A rendering of the planned two-over-two townhomes. (City documents)
A Charlottesville developer has revealed its plans for the 2-acre site it purchased earlier this year in Manchester.
Castle Development Partners is planning to build 70 townhome units at 301 Maury St., according to plans filed with the city last week.
The project would be configured as 35 “two-over-two” townhomes, wherein each four-story structure would house a pair of stacked two-story units.
Castle has enlisted homebuilder Greenwood Homes on the project. Castle is primarily an apartment developer, with thousands of local units in its pipeline in Midlothian and near Chesterfield Towne Center, while Greenwood is a homebuilder that works throughout Virginia and North Carolina.
Both firms are based in Charlottesville, and Greenwood managing partner Drew Holzwarth said it’s the first of what he hopes will be many projects for his company in the Richmond area.
While many two-over-twos in the Richmond area have been built as for-sale units, Holzwarth said it’s his understanding Castle is planning to rent them out. Castle did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Dennis’ Truck & Trailer Repair had operated on Maury Street for 30 years. (Mike Platania photo)
Each of the 70 units would have three bedrooms and 2.5 baths, with the upper units totaling around 2,600 square feet and the lower units clocking in at 1,500 square feet.
Plans show the project would be split up between five rows of contiguous structures. Two rows of 10 townhomes would rise facing Maury and Everett streets, and between those would be three rows of five townhomes.
Planned amenities include balconies, decks and rooftop terraces, as well as garages for each unit. Holzwarth said they’re contemplating trying to fit in a small park in the area between the buildings.
Pennsylvania-based Atar Design Group is listed as the project architect. Youngblood, Tyler & Associates is the engineer. Baker Development Resources is consulting in the plan-of-development process.
Castle secured the two-acre site in January with a purchase price of $3 million. The property for more than 20 years had been home to Dennis’ Truck & Trailer Repair Inc., which was the seller in the deal. The parcel occupies an entire city block and fronts the Maury Street roundabout that redirects traffic off Interstate 95.
That section of Maury Street north of Commerce Road has gradually drawn developer and investor interest in recent years, and Castle’s plans are some of the first to be filed in the corridor.
A pair of local developers are teaming up on a 163-unit apartment building at 500 Maury St., and the block adjacent to Castle’s sold in the spring to a North Carolina developer for nearly $5 million, though no plans have been filed for that plot. Also being teed up for redevelopment is a parking lot just to the west at 400 Stockton St., as well as an industrial site to the east at 507 Marx St.
A rendering of the planned two-over-two townhomes. (City documents)
A Charlottesville developer has revealed its plans for the 2-acre site it purchased earlier this year in Manchester.
Castle Development Partners is planning to build 70 townhome units at 301 Maury St., according to plans filed with the city last week.
The project would be configured as 35 “two-over-two” townhomes, wherein each four-story structure would house a pair of stacked two-story units.
Castle has enlisted homebuilder Greenwood Homes on the project. Castle is primarily an apartment developer, with thousands of local units in its pipeline in Midlothian and near Chesterfield Towne Center, while Greenwood is a homebuilder that works throughout Virginia and North Carolina.
Both firms are based in Charlottesville, and Greenwood managing partner Drew Holzwarth said it’s the first of what he hopes will be many projects for his company in the Richmond area.
While many two-over-twos in the Richmond area have been built as for-sale units, Holzwarth said it’s his understanding Castle is planning to rent them out. Castle did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Dennis’ Truck & Trailer Repair had operated on Maury Street for 30 years. (Mike Platania photo)
Each of the 70 units would have three bedrooms and 2.5 baths, with the upper units totaling around 2,600 square feet and the lower units clocking in at 1,500 square feet.
Plans show the project would be split up between five rows of contiguous structures. Two rows of 10 townhomes would rise facing Maury and Everett streets, and between those would be three rows of five townhomes.
Planned amenities include balconies, decks and rooftop terraces, as well as garages for each unit. Holzwarth said they’re contemplating trying to fit in a small park in the area between the buildings.
Pennsylvania-based Atar Design Group is listed as the project architect. Youngblood, Tyler & Associates is the engineer. Baker Development Resources is consulting in the plan-of-development process.
