Ipanema Cafe is now a tenant of VCU. The restaurant and bar has been on West Grace since the late 1990s. (Mike Platania photo)
For the third time this year, VCU has added to its real estate holdings near its Monroe Park campus.
Last week VCU’s Real Estate Foundation purchased 917 and 919 W. Grace St. for $4.4 million, city records show.
The 917 W. Grace St. building is home to multiple commercial tenants, including Ipanema Cafe, Verify Recording Studio and Refine Hair Studio, as well as one apartment on the top floor. 919 W. Grace St. is a 103-year-old, 20-unit brownstone residential building that until recently had housed a fraternity.
The sellers in the deal were local developer Zac Frederick and broker Bill Mattox, who’d owned the buildings since 2018 when they bought them for a combined $3.1 million.
VCU bought the buildings in a pair of deals that closed on Aug. 10, with 919 W. Grace St. selling for $3.5 million and 917 W. Grace St. selling for $921,000. The buildings sit on about a quarter of an acre.
The city most recently assessed the two parcels at a combined $2.9 million.
A VCU spokesman said the university is “assessing the future use of the properties to support VCU’s ongoing needs.”
Frederick said he and Mattox’s hopes for the properties when buying them five years ago was that they’d eventually catch the eye of VCU.
“That stretch of Grace Street is the Monroe campus’ ground zero. It has such a great proximity to all things VCU. It made sense to buy up as much of it as possible,” Frederick said. “I tried to get the surrounding properties but I’m lucky it all worked out (with 917 and 919 W. Grace St.).”
Currently about 75 percent leased, 917 W. Grace St. has had some long-term commercial tenants in the 84 years since it was built. Absolute Art Tattoo had operated there from 1993 until its move to West Broad Street in 2019, and Ipanema’s been in the basement of the building since 1998.
Seth Campbell bought Ipanema from founder Kendra Feather in early 2020. Campbell said last week that he hopes to continue operating there following the sale, but that he didn’t have a ton of information.
Frederick said the fraternity’s lease on 919 W. Grace St. recently expired and that the building was vacant at the time of the sale.
So far this year VCU’s Real Estate Foundation has spent a total of $8.4 million on real estate on and around West Grace Street.
In May it bought the BookHolders building at 720 W. Grace St. for $3.5 million, and in March it bought a two-story house around the corner at 310 Shafer St. for $500,000. Longtime school supply shop Virginia Book Co. is preparing to relocate from an adjacent building at 900 W. Grace St. to the Shafer Street building.
The university is facing a budget shortfall of nearly $25 million, as well as the fallout from a failed downtown development deal for VCU Health that’s cost the health system at least $80 million.
Ipanema Cafe is now a tenant of VCU. The restaurant and bar has been on West Grace since the late 1990s. (Mike Platania photo)
For the third time this year, VCU has added to its real estate holdings near its Monroe Park campus.
Last week VCU’s Real Estate Foundation purchased 917 and 919 W. Grace St. for $4.4 million, city records show.
The 917 W. Grace St. building is home to multiple commercial tenants, including Ipanema Cafe, Verify Recording Studio and Refine Hair Studio, as well as one apartment on the top floor. 919 W. Grace St. is a 103-year-old, 20-unit brownstone residential building that until recently had housed a fraternity.
The sellers in the deal were local developer Zac Frederick and broker Bill Mattox, who’d owned the buildings since 2018 when they bought them for a combined $3.1 million.
VCU bought the buildings in a pair of deals that closed on Aug. 10, with 919 W. Grace St. selling for $3.5 million and 917 W. Grace St. selling for $921,000. The buildings sit on about a quarter of an acre.
The city most recently assessed the two parcels at a combined $2.9 million.
A VCU spokesman said the university is “assessing the future use of the properties to support VCU’s ongoing needs.”
Frederick said he and Mattox’s hopes for the properties when buying them five years ago was that they’d eventually catch the eye of VCU.
“That stretch of Grace Street is the Monroe campus’ ground zero. It has such a great proximity to all things VCU. It made sense to buy up as much of it as possible,” Frederick said. “I tried to get the surrounding properties but I’m lucky it all worked out (with 917 and 919 W. Grace St.).”
Currently about 75 percent leased, 917 W. Grace St. has had some long-term commercial tenants in the 84 years since it was built. Absolute Art Tattoo had operated there from 1993 until its move to West Broad Street in 2019, and Ipanema’s been in the basement of the building since 1998.
Seth Campbell bought Ipanema from founder Kendra Feather in early 2020. Campbell said last week that he hopes to continue operating there following the sale, but that he didn’t have a ton of information.
Frederick said the fraternity’s lease on 919 W. Grace St. recently expired and that the building was vacant at the time of the sale.
So far this year VCU’s Real Estate Foundation has spent a total of $8.4 million on real estate on and around West Grace Street.
In May it bought the BookHolders building at 720 W. Grace St. for $3.5 million, and in March it bought a two-story house around the corner at 310 Shafer St. for $500,000. Longtime school supply shop Virginia Book Co. is preparing to relocate from an adjacent building at 900 W. Grace St. to the Shafer Street building.
The university is facing a budget shortfall of nearly $25 million, as well as the fallout from a failed downtown development deal for VCU Health that’s cost the health system at least $80 million.
Congrats to Bill Mattox! There’s no broker more prescient or aware of VCU’s needs and desires than Bill. He’s made a very good living helping the University expand over the course of the last 20 years. And he loves the Running Rams.
Whoa! The Mob must have Bruce mistaken for me!! Parking wasn’t even mentioned!!
