DowntownCoruscant

Well, darn. The Rule of Thumb is merciless.

Maybe every day should be full of meetings for me, because that was today and when I emerged, I found out we’re getting a state’s tallest. Two thoughts. A) I’m irrationally happy for I Miss RVA, a person I’ve never met, because I’m fairly certain he willed this into being. B) CoStar has some cajones. They stared right into the Urban Planet RVA rule of thumb - take the height you hope for, then chop off 20% - and spit right in its face.

LOL! Nah, it’s just that this is how these things usually go. Ah, but isn’t this Richmond, you might say, and isn’t Richmond incompetent or at least incompetentish, you might also say. Well yes, quite so, but the perception of suckiness is kind of inflated, if only on this particular issue, because Richmond only kind of messed that up a decade ago. First, because it wasn’t a great plan. And second, because the Braves were certainly fine with leaving, kind of preferred it actually, and that’s not really a secret, because the idiots in Gwinnett gave it all way, as soon become apparent, and really not to Gwinnett‘a credit. And third, this is the owner speaking, not the guy involved in day to day operations or talking shop on the local level. My understanding, admittedly not based on anything more than third hand talk, is that things are a bit less stagnant than the quote implied. At any rate, I’m not sure I’ve made many hot takes on this site, primarily because almost everyone here knows about buildings and business than me, but I’ll adhere to this one. At the end of the day, the ballpark gets done.

I hear you. But this is SOP when it comes to new ballparks. Richmond City has Richmond City issues, I know, but there never has been a team owner who wanted a new stadium who hasn’t said a version of that quote. It’ll get done. Patience.

Moving away from downtown, I foresee three things, by which I mean I’m wishcasting for them: 1) Green City comes into sharper focus; 2) more developers hop on the idea for moderate mid-rise apartment buildings for the Willow Lawn area (really need that to retain the restaurants there); and 3)yes it’s really going to happen this time - we get a firm plan for The Diamond’s replacement.

Well done, I Miss RVA.

Honest question, no derision intended. Does anyone in the real world involved in building these things actually care about inching past another building in height? And by involved, I mean the company building it or do a financing it? My guess is the height is the height because they have the thing pegged down to the penny, pound, and deutschmark so to speak.

The emergence of the automobile (or more accurately the ability of families to have two) is one of the most thorough societal disrupters of the past century, for good or ill. No need to stay close to the core, so let’s spread out. There were other factors, for sure, but that’s one.

Wouldn’t RIC need federal approval to build another runway? Is that the certification you mention?

I don’t really know what Endeavor’s purpose is here - and from what I understand many in MILB aren’t certain of it either - but my suspicion is it would not be good for you us. Syndicate ownership isn’t new to the minors (heck, the Squirrels aren’t our owner’s only team), but the end result of this is likely extreme cost-cutting homogenization. I can see controlling vendor costs as a reasonable measure, but my guess is these Endeavor team begin to lose whatever local flavor they have. Or maybe it’s gambling. I can’t imagine there’s much betting on minor league baseball, but there’s betting on everything these days, and the 9 teams Endeavor has purchased already will play over 1,000 games over the course of the season. So maybe they’re trying to get in on the ground floor of some betting revenue. Who knows.

Not sure I buy the “banned for life” aspect of this — one of the few things I know a lot about is the history of the business of baseball, and this type of rhetoric is from their universal new ballpark coercion playbook, just adjusted for minor league stakes — and I agree that in general minor league sports aren’t really a driver of anything to a local economy. But there are two things I see as pertinent here. First, undeniably, MLB has set some 2025 standards for minor league ballparks, and I don’t really want to see Richmond as a test case. Second, on a community basis, the Squirrels are not a typical minor league baseball team, and certainly not like the R-Braves in this respect. The Squirrels are incredibly involved in our community, especially when it comes to youth programs. A couple or so years ago, we saw Nutzy and Nutasha three times in one day: once at my son’s elementary school, then at a Barnes & Noble reading event, and then that night at a Richmond Spiders basketball team. Google photos shows my kids in pictures with Nutzy three times, at three locations, in the same day. We have it really good here with Todd “Parney” Parnell and his staff. In short, Richmond metro is too good a market for Organized Baseball to ignore forever should a ballpark not materialize by 2025. We’ve got 1.3M people, with reasonable corporate presence for a minor league market, with a history of good attendance. Should Richmond City burn its bridges with the new(ish) MLB overlords, Henrico would likely rebuild that relationship. But like I said before rather cryptically, I really don’t think it will come to that. It’s happening this time.