Castle secured the two-acre site in January with a purchase price of $3 million. The property for more than 20 years had been home to Dennis’ Truck & Trailer Repair Inc., which was the seller in the deal. The parcel occupies an entire city block and fronts the Maury Street roundabout that redirects traffic off Interstate 95.
That section of Maury Street north of Commerce Road has gradually drawn developer and investor interest in recent years, and Castle’s plans are some of the first to be filed in the corridor.
A pair of local developers are teaming up on a 163-unit apartment building at 500 Maury St., and the block adjacent to Castle’s sold in the spring to a North Carolina developer for nearly $5 million, though no plans have been filed for that plot. Also being teed up for redevelopment is a parking lot just to the west at 400 Stockton St., as well as an industrial site to the east at 507 Marx St.
About as boring a facade as I can imagine.
Not much imagination then. Imagine they take the bay windows off for instance.
Personally, I find it rather pleasant and far from boring.
And what’s wrong with boring? Most houses are “boring” or “plain”, or at the very least like countless other homes.
The key is that they are not ugly, which a great deal of what passes for trendy architecture is these days (i.e. Deconstructivism or its diluted derivations). For that I am thankful.
Morgan – I also like the design and the potential this development has to bring an old-school urban look and feel akin to the endless rows of “block-front” housing in older sections of Baltimore or Philadelphia.
What’s more, there’s an old rule of thumb that quite often what appears to be an ugly duckling on paper renderings actually turns out to be a swan in brick and mortar. I’ll be very interested to see how these buildings look once they are developed.
Yeah — in Baltimore there are a lot of what I charitably call neighborhoods of handsome houses — they are manly, strong solid, and boring. The fact that they are old doesn’t do much to make anyone want to start singing.
I’m glad that some one pointed this out —- many “historic” bldgs are boring: boring old brick, boring old clapboard like what is so revered in New England coastal towns — and then there are the less boring ones when they take the essential same plan and add do-dads to style it up — fancier cornices, window frames — maybe a bay window or a belvedere if you get really lucky.
This is interesting on many levels. One is the location, which was a great place for …. a big truck repair shop.
Area is changing. These seem to be built to attract actual families and maybe easy condo conversion?
Townhome rentals? Sad.. Townhomes are starter homes and we need more/easier entry into home ownership. Will the upper units rent for around $3K per month? – that is a mortgage!
Agreed, Victoria. As Mike pointed out in his reporting, most 2 over 2’s in RVA are built as for-sale units. Would definitely rather see these offered for sale to inject some home ownership into the mix. I like the idea of three-bedroom units to hopefully attract families instead of just singletons who could just as easily live in some of the larger apartment buildings in the neighborhood. I’d think, though, for a family it would be far better to buy than to rent. Even with interest rates where they are, a mortgage might actually be more affordable, even if only… Read more »
I can’t imagine families moving into these units off the Maury St and the on-ramp of the interstate. I wonder if they are marketing to off-campus students if they are planning to be rental units.
My point about ownership, is that I believe that in today’s market, townhomes are priced for a starter home. It’s not a forever home, but one to buy and build equity for the down payment on the next “2 kids & a dog” home?
That very well may be one of their strategies. Good call.
But they are NOT selling them and if they did based on similar units with terraces, 3 bedrooms, square footage, and garages they would be probably 2/3s to 3/4 the prices of the 7W and others in Manchester so I would venture they would be around $450k for the smaller and $550k for the large units. Not really a “starter home” price range. 1201 Porter St condo just went under contract and was listed at $670k. 1440 Overbrook “2 over 2” building is almost identical with sqft and bedrooms; units there sell for around $630k. Manchester Lofts’ 1-bedroom $190k, Byrd… Read more »
Wow – yeah, I could see these units fetching a pretty hefty selling price, even though the location – for now – is not “ideal” – meaning, it’s not in the “hot spot” of lower Manchester that’s booming. The development footprint is expanding south and east. The Maury Street corridor is fast changing and it will be interesting to see the economics of it in five years or so. Surprised that the Fountain Lake condos are as low as they are for a 2-bedroom. That’s a great area and those old buildings are gorgeous. Overbrook has been on fire in… Read more »
Sure that’s not Henrico jail/West?
Jail architecture. Similar to many new public schools.
mid century public schools were worse.
