The four-story parking deck has been fenced off for months. (Mike Platania photos)
A decaying downtown parking garage may not be long for this world.
Plans are making their way through City Hall to replace the crumbling deck at 507 E. Franklin St. with a nine-story, new-construction apartment building.
Located at the corner of East Franklin and North Sixth streets, the existing building has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Many bricks have fallen off the building’s façade and onto the sidewalk, and fencing has gone up, cutting off access to the building, the surrounding sidewalks and part of Sixth Street.
Bricks have been falling off the existing building and onto the sidewalk.
In recent weeks the city approved a plan of development for a 181-unit mixed-use building that would rise in its place.
The owner of the site and would-be developer of the new structure is Virginia Atlantic Development, a Virginia Beach-based firm that also was previously involved in the transformation of the nearby Hotel John Marshall into apartments over a decade ago.
In addition to the apartments, the new building would include 9,000 square feet of commercial space, according to city documents. Amenities on the building’s roof would include a terrace, fire pit, co-working space, gym and cocktail bar space for a commercial tenant.
A conceptual drawing of the planned building. (City documents)
Timmons Group is listed as the project engineer and Greenville, South Carolina-based Johnston Design Group is the architect.
Virginia Atlantic filed preliminary plans in late 2022 and the city approved the plan of development in late May.
It’s unclear what the next steps are for the project. When reached earlier this year, Virginia Atlantic president John Camper declined to comment. Camper wasn’t available in recent weeks.
An additional 900 new apartments are also in the pipeline at other downtown sites. Genesis Properties is planning to convert Dominion Energy’s Eighth & Main office building and a nearby parking garage into a pair of 300-unit buildings, while Wytestone Plaza at 801 E. Main St. is set to be renovated from office space into around 300 apartments.
The four-story parking deck has been fenced off for months. (Mike Platania photos)
A decaying downtown parking garage may not be long for this world.
Plans are making their way through City Hall to replace the crumbling deck at 507 E. Franklin St. with a nine-story, new-construction apartment building.
Located at the corner of East Franklin and North Sixth streets, the existing building has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Many bricks have fallen off the building’s façade and onto the sidewalk, and fencing has gone up, cutting off access to the building, the surrounding sidewalks and part of Sixth Street.
Bricks have been falling off the existing building and onto the sidewalk.
In recent weeks the city approved a plan of development for a 181-unit mixed-use building that would rise in its place.
The owner of the site and would-be developer of the new structure is Virginia Atlantic Development, a Virginia Beach-based firm that also was previously involved in the transformation of the nearby Hotel John Marshall into apartments over a decade ago.
In addition to the apartments, the new building would include 9,000 square feet of commercial space, according to city documents. Amenities on the building’s roof would include a terrace, fire pit, co-working space, gym and cocktail bar space for a commercial tenant.
A conceptual drawing of the planned building. (City documents)
Timmons Group is listed as the project engineer and Greenville, South Carolina-based Johnston Design Group is the architect.
Virginia Atlantic filed preliminary plans in late 2022 and the city approved the plan of development in late May.
It’s unclear what the next steps are for the project. When reached earlier this year, Virginia Atlantic president John Camper declined to comment. Camper wasn’t available in recent weeks.
An additional 900 new apartments are also in the pipeline at other downtown sites. Genesis Properties is planning to convert Dominion Energy’s Eighth & Main office building and a nearby parking garage into a pair of 300-unit buildings, while Wytestone Plaza at 801 E. Main St. is set to be renovated from office space into around 300 apartments.
I’m glad to see the action downtown again. Most of it has been on the periphery in Manchester and Scotts Addition, some in Shockoe, some up top at Union Hill. The CoStar Tower and the new amphitheater will breath new life into the city core and make living there more appealing.
Now if they can just get a store like Thalhimers or Miller and Rhodes again.
I think at this point they’d appreciate a local grocery in safe walking distance.
Aren’t department stores basically dead? I agree it would be amazing to have a department store, of course. But getting any sort of retail at all would be a better start, maybe?
