Diamond Area / Hermitage Rd Corridor / Ownby District

[I miss RVA]

6 hours ago, vaceltic said:

1.) IMO (and to use a baseball analogy to tie this thread back to the Diamond District ) you hit singles. OVER and OVER and OVER again. You don’t take giant power swings at the ball - you’ll whiff every time.

2.) I think a huge reason why Co-Star is building a downtown tower is because they’ve had 10 years to establish themselves here and build from a smaller workforce into a very successful research center. It would be insane for CoStar to try and uproot all that talent built up to another place and think they’ll be as successful or believe that people would move with them. 

3.) The EDA should increase incentives for smaller companies or start-ups to grow, relocate, or develop here. Because it’s not dumping ALL its eggs in one or two baskets, there’s lots more money to go around to foster different kinds of economic sectors.  Some businesses will work out but probably many of them won’t. Then, you further grow those successful smaller wins into bigger ones with additional incentives.
 

The EDA’s FY2023 Annual Report is very well done! It even highlights a lot of the smaller successes i hope so see more of.

https://www.richmondeda.com/fy2023/

 

 

1.) Hitting singles: Hey - I can't argue at all with smallball. Creating runs wins games just as much as hitting homers do. I'd like to see us hit a LOT more singles... some doubles... maybe eek out a triple or two - and THENNNNN... clobber a grand salami over the fence. CoStar was one of those grand salamis. Truth is, we need both. We can't settle for just "organic" growth (that translates to snail's-pace incremental growth). But at the same time, you're correct that we can't keep whiffing on Ruthian swings either. Gotta make some contact and bear some fruit.

2.) CoStar: They're heavily invested in building up their presence in Richmond, regardless of where the company "HQ" is located (D.C., NOVA). RVA is essentially their base of operations, with the most employees. Only the highest honchos are up in D.C. RVA's got pretty much everything and everyone else. What's cool is that their growth has been both quite explosive (they haven't been here THAT long, in the grander scheme of things) AND organic. I agree - I don't see them uprooting everything they're building here. If anything, this is only the beginning (at least if their CEO is to be believed).

3.) EDA/Small Biz Start-ups: that should ALWAYS be part of the game plan, and increasing incentives to plant the seeds for growth is vital. It has to be a multi-pronged approach. We still need to get more CoStars, more LEGOs, more... whoever... with a billion dollars to invest and 5,000-10,000 jobs to bring here. We need more WINS in that arena as well. We can't constantly lose out to Nashville or Austin or Raleigh or WHEREVER - just because we can't offer what they can (let's start with the airport, shall we?)

But to your point, agreed - mash the gas pedal on helping smaller companies grow, relo, develop in RVA. It's good business that's good FOR business!

Edited April 18 by I miss RVA

[I miss RVA]

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

Did the skyline look cool? Absolutely! But "Uptown" (which really frustrated me that it wasn't called Downtown) really isn't anything like Chicago, NYC, SF, LA, etc. Outside of the 9-5 it is way less vibrant than what its size would indicate. The reason I want tall buildings downtown is to have a fun and vibrant downtown. Otherwise they're just for the skyline.

Yeah - I can see that being the case for one very simple reason: NYC, SF, Chicago, LA have being "doing it" (that is being a "big city") for anywhere from 100, 120, even 150 years. Charlotte's been at it for... a couple of decades. Experience matters. Plus, with the exception of SF (city proper) NYC, Chicago and LA are EXPONENTIALLY larger than Charlotte. A city of 900K and a metro of 2.8 M isn't remotely in the same league as a city of 8.6 million and a metro of 27 million that's been doing this kind of thing for closing in on 200 years. Universes apart.

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

The housing stock there is absolutely terrible. If you want to live close to downtown you either pay over $1m for a 900sqft house or you're rich enough to buy that house, bulldoze it, and put up a $2m house on the lot. (I know there is the "Elizabeth" neighborhood, but it's small compared to RVA).

If you want to be in the "in" areas of RVA the housing stock is full of historic victorian era buildings built to accommodate families and last. 

I hear you, and you paint a fantastic and clear visual of the state of play. All very good stuff. But as I said previously - aesthetics are the icing - and I want the cake. I want 35,000 (or more) people living downtown... 120K working downtown... 6,600 hotel rooms... 18 million people and BOOMING business, events, and tourism FILLING those rooms (and by extension, FILLING RIC to the point that it has to expand to a second, multi-concourse terminal and add that parallel runway that's in the airport master plan!)

Mind you, it's a VERY valid point and an excellent point of comparison between the cities. And from the perspective of individuals or families looking to move to a location, aesthetics are absolutely important. And it's that granular level detail that DOES make a difference in people's decisions to relocate from one area to another. I can't argue with you. I just think we're talking apples and oranges, though, bc I'm looking at this from the 30,000 foot level - big picture - urban-planning, economic-competition perspective and how can we grow our market size to compete -- and WIN -- and fully revitalize downtown. 