Can we all just agree now that it would be ideal that VCU commit to: a) maintaining local retail at this location and b) preserving, at minimum, the facades of these buildings (even if they move them somewhere else?).
There’s not point applauding VCU for “saving” downtown if they destroy it at the same time
Also – to be clear – not opposed to VCU growing. Just wish they’d focus on acquiring and developing vacant land and parking lots, buildings with no charm or historic character and that don’t support local business, building vertically, that kind of thing. Would love to see them broker deals to build OVER the interstates downtown. There’s obvious places they can grow both their revenue producing real estate portfolio and their campus while improving rather than diminishing the greater community.
Yes, 100% this. NICE historic fascades of high quality should be preserved and VCU would be well-served to tear down some of their commuter college buildings and build things that don’t look so cheap and “futuristic” (I am a historian of the Future, and I can tell you that the Future is often silly.) Going more vertical on the sites would be ideal, but even renovating them so that they don’t look like warts would be nice. And I agree that that maybe they should prioritize this over land buys — when Trani started the Empire, Richmond was lying mostly… Read more »
Ed Slipek hit the nail on the head when he suggested that VCU’s president should move into the Ellen Glasgow house. Upper floors of these places would make for a great residence for an urban focused university president. The inefficient VCU offices South of here would also be better used as housing for urban focused professors and administrators.
That would be true if the candidates were all interested in living in such a quarters. Sometimes, unis build mansions for the President as an inticement and then they don’t want to live in the house. I went to a school where they built such a mini-mansion for the President and the next guy they got they barely could convince him to take the job and leave the NYC area that he came from, and he didn’t want to live in the house on campus they had built — which was fine. If they made it nice enough, and the… Read more »
Good points Shawn. I’ll still hold out hope that one day VCU’s brand will align more closely with their branding. I think that balcony would be great for entertaining big wigs, and it is a block away from Edo’s Squid!
Me too!
What’s next for the wrecking ball,the beautiful old brownstone homes on Franklin St.?How much room does VCU need.
I hope not.
No quicker sign of a surburban NIMBY rube pretending to care about “historic facades” than their reliable confusion of the VCU area with “downtown.”
I’m actually not originally from Richmond, but I’ve never lived in the suburbs here – or anywhere else for that matter. I use “downtown” to refer to the area roughly bounded by Broad St, Boulevard, the Downtown Expressway, and somewhere around, say, 14th street. I realize this is probably not the strictest or most accurate of definitions. But you likely knew what I meant – and if you didn’t, now you do. So hopefully that obviate the need or the impulse to argue semantics. While suburbia is simply not for me, I dislike your disparaging characterization of suburbanites as “rubes”… Read more »
I don’t think you are being fair and your remark about “rubes” and it says a bit more about you than it does about Mr. Thomas and suburbanites — as I once told a guy from Staten Island who referred to me by one of the typical things that urbanites refer to non-urbanites: “There are more idiots living in NYC than there are PEOPLE in Vermont [Where we were at the time] — and you don’t even live in a “smart” part of NYC. The idea that Richmonders see themselves as cosmopolitan is also a little amusing. All one has… Read more »
Further, VCU IS part of downtown — your rather academic view is a bit like someone pointing out that an area of Manhattan that is between Downtown and Midtown is not really downtown —- Richmond, I believe, has approx. zero people who refer to any part of it as “midtown” and most of Richmond is very definitely not down-towny at all.
And, gee ….. you really think that people in the suburbs don’t care about QUALITY existing facades???? Sounds like you haven’t been out the cities much…. NIMBYS can be QUITE picky about architectual details, esp in the wealthier areas!!
917 W Grace St was renovated in 1974. It was leased by UpTop sub shop, Sea Dream Leather, a hair salon and in the bottom was Bacchus & Bread. Wine shops became legal 7/1/74. 1st real wine shop in RVA. There were a lot of successful businesses in the ‘70’s into the 80’s in the 800-900 blocks of Grace St. Helped create the VCU reputation for better or for worse as an urban institution. Exciting times!
Yeah,Dirt Woman!
Ha! – I haven’t heard that name in years! lol!
Used to get kegs (Lowenbrau Dark) from that wine store back in college days (’83 ish). I think it was called the Wine Cellar.
Lowenbrau!!!
Genny Pounders for me!
Aha. My historians. Which building housed the Jade elephant? I remember it being sort of mid-block there. The dorms in the next block were a parking lot where we used to park. I do hope the buildings or facades are saved. If that was the Jade, there are probably still peanut shells around the foundation that fell through the cracks.
Somebody downvoted this. Is it because she mentioned parking in a parking lot?
Ok, Shawn – that made laugh out loud!
Yea! 2 more properties off the Tax rolls! Which businesses are now going to be asked to pick up the slack?
These stay on the tax rolls for the time being, since VCU Real Estate Foundation pays taxes. However if/when they transfer the property, it’ll go off the tax roll unfortunately.
Businesses and those of us that own homes in Richmond.
What was the name of that biker bar next to the parking lot?
Hababa’s? There was that and Newgate Prison.
I’d love to see an article on VCU’s assets(real estate) that have fallen into disrepair, such as former Anderson Gallery at 907 ½ West Franklin Street. They must have a formula that shows when purchasing a new property is less expensive than maintaining one. We are already witnessing the failure of their real estate initiatives – 72 million this year, what’s next?
Can you FOIA a Foundation? I would think if it is a non-profit, there has to be some sort of public filing? I don’t know how this works….