Also, to that end – what would it take to create more retail downtown? It seems like it’s going to have to be destination retail or unique in some way? Is it even be possible to get national chains to relocate downtown? Are enough people even interested in shopping in person, or is online shopping the new norm? And where would this go or start? I assume any sort of retail resurgence would need to develop along a main corridor like Carytown to get a critical mass of stores/foot traffic. I’d love to see the areas of Grace street that… Read more »
It’s a question that folks have been grappling with for years. The solution is simple – (a LOT) more people living and working in downtown. However, ARRIVING at that solution is where lies the challenge. Getting there won’t be easy and it will take time. I’ve made mention of this elsewhere, but in a nutshell: my urban planning professors in undergrad at VCU back in the early-and-mid-’80s preached long and loud about the need for downtown RVA to attain a “critical mass” of residents. They all said (and this came up in numerous different U.P. classes in the course) that… Read more »
Fascinating. Random thought/something that I’d love an urban planner’s opinion on: I find it perplexing how many new apartment buildings/conversion projects are marketed as “luxury” because they have a gym, a pool, a parking deck, a business center, and maybe some sort of roof deck or clubhouse/lounge – but all these amenities are usually pretty mediocre. Compounding the issue is that these buildings often have these amenities in street level or second floor spaces that should have more mixed/neighborhood uses, rather than being a gated compound in the city (I drive by a ton of this whenever I leave church… Read more »
First, let me say, Lee, that I agree with you 100% on this. Here’s the rub: what you’re describing is the ideal – it’s where we really DO want downtown RVA to be. It’s EXACTLY the scenario you see in Manhattan or downtown Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston – cities that have ample critical mass of downtown and central-city population to support those things you’re talking about. In downtown Chicago, for example, it’s nothing to see a legacy apartment or office building that has an internal public parking garage with an entrance that sits right next to a Walgreens, a 7-11, a… Read more »
I do love this idea. Small gyms and work areas seem depressing and like you said, waste of space. I guess it would take better collaboration and maybe a heavy hand from the city to make it happen. It would lend to the walkability and community of the area.
I think this was more my point – use zoning and building codes to encourage one major amenity that also available to the public as well as the apartment residents, instead of a bunch of subpar amenity space that hardly anyone uses.
But @Peter James – I absolutely get what you’re saying.
We agree precisely.
Quoting you (responding to me agreeing with you in the casino comments): Wait, WHAT?? 😉 😎
Living in the past.
We agree.
More people living downtown will not only be great for Richmond, but also better for Richmond than more people in Scotts. Downtown always has some cool stuff there, but never quite the critical mass… more people could support that critical mass of attractiveness.
It had it (the critical mass) 70 and 80-odd years ago. Once the highways came along and started the whole domino-effect that we discussed regarding RVA’s population decline (over in the casino commentary) – that critical mass went away. Downtown’s population was over 28,000 in 1940 and 27,000 in 1950. It dropped below 10,000 some time in the ’60s and was around 8,000 in 1970. We’ve never EVER recovered. I’m old enough to remember the very tail end of the time frame in which the downtown retail core was utterly AMAZING. Especially during the holidays, it was like something you’d… Read more »
Even Petersburg was buzzing that long ago. And my home city of Troy, NY was hot back then too — but by the 70s it was just surly poor people, and not much good going on. This was not “white flight” — Northern tier cities became Rust Belt Cities (many in the south did too, often later — a lot of our factories moved to NC before they moved abroad) and most of the poor people in the downtowns were white — but people wanted to get away from them for many reasons. It is true that the African Americans… Read more »
It will be interesting to see how they convert those office buildings. They are newer style that don’t necessarily lend themselves to a conversion that well. Based on forecasts there is going to be a lot more vacant office space coming up, but much of it (mainly the suburbs) is not conducive to conversions.
Wow an actual good idea, bravo!
I hope these projects account for additional parking for all of these new tenants. Any conversions and new apartment buildings need to include internal/underground
Where did all the office people park? Office probably requires more parking than a residential. Figure at least five people working in a 1,000 Sq. ft. area that 2 people would live in.
While the article does not specify parking in terms of quantity or how it is integrated into the building, a quick look at the schematic (shown above) makes it pretty clear that the building will have integrated and possibly some underground parking levels. Looks like the main entrance for parking will be on the 6th Street side.
There are a lot of parking decks downtown already. Too many. They’re mostly empty and neglected and very overpriced. Around Sixth and Seventh street, empty parking decks are their own kind of blight. No one goes downtown to see all the amazing parking garages.
Uh oh…. you said they need more parking…..
You’re done.
“Fallen into disrepair” is the kindest description of this building I’ve heard! Active safety hazard is more like it.
I’m surprised there is no mention of parking. What happens when you subtract hundreds of parking spots while simultaneously adding hundreds of residents? Stay tuned, because that’s happening all over Monroe Ward right now.
People account for parking if they need it when considering where to live, which increases the price for parking if it comes with the apartment and decreases the price if parking isn’t needed. Lots of VCU students opt not to have cars, and it’s more and more common for Gen Z and younger millennials to opt out of car ownership.
In New York, maybe DC. Not in Richmond. Every millennial that was my neighbor had 2-3 cars for 2 people. And these are 25-30 yr old first time home buyers. In fact VCU 7000 student parking spaces, 6300 students on campus, and 1500 (on average) commuter pass students trying to park at any given time. And MCV decks have a lottery for students and Monroe Park sells more passes than it has spaces so its parking is first come first serve. Just about 5000 on-campus students residents have passes and they are not cheap. If almost 80% of your on… Read more »
Of course your younger millennial neighbors have a car. The neighborhood where you live per prior posts, Byrd park, has little to no transit connectivity and abundant parking. I’m talking about VCU students/anyone opting to live at 6th and Franklin aren’t as likely to want a vehicle. You have to live close to Broad St to consider going without a vehicle here, I agree.
I think you are living in a delusion. Most people want cars almost everywhere but NYC.