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

What I do miss from Charlotte was some of the amenities. While I think that RVA punches above its weight for restaurants, the variety of cool places to eat, play, and shop in CLT was really nice. That is something that comes with size and a large professional workforce.

There are many experiences I had in CLT that I wish I could have in RVA.

AHHHHHH... NOW we're starting to talk the same language. We can't have those things UNLESS and UNTIL we get bigger. A LOT bigger. And where have y'all heard THAT sermon preached before?  

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

I think CLT does BIG in a way that is least enjoyable.

Same could be said for Houston -- and practically EVERY Southern boomtown either hasn't been at it very long or didn't start doing "big" 150-plus years ago like the cities of the Northeast and Midwest did.

Really good observation though - and the visual it paints it pretty rich.

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

@I miss RVA will be happy to know I convinced my partner's parents to move to RVA. We'll poach CLT residents one couple at a time if we have to. 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh I'm not just happy, my dear friend. I'm breaking out a Snoopy dance on this one -- ANNNNNNNNNNNNND -- I'm so thrilled by THIS absolutely OUTSTANDING news, that I'm putting in a special requisition for the rarest of the rare. We NEVER give these out. Only three - or is it four? -- have been awarded in the history of this fine, upstanding community.

You, sir, and by extension your partner - are worthy recipients of nothing less than RVA/UP GOLD Hardware!!! WOW!!! It takes something EPIC to win one of these rarities. And you've done exactly that. WELL DONE!!! MAZAL TOV!!!

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

1.) I want RVA to grow. I just want it to grow in a way that makes it more enjoyable to live and play in RVA. A new HQ in Short Pump where the workers consider The Fan/Scott's Addition "Downtown" and never enter the city does little to increase the demand for the types of amenities I want in the city.

2.) I think the best mid-sized example of this is Norfolk. New developments in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake do more to suck development out of Norfolk than increase it.

3.) I want RVA to do the reverse, suck the development out of the counties.

1.) That's a good point and you're right. All it does is increase demand in Short Pump. Of course the flip side is that ANY kind of growth, be it in the city, Short Pump, Midlothian, Petersburg - it ALL contributes to the growth of the RVA metro - and those numbers are EXTREMELY important and play a part in garnering more relos, etc., to enter the market.

2.) Excellent example - and 10,000% spot-on accurate.  

3.) You might be surprised by my response but: I DON'T want RVA city to suck the development (and population) out of the counties. I want BOTH of them to grow! Do you know where I want RVA to suck away development and population? Our competitors. I want us grabbing folks who WOULD HAVE moved to one of those other cities, but instead, whether because their company relocated here or expanded here or a different company with a better offer was established here - whatever - decided to move here. I don't want intra jurisdictional cannibalization happening. I want us gobbling up everything from OUTSIDE the RVA market in order to grow the ENTIRE RVA market.

5 hours ago, RiverYuppy said:

1.) The Diamond District is set to include ~2k housing units, plus even more in the vicinity. That's more than Scott's Addition put up all together 2010-2020.

2.) That would be a vacuum pointed straight at Henrico to get residents into the city.

3.) Having more people close to Downtown also create more incentive for companies to locate offices in Downtown RVA, creating the type of cycle that has built many of the great cities.

1.) If all of this actually gets built. I'm beginning to have my doubts, both about the Diamond District AND City Center. I'm trying to stay positive, but I've been around the block a time or two and have seen this movie at LEAST as many times as I've watched the entire series (all 86 episodes) of the Sopranos with my brother - which is WAY too many to count, capisce?  

2.) See above. I don't want that AT ALL. Intra jurisdictional cannibalization does NOTHING good for metro RVA. It's tantamount to spinning our wheels and going nowhere fast. Better we grow BOTH Henrico and the city (and all the other counties around us as well.) Grow this whole damn place!

3.) 100% spot on. That is indeed something that can help with demand. I forgot to mention in quoting "Uptown's" stats - 33 million square feet of office space (gotta put those 120K workers SOMEWHERE), and 18 million visitors annually to the district. I'd bet the larger percentage of it is business traffic - and that's a LOT of people. Imagine that in downtown RVA!!

But to  your point - absolutely spot on. We MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST under ALLLLLL circumstances grow the downtown population. Again - 30,000 according to my urban planning professors at VCU 40 years ago. It's part of the "secret sauce" that can really kickstart downtown's resurgence. 

Great stuff!! And expect delivery of your magnificent award any moment now!

Edited April 18 by I miss RVA

[Flood Zone]

Squirrels had the third highest attendance in all of MILB in April.

In a nutshell: Richmond is in no danger of losing baseball. The Squirrels are profitable. The question, as it always is in stadium/arena discussions, is how to make the enterprise more profitable.