target cities for global technologies development. The money is coming from the CHIPS program. https://www.eda.gov/funding/programs/regional-technology-and-innovation-hubs They are expecting results within 10 years!

The daughter of a high school friend is attending graduate school in Seattle. Her mom (my friend) travels from Gloucester to Dulles every few months to go to Seattle.

Regarding the stop sign…it would be ok if people actually obeyed traffic laws. Cars sit in the intersections (not stopping behind the white line at an intersection until there is ample space to move forward). That is why it takes serval light cycles to get through there. The light turns green but there’s a row of three cars blocking the intersection and they need to move forward to make room for you. I really wish Richmond would enforce this. Everywhere else you see signs that read something like “$300 fine for blocking the box”. Not here. It’s anarchy out on these roads

I was at a place with terrible reception. Couldn’t get the photos to load nor could I delete the post lol. This was at 6:30 on Hull… I’m obsessed with how one stop sign can create traffic.

Here’s what effect a stop sign has on Hill street at 6:30 pm.

I like this route. The only thing that needs to happen on the Manchester bridge is to paint the inside lanes red The raised walkway in the middle of the bridge could serve as a station at the downtown side of the bridge (right at Kanahawa Plaza ) . The pedestrian route is already raised like the Pulse stations and it would just be 30-40 feet to the crosswalk at Byrd Street. The bridge would look sweet with a station at the foot of it. I’m happy that this isn’t going near the Mayo Bridge. That corridor is way too crowded at the moment and who knows when that bridge will ever be rebuilt. The city added a stop sign on Hull and 4th. I love that I can safely cross the street now but it’s amazing how far traffic backs up in the mornings and evenings (all the way to the north bank of the river to the North and up past the courthouse South down Hull). I like the new crosswalk but I don’t see it staying. All of the intersections are blocked and it takes 2-3 light cycles to turn left onto north bound Hull Street from 7th Street.

This one is starting to have quite the presence. The multicolored finishes make it appear larger than it did when it was just papered in Tyvec.

A big ass crawler is going up at the apartment “tower” on 17th and Grace. I guess that means prefab construction which means it will go up fast.

Definitely folk festival

Snapped this about two hours ago…

For realz. Richmonders are some cranky sourpusses.

I drove by the site again today and the banner on the construction fence shows three steps into the units. Buyers were duped And for I Miss, just to be clear the row house photo is from the Fan, not from across the street of this development. I was working in the Fan and stepped outside to snap a shot of houses on foundations to use as a comparison. This is across the street

Just being off of the ground a few feet. These townhomes are selling for maybe $800-$900k and they are built on a slab like tract housing (slabs are only used because they are cheaper than a foundation). At the street level you’re tracking leaves and snow into your house. In heavy rains cars can send waves of water to your door. Slabs can look really cool with contemporary design but these were meant to somewhat blend with the local housing. The Federal rowhouses across the street sit high on English basements making these look more awkward than they would in another setting .

Work has resumed on the Fouchee Mews project. The Main Street side has been finished for months. The Cary Street side, which had building pads built up on the soil, had become overgrown with weeds and flattened through erosion. The pads are defined again and block is rising on the building in the center of the block. Very happy to see movement here again but I’m not too thrilled with the townhomes. They look really nice but are built on slabs. A foundation would have made them look like a million dollars. They look like $250k instead.

Dirt is being moved at the site too, construction fence is up a well.

All of the new construction is mostly 1 bedroom units. People attracted to the city just aren’t the type to have a 2-3 kids. We are childless and live alone The numbers aren’t that important to me so long as the buildings get built! The numbers ( not that any were given) don’t feel right though. The city is decidedly more active and crowded than just a few years ago. There are also many more events in town that bring in thousands of extra people a week. As long as the metro grows, Richmond will continue to become more vibrant and full. The next 1-2 years should see a spike though. There are lots of units under construction now (like 1,000 in Manchester alone) that won’t come on the market for a few more months with many more yet to break ground.

This doesn’t look like a prison. It looks like the building across the street at Bainbridge and Commerce and the building on the right when you cross the Lee Bridge into Manchester. There will be trees and street lights (not pictured) that will soften and ground it.

I’m thrilled that this project didn't die. This corner has been vacant for 40+!years. That’s plenty of time to wait for the perfect suitor. I’m going to dance with this ugly building because it’s the one that actually showed up. We need affordable housing. People living in affordable housing deserve to live in nice areas too. I can’t wait to get this one done. The two sides of Manchester desperately need to be reconnected. This will go a long way in doing that.

Looks so small…. And with only 5 cars on the highways, why bother with a traffic report lol. 95 and the Mayo bridge are more busy now at 4:00am on a Tuesday than they are in this clip.

Love these! Thanks for sharing. The Brookland Park Blvd corridor is quickly becoming a favorite area of mine. So many good things are happening.

Haven’t seen the new paint in person, it may be more gorgeous than ever but man that moorish colour scheme seemed dead on for the architecture. I always assumed it was historically accurate.

That’s cool stuff about the original design for city hall. On a somewhat related note, I just learned last night that there is part the of fencing around the Old City Hall that bears the scares of a man who fell to his death, from the clock tower, way back in the 1890’s! Apparently a local news station ran a story about it a few years ago? Just when you think you’ve lived here too long and that the city isn’t big enough, it keeps surprising you….

It’s international style and that’s just about the sexiest style ever (city hall before the cheap cladding and weird awning). And like city hall, it was white marble that glistened in the sun, not concrete. The base was polished black granite. It was a stunning building and a great example of its style/ time