What?! Another new residential building in Manchester – and NO grocery store or other retail?!!! I live here – it’s unbelievable. A handful of restaurants and a few tiny markets, with nothing but building building building. No real green space. Typical poor city planning and zoning….
Virginia – I understand the angst and desire for a grocery store in Manchester. However, efforts to lure a grocer to Manchester within the last year or two have failed because the population of Manchester has not yet reached what grocers consider to be the “critical mass” necessary to make investing in establishing and maintaining a store in the this section of the city feasible. You won’t like this answer – but “another new residential building” and “building, building, building” is absolutely part of the solution to bringing in a grocer. There simply aren’t enough people living in Manchester at… Read more »
The population is big enough for a small scale grocery store with everything you need. They were trying to build a suburban sized grocery store. The vision needs to be changed. I would rather have lots of smaller walkable grocery stores than one big one that I feel the need to drive to bc it’s the only one in the neighborhood.
These smaller ones are a lot more expensive with less food options. Trust me, as someone who had friends in brooklyn, there is nothing romantic about the small corner stores. Have you noticed the stories about even Walmart having to close supercenters in places where theft is part of the local culture? We even had one of those mini-Walmart marketplaces declare there were CLOSING in East Henrico I think it was — trust me, the supermarkets KNOW what they are doing and are not willing to be like these scrappy asian mini-grocers and put up with tons of hassle and… Read more »
The complaint about no real green space is laughable. This area enjoys access to the James River Park. It is an absolutely wonderful resource most other areas of the metro would love to have.
The closest “park” access for these apartments is probably the Richmond Slave Trail, which will take you to Ancarrow’s Landing but isn’t a traditional park (and shouldn’t be treated as one in my view). Second closest would be the park/”playground” across from Blackwell elementary, which in theory should be renovated at some point to make it have more amenities. It’s not particularly close to the main trails of JRPS or to Belle Isle or even the t-pot bridge.
Directly down Maury will get you to the floodwall. That links in with JRPS, T-Pot, Belle Isle and all the other river amenities of the City.
I find it very interesting that people move into an industrial area and want “traditional” parks. Where do they think the City is going to put playing fields in an area covered in industrial sites?
FWIW, the riverfront plan adopted in 2012 included a proposal for a new “green” on top of part of the train yard near the west end of the floodwall. I never expected that to happen, but the idea of trying to add some green space for a neighborhood that is rapidly transitioning (by design) from industrial to residential doesn’t seem absurd to me.
Agreed, David. Something else to consider: a park is typically public land. As such, the city would have to own the land on which a park in Manchester is developed. Classic example of how the city is planning a park on city-owned land is the big serpentine park designed as part of the Diamond District redevelopment. Every square inch of the 67 acres of land on which the entire Diamond District redevelopment will occur is owned by the city. In a legacy urban neighborhood such as Manchester, however, these parcels that are being developed are privately owned. The developers purchased… Read more »
They should make developers set aside land for parks, for the mental health and environmental impacts that they would bring. Taxes are paying for the power, water, streets and sewage for all these profitable buildings, not to mention tax credits.
Lots of people want to tell other people how to spend their money and run their businesses.
They should get into business themselves and practice what they preach, if they can.
70 units and given per household average in the city means maybe 100-120 residents. That won’t change any demand side for a store.
The whole “We need a bigger population ” conversation is bogus. People in the City, Blackwell and the Semmes Ave area would all shop here because nothing else is convenient unless you can name any other grocery store in these areas
There has been ample reporting in this publication and others detailing how grocers are not willing at this time to plunk down a sizeable investment in an area that until the last few years was essentially a population desert. Grocers (like any business looking to invest in an area) analyze various metrics when making a determination of where and when to open a new store. Population density, total population and income levels of a given area all factor in. To your point, you are correct that the catch radius of a potential customer base extends out beyond the core neighborhood.… Read more »
I loved this response. I wish more people were like you
Well, hold on a second. If a Manchester store could get people from Swansboro there, shouldn’t the first question be “Where would the best location be for a new supermarket in the area?” I have skimmed the surface on this by asking if it would be smart to put one in Manchester new the James to possibly catch some Downtown Richmond business, since Downtown is also growing. But why not put one in Swansboro or somewhere — would that be more central? Would enough middle class shoppers be willing to go there? Would it be too close then to some… Read more »
Well. So I guess there is ALREADY a supermarket there then, since if there are no business concerns, they just need a few complainers to tap them on the shoulder and tell them they are missing a big opportunity! One thing I have seen a LOT of in my life, esp regarding small groceries and bookstore and stuff, is rookie businesspeople making the mistake of thinking that SOME vocal demand for a service is the same as “Enough” demand for a service. I see these people, after losing everything, go back to their jobs in government and non-profits and corporate… Read more »
If you dislike living in an urban former industrial area, then you should consider moving to another neighborhood. Manchester and Scott’s Addition will never have a tradition park because of their layout within the street grid. However, Manchester has the James River Parks System, which is pretty great, as is.
