A rendering of the planned five-story building. (Courtesy Mansour Real Estate)
Fresh off opening an ambitious entertainment venue near The Diamond, Basim Mansour is now looking to Old Town Manchester for his next project.
His development firm, Mansour Real Estate, has a five-story, 49-unit apartment building in the work at 925 E. Fourth St.
The project marks the second in Richmond in as many years for Mansour, who’s also president of Alexandria-based HVAC company Michael & Son. Last year he led the development of The Park RVA, an $8 million, 55,000-square-foot food and entertainment venue at 1407 Cummings Dr.
The apartment building is planned to rise on a 1-acre parcel in Manchester that Mansour bought in early 2020 for $533,000. A chrome plating business, Hanlon Plating Co., had operated in a warehouse on the property for about 50 years before selling to a group that included Mansour. The group was initially planning to renovate the 7,600-square-foot building.
A former chrome plating warehouse stands on the plot. (Mike Platania photo)
David Monds, Mansour Real Estate’s development manager, said the plan now is to raze the structure.
“(Mansour) wanted to repurpose this parcel to bring more housing units to the area,” Monds said. “There’s been tremendous growth in the Manchester district over the past 10 years and we wanted to be a part of it.”
Of the 49 apartments, 40 are planned to be one-bedroom units and the others would be two-bedrooms. The project is planned to include 56 parking spaces and no commercial space.
Kimley-Horn is the project engineer, and Northern Virginia-based Buildix Inc. is the architect. A general contractor has not been selected.
In 2020 local broker Franklin Bell was part of Mansour’s group that bought the building. Monds said he’s unsure whether Bell is still involved. Bell couldn’t be reached for comment.
Monds said Mansour Real Estate hopes to begin construction sometime next year. In the meantime, he said the company is in the early stages of planning a sizable residential community in Hopewell with 229 townhomes and 48 apartments.
The part of eastern Manchester in which Mansour’s building would rise has seen a flurry of developer attention in recent years.
The New Manchester Flats apartments, owned by Lynx Ventures, were one of the first major projects to take shape in that part of Manchester recently. Since the start of 2023 developers have spent nearly $8 million on land in the so-called Maury Street corridor, including developers based out of Charlottesville and Raleigh, North Carolina. An additional 3 acres are being readied for potential redevelopment on Stockton and Marx streets.
A rendering of the planned five-story building. (Courtesy Mansour Real Estate)
Fresh off opening an ambitious entertainment venue near The Diamond, Basim Mansour is now looking to Old Town Manchester for his next project.
His development firm, Mansour Real Estate, has a five-story, 49-unit apartment building in the work at 925 E. Fourth St.
The project marks the second in Richmond in as many years for Mansour, who’s also president of Alexandria-based HVAC company Michael & Son. Last year he led the development of The Park RVA, an $8 million, 55,000-square-foot food and entertainment venue at 1407 Cummings Dr.
The apartment building is planned to rise on a 1-acre parcel in Manchester that Mansour bought in early 2020 for $533,000. A chrome plating business, Hanlon Plating Co., had operated in a warehouse on the property for about 50 years before selling to a group that included Mansour. The group was initially planning to renovate the 7,600-square-foot building.
A former chrome plating warehouse stands on the plot. (Mike Platania photo)
David Monds, Mansour Real Estate’s development manager, said the plan now is to raze the structure.
“(Mansour) wanted to repurpose this parcel to bring more housing units to the area,” Monds said. “There’s been tremendous growth in the Manchester district over the past 10 years and we wanted to be a part of it.”
Of the 49 apartments, 40 are planned to be one-bedroom units and the others would be two-bedrooms. The project is planned to include 56 parking spaces and no commercial space.
Kimley-Horn is the project engineer, and Northern Virginia-based Buildix Inc. is the architect. A general contractor has not been selected.
In 2020 local broker Franklin Bell was part of Mansour’s group that bought the building. Monds said he’s unsure whether Bell is still involved. Bell couldn’t be reached for comment.
Monds said Mansour Real Estate hopes to begin construction sometime next year. In the meantime, he said the company is in the early stages of planning a sizable residential community in Hopewell with 229 townhomes and 48 apartments.
The part of eastern Manchester in which Mansour’s building would rise has seen a flurry of developer attention in recent years.
The New Manchester Flats apartments, owned by Lynx Ventures, were one of the first major projects to take shape in that part of Manchester recently. Since the start of 2023 developers have spent nearly $8 million on land in the so-called Maury Street corridor, including developers based out of Charlottesville and Raleigh, North Carolina. An additional 3 acres are being readied for potential redevelopment on Stockton and Marx streets.
While I think the redevelopment of these older areas is overall a good thing for the City I do worry that as a region we are not creating places for displaced businesses to go. You see a lot of news about megasites and big economic development projects, but where are all the little and medium size people that sell their properties and move out of Manchester/Scotts Addition and other redeveloping areas going to go?
That’s the shift. More big business/developers/government/monopolies. Less small businesses/sole proprietorships/grassroots.
Whether local or national, there are businesses that do not need 100-500 acres to operate. Smaller sites are needed for many businesses.
Ou, I can’t wait for the residence to walk out the front door after the first really heavy rain event to smell the flood wall dry retention basin just across 4th that when filled after heavy rains as its (still in my nose) oh so lovely smell.
There’s a reason the apartments next to this site put its parking lot adjacent to E 4th Street. And it was not just car access and construction convenience .
Glad to see the infill.
You should’ve seen some of the old neighborhoods in NYC and what some of their residences were adjacent to….. the more popular a place becomes, the more locations for marginal income people become less desirable in one way or another.
This happens throughout history — they move to the new cheaper locations.
Petersburg?
Used to be that Manchester was considered worse than Petersburg, but why not.
A lot of people seem to want to imagine new problems — we don’t need cobblers in Manchester — they can move to Rt. 1.
Chrome replating is a highly toxic process, and leaves behind toxic chemicals. Wonder if expensive soil remediation will be required to build on this site.
Hi Chris, you’re right about that! Thankfully, our Phase II proved favorable. It was definitely a concern of ours beforehand though.
I think that is standard DD for developers, cheap to test soil, expensive to find out that something like that might be an expensive clean-up, and legal aligned players are quick to make sure that is part of the contigencies.