How many Gen Z and younger millennials do you know? Their car ownership is much lower and it’s not all financial. I’m a little hurt you only typed two sentences and not two pages.
Justin, I am gen x and spent my later adolescence and early 20s mostly walking and bike riding; I lived in a city half the size of Richmond. I am old enough to remember them telling me that the older millennials (who were young then, of course) did “not want to own cars, single family houses or anything else.” That was balderdash, and I knew it at the time. Now, guess what? They either own all these things or are complaining that they can’t afford a house in the suburbs because all the Ms I know have kids (and they… Read more »
I love being lectured about why residents don’t need parking downtown by people who, I’d bet good money, don’t live downtown and likely own cars. Correct me if I’m wrong about that. For the last 8 years I have managed a small apartment and office building in Monroe Ward. I’ve had dozens of tenants: students, grad students, VCU staff, professionals, retirees…all ages and generations. Guess what percentage of them had cars? And when someone doesn’t rent here, what is their reason? I’m all for demand-based solutions, but that dynamic falls apart in areas that are already highly developed. Where would… Read more »
You’re focusing on the now and not on the big picture for 5+ years down the road, which will be painful in the near term. No one disagrees with you there. However, the goal is to build for the future and the future involves significant more density and less vehicles per person in the urban core. As I said: apartments without parking, like what you manage, will go for a lower price point and will be freed up for people who do not own a car. That’s the point of the master plan, it’s why they built the Pulse, and… Read more »
Ah, a man who knows the FUTURE!!!! Hat’s off!
We’re sorry we disagreed — we didn’t KNOW!!!
I am a big student of the History of the Future, and it is full of wishful thinking, and even more filled with wrong predictions.
Trust me, I remember when I was going to be able to get a job in Space somewhere. Took me till late high school to realize that the things they were telling us in the 70s was just STUPID.
For example, I remember I went to a High Speed Rail thing put on by the VA state govt around 2005 or so and I laughed when all the materials said we were going to be able to go from DC to Raleigh in high speed rail cars by TWENTY THIRTEEN!!! I told the planner types that they were ignorant if they thought there was a chance we would get high speed rail by then, that I was from NYS and they promised us high speed rail from Montreal to Manhattan in the 1970s — the govt was even stupid… Read more »
They built the Pulse because the Feds gave them a ton of money. Not a single commuter parking spot was created under the Pulse development. Dumb. Just dumb.
Not sure why this is being described as a nine-story building. Including the “rooftop”-level gym and ground-level retail and internal parking, this building tops out at 10 floors.
Similar to the Parc View at Commonwealth on Grace Street. RBS quoted that building as being 15 stories — however — the developer added a similar “rooftop” type floor – bringing the height of the building to 16 stories.
Wait how come the City does not force a demolition. A building that has debris coming off it that has closed the public sidewalk and is a public nuisance. It is a safety threat and even with our lax building codes why has the City not filed case to get a court order to repair or demo the existing building? Sec 5-11 of the City Code and USBC are clear. And having approved PoD for the site does not negate the requirements to keep the public right of way open. PS I am glad for the infill too but hope… Read more »
These kinds of violations are only given to every day residents who own their homes. Renters and big developers seem to be exempt from these types of codes, per City enforcement.
I lived in the building right beside this parking deck a few years ago and also used to park in this deck prior to it starting to fall apart; this has been an issue for going on five years. Also the caption on the top photo should be updated to say “The four-story parking deck has been fenced off for years.”
Agreed, I occasionally work nearby and that area has had fencing for ages, plus thar parking garage has always looked decrepit. I never understood how they thought they’d add apartments on top of the existing deck.
PARKING!
Why are they tearing this gorgeous structure down? Is it not historic?
Say you’re from the suburbs without saying you’re from the suburbs…
I am actually from a sub-RURAL area, a bit outside of the suburbs.
Sorry if you hate people who are not from cities.
And right now I live in a 1920s Street Car Suburb.
But I have renovated many historic structures with my own hands and money — I love great old bldgs — just don’t fetishize the age part, and I prefer a better new bldg than a worse old bldg, when that is the proposition.
But I have lived in downtowns, Albany, NY, Berlin, DE, and The Fan and Petersburg too — all options have their charms — rural, suburban, downtowns. Downtowns often lose their charms after a certain age — it isn’t cultural; it’s biological.
Love it!!! 👍 😂
When I grew up, if a beaver plugged a creek or something, we would only half-joke that we needed to get rid of the beaver before the govt declared the flooded fields a wetland!!!!
I’ve been living downtown, just around the corner from this crumbling garage, for the last year. There are TONS of mostly empty parking decks, but they’re all owned by a scant handful of landlords who charge top-dollar, major-city prices for monthly parking. Without walkable access to groceries (Stella’s and 7/11 are it), or the disposable income to pay for WholeFoods or Instacart delivery, downtown residents will need cars. Grocery shopping by bus is do-able, but it’s time consuming and a lot of work to do even a small shop. There are a lot of empty storefronts, yet the city has… Read more »