Manchester and Scotts Addition will never have traditional green space because developers fund PACS. It’s a choice not a law of nature.
Ed, parks are often becoming such liabilities that even local governments are wary of making new ones unless they are far enough away from “the housing insecure” or whatever we are supposed to refer to them as. When you talk about the private sector, forget it — a green space can become a liability the more the laws start looking like San Franscisco. Back in the late 90s, I met a woman who had lived in San Fransisco since the late eighties as a massage therapist and had recently moved back to NYS to further her education. She told me… Read more »
Oh! You said the Quiet Part out loud. I tell people all the time if they don’t like the conditions where they live, they should move — people think it is easier to change the world around them — the reality is that it is easier to either just change their mentality OR be a Jimmy Buffett change your attitude by changing you [location] practitioner. As someone who moved from Upstate NY to the Richmond metro in the early aughties, one thing I immediately learned was Richmonders have no idea how good they have things compared to a lot of… Read more »
Thanks for the replies. FYI – I don’t necessarily mean large public parks or ball fields, but even just small ‘pocket parks’ that developers can do with even a corner of their property or the city can do with some of the land they own down here. Some small green areas would help with the intense building happening. Also – the James River park system is great but at the far end of manchester – it doesn’t help with the closeness of buildings around Hull. And, I understand the business reason behind no grocery yet, but yes, it’s true, so… Read more »
Greenspace in Richmond VA is called the suburbs.
Funny one! However, RVA will never be confused with NYC or Philadelphia, where in-town greenspace relative to dense urban development is at a premium. If anything, I would hazard to guess that Richmond’s greenspace far exceeds most cities on either a percentage of land basis or on a per capita basis (I don’t have any data at all on this but I’m sure that urbanologists have compiled this kind of data somewhere and have U.S. cities thusly ranked. It’s what they do.) The long and the short of it is: this city – compared to other cities – does not… Read more »
Thank You. I will not speak to every part of Richmond, but I think almost all the area are pretty good on this metric — but when I moved to the Fan, I was in raptures about Byrd Park and Belle Isle, and that I could afford to pay so little for rent (this was 20 years ago) to live so close to such a great park with so many days of sunshine in a year. Can you imagine how I felt after I discovered Maymont??? I stumbled on to the place — WOW!!! I then discovered the Streetcar Suburbs… Read more »
I was JUST going to type something like this!!! Yes, if you want greenspaces and ball parks — move to the suburbs is the closest option. For a more non-conventional one — MOVE TO PETERSBURG — Petersburg has a wealth of abandoned and underused ballparks, lying fallow, lots of greenspace, even most residences have attached greenspace — and there are ample parks that are often empty. If you aren’t born rich, you got to take the opportunities where they are just there lying around, unless you are filled with energy and brains and charisma, and if you are that, well,… Read more »
Have you considered living in the Byrd Park area of Richmond. I grew up there as a kid and enjoyed all the green space in the world. From the James River, Maymont, The Lakes, The Carillon, City Stadium, Cary School we had plenty of great places to play outside.
The Byrd Park neighborhood is one of the city’s hidden gems. One of my favorite parts of town. My first wife lived in the neighborhood when we were dating in the ’80s, and I can’t even begin to tally up the countless hours we spent at Maymont or by the Byrd Park lakes or even just strolling though the neighborhood. It’s a shame that the downtown expressway tore a swath out of the northern part of the area connecting to the southernmost edge