$1 billion-plus development year for downtown Richmond

[Blue_Tires]

More than $1 billion of development projects either opened, were under way or got started or are on drawing boards for downtown Richmond this year.

The projects, outlined at Venture Richmond's annual Downtown Development forum yesterday, included more than $630 million in projects actually completed during the year.

Despite some of the most difficult market conditions developers say they've ever seen and the challenges of construction in an already-built-up city, downtown Richmond still draws strong interest from people who want to live and run businesses there, developers said.

"Downtown is no longer down, it's in," said Ronald Stallings, who this year added the former Southern Aid Insurance Co. building, with 12 residential condominiums and six businesses, to the list of 54 projects he has developed in Jackson Ward since 2000.

Among the projects completed this year were:

•$110 million worth of new facilities at Virginia Commonwealth University's MCV campus, including the eight-story, $71.2 million Molecular Medicine Research building on the site of the former nursing education building, the new Perkinson building for the dental school, and a recreation center. •the $110 million conversion of the former Miller & Rhoads department store building into a Hilton Garden Inn hotel and a 133-unit condominium complex; •the $100 million-plus MeadWestvaco headquarters building, which overlooks the James River between Fifth and Seventh streets next to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; •the $75 million CenterStage performing arts center; •a $14 million renovation at the Richmond Marriott, including a remodeling of all its rooms; and •the first phase of a $60 million, 450-apartment project at the Richmond Cold Storage buildings north of Shockoe Bottom. The tight market for financing led the Cold Storage project's developers to space out the five phases of the work over a longer period than they first planned.

"Leasing demand is maintaining," co-developer David White said, adding that the 37-unit first phase is completely leased.

Theresa Schnabel, vice president for program management/business transformation at MeadWestvaco, said downtown fits the classic real estate mantra: Location, location, location.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/local/article/B-DOWN17_20091216-220206/312029/