Patience, my friends. New ballpark will happen this time.

Dollars to donuts it’s entirely a moral position.

Well, it’ll always be my first choice. I grew up here and am old enough to remember it as a comparatively rinky dink place called Byrd Airport. Took my first flight from there (on Eastern, got to visit the cockpit and got souvenir wings), flew the OG Piedmont from there, watched NFL football on those quarter-fed black and white TVs attached to the lounge chairs in the lobby while you waiting for relatives to land, saw the striking Eastern employees right before that airline folded, etc. Lots of formative memories. As for Dulles, when I went to college and worked in DC, I hated that place. Flew into there from New Orleans one Sunday night and paid the Washington Flyer over $50 in late 90s bucks to get back to DC. Much preferred National. But as a married guy, with two kids, one of whom is still quite young, direct flights are key, especially cross-country, and the cheaper the better. And I’m lucky enough that my brother in law and his family live in Reston. So we normally park there and get a ride to Dulles. Convenient. But I’m hopefully RIC will get a wider variety of cheaper and longer direct flights, because I really do want to give it my business.

Subject to omicron proving to be delta on horse steroids, I think the RIC passenger numbers will continue to climb commensurate with broad increases in air travel. A lot of families were waiting for the 5-11 vaccine, and here we are. We have two trips planned for 2022. For one (SF), we’re going to try to fly out of RIC but Dulles might make more sense. However, for the other (Miami area), flights to Ft. Lauderdale in particular from RIC seem dirt cheap so that’s a plus. To an extent, I think RIC’s long-term future might be tied into public transit and perhaps a viable mixed-use development in that area of town. The airport itself looks fine, but the area isn’t tremendously inviting and I wonder if that limits repeat business.

{whispers} I mean … he’s right.

Sad as that may be, I’m probably not alone in appreciating the increased flexibility (and trust) that comes with being able to see my kids get off the bus and the like that remote work brings.

Great hypothetical! We did have a guy miss the stop sign late one night and launch his car up and over the caddy-corner neighbor‘s driveway — all the way into the back yard. (Thankfully the homeowner wasn’t home.) I think Richmond police showed up for that.

As an aside, the seller of these properties, Manuel Loupassi, passed away recently. I knew him and his family well. A good man.

Yeah, many of those businesses on the north side of Broad have their parking lots in Henrico. I’m in Henrico but am dead serious that I could throw a baseball into the city from my back yard. The houses across the street are split Henrico/Richmond properties. They pay pro rata property tax to both based on where the square footage lies in each.

Give me SFO before next summer. Got a conference there and really want to fly out of RIC.

I’m going to try to ignore my “priors” about a casino best I can here…Although I see the point of the casino referendum tying into a larger point about RVA, it is interesting to review posts from this spring assessing the various proposals. Urban One’s proposal consistently ranked last here. Assessments included “terrible design, terrible location” and “I hope we don’t get screwed” by the city selecting Urban One. Ultimately, the voters rejected something that was liked by approximately zero people here. Now, I’m not going to be dishonest and claim the vote itself had anything much to do with the specific proposal put on the ballot or that the result would have been different had a different proposal been selected. (If anything, I’m guessing the SA proposal may have been defeated more soundly.) And to be fair some of the objections to Urban One on here had to do with factors, like building height, that seem peculiar interests to weirdos here like me and not necessarily the general public. If the lament is what RVA lost through this vote, however, it makes a certain amount of sense to reflect back on the general, pre-selection assessment here on what was selected and put to a vote.

Ouch. Byner did eventually get that ring, though, so the analogy does contain some optimism!

Not really important, and there will be no surprises as far as this vote is concerned, but I got a chuckle out of the Richmond Biz Sense headline beginning with “It’s Official,” when even the article recognizes nothing is official until the registrar certifies the vote.

Ok, I’ll say it. I’m not a Richmond resident, but that’s kind of where I’d be if I were. I’m not morally opposed to gambling per se, but I’ve seen two lives destroyed by gambling, one ending in suicide, and I don’t trust any casino to be a good citizen beyond the gambling stuff. Beyond that, I think we’re entering a very dangerous societal phase where sports books are taking over sports. Downvote me all you want; I don’t care. Just how I feel. But like I said, I don’t have a vote. I’m not sure the Pamunkey situation would be pertinent to my hypothetical vote, even if I were otherwise inclined to vote yes, but I can’t say I’ve mapped that part out too well in my head.