Atack Properties plans to build townhomes over a Dominion Power overflow parking lot. Photos by Burl Rolett.
A major local developer wants to bring the area’s biggest office park a taste of residential construction.
Atack Properties plans to build 150 townhomes along Dominion Boulevard. It’s the first residential project at Innsbrook in more than 20 years and the first clear plan amid a potential push for urbanization of the suburban business hub.
“This is not a suburban townhouse development,” said Jim Theobald, a Hirschler Fleischer attorney representing Atack Properties. “It has an urban feel and scale, not unlike a West Broad Village environment.”
Atack filed its plans for the Towns at Innsbrook last week.
Atack’s plans, filed last week along with a rezoning request, show 150 townhomes in 24 separate strips. The neighborhood is dubbed The Towns at Innsbrook and will be built on about 12 acres currently used by Dominion Resources for overflow parking.
Atack Properties put the property under contract a little more than a year ago. It will go before the county for rezoning approval in September.
Theobald said construction should begin in mid-2015 with the first homes completed in the first or second quarter of 2016. Each townhome will total no less than 1,865 square feet and prices will start at about $350,000. The company has not yet contracted a homebuilder for the Towns at Innsbrook.
“What we’re finding is this is probably an active adult, urban professional target audience and they prefer to start in a townhouse in a setting like this, rather than in the deep suburbs with a yard and what not,” Theobald said.
One of the area’s busiest developers, Atack Properties is also working on a 70-acre medical office and residential development in Short Pump, a 100-home Goochland development and a 37-unit townhouse project on Nuckols Road.
The Towns at Innsbrook could be a forerunner for the planned urbanization of Innsbrook. Highwoods Properties and Markel Corp. want to revamp a 188-acre section of the office park by adding another 3.5 million square feet of office space, 415,000 square feet of retail, 1,000 hotel rooms and 6,000 apartments and condos.
It’s an Innsbrook redesign that could cost more than $2 billion and take decades to complete.
Burrell Saunders, a Virginia Beach-based architect who has worked on Innsbrook developments for nearly 20 years, said the planned transformation comes as denser, more urban environments have cropped up around major suburban office parks nationwide.
Atack’s wants to build 150 townhomes near Innsbrook.
Workers are looking to cut down on their commute and work near retail and restaurant centers, Saunders said, and businesses are shifting to more urbanized areas to attract employees.
“What we’re looking at doing is really taking the asphalt parking lots, moving those cars into parking structures and replacing the lots with infill projects, office, service, retail and other uses,” Saunders said.
The first piece of the Highwoods plan, a 40-acre pilot program, was approved by the Henrico County Board of Supervisors in 2012. There is no firm building plan or start date for that project yet.
The vacancy rate at Innsbrook, which has nearly 8 million square feet of office space, hovered around 10 percent for the first quarter of 2014, according to a market report from real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. Adding residential and retail uses at Innsbrook will be crucial to draw businesses into the park in the coming years, Theobald said.
“The notion was that Innsbrook is thriving today, but you can’t take that for granted,” Theobald said. “If you’re going to have companies like Dominion and Markel that are trying to attract an educated, active workforce, the model has changed, and they want these kinds of amenities.”
“They want to ‘work, live and play,’” he said. “It sounds trite, but that’s the deal.”
Atack Properties plans to build townhomes over a Dominion Power overflow parking lot. Photos by Burl Rolett.
A major local developer wants to bring the area’s biggest office park a taste of residential construction.
Atack Properties plans to build 150 townhomes along Dominion Boulevard. It’s the first residential project at Innsbrook in more than 20 years and the first clear plan amid a potential push for urbanization of the suburban business hub.
“This is not a suburban townhouse development,” said Jim Theobald, a Hirschler Fleischer attorney representing Atack Properties. “It has an urban feel and scale, not unlike a West Broad Village environment.”
Atack filed its plans for the Towns at Innsbrook last week.
Atack’s plans, filed last week along with a rezoning request, show 150 townhomes in 24 separate strips. The neighborhood is dubbed The Towns at Innsbrook and will be built on about 12 acres currently used by Dominion Resources for overflow parking.
Atack Properties put the property under contract a little more than a year ago. It will go before the county for rezoning approval in September.
Theobald said construction should begin in mid-2015 with the first homes completed in the first or second quarter of 2016. Each townhome will total no less than 1,865 square feet and prices will start at about $350,000. The company has not yet contracted a homebuilder for the Towns at Innsbrook.
“What we’re finding is this is probably an active adult, urban professional target audience and they prefer to start in a townhouse in a setting like this, rather than in the deep suburbs with a yard and what not,” Theobald said.
One of the area’s busiest developers, Atack Properties is also working on a 70-acre medical office and residential development in Short Pump, a 100-home Goochland development and a 37-unit townhouse project on Nuckols Road.
The Towns at Innsbrook could be a forerunner for the planned urbanization of Innsbrook. Highwoods Properties and Markel Corp. want to revamp a 188-acre section of the office park by adding another 3.5 million square feet of office space, 415,000 square feet of retail, 1,000 hotel rooms and 6,000 apartments and condos.
It’s an Innsbrook redesign that could cost more than $2 billion and take decades to complete.
Burrell Saunders, a Virginia Beach-based architect who has worked on Innsbrook developments for nearly 20 years, said the planned transformation comes as denser, more urban environments have cropped up around major suburban office parks nationwide.
Atack’s wants to build 150 townhomes near Innsbrook.
Workers are looking to cut down on their commute and work near retail and restaurant centers, Saunders said, and businesses are shifting to more urbanized areas to attract employees.
“What we’re looking at doing is really taking the asphalt parking lots, moving those cars into parking structures and replacing the lots with infill projects, office, service, retail and other uses,” Saunders said.
The first piece of the Highwoods plan, a 40-acre pilot program, was approved by the Henrico County Board of Supervisors in 2012. There is no firm building plan or start date for that project yet.
The vacancy rate at Innsbrook, which has nearly 8 million square feet of office space, hovered around 10 percent for the first quarter of 2014, according to a market report from real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. Adding residential and retail uses at Innsbrook will be crucial to draw businesses into the park in the coming years, Theobald said.
“The notion was that Innsbrook is thriving today, but you can’t take that for granted,” Theobald said. “If you’re going to have companies like Dominion and Markel that are trying to attract an educated, active workforce, the model has changed, and they want these kinds of amenities.”
“They want to ‘work, live and play,’” he said. “It sounds trite, but that’s the deal.”
I can’t think of a better use for that deserted parking lot considering the proximity of it to the adjacent residential neighborhood. it’ll be a terrific transition.
I’m excited to see this space become the first phase in transforming Innsbrook. This is great news!
Yes, one just has to love all of the deforestation and destruction of natural habitats that are home to indigenous and migrating wildlife in the Innsbrook area — particularly when the developers strip all of the land, destroy the habitats, and then sit on the barren, blighted properties for years until the time is right to pad their pockets with profits and increase the burden of commuters on already jam-packed access roads.
While it is excited to see more residential development in Innsbrook, these townhomes do not appear to have any sort of urban feel whatsoever. It certainly looks like a suburban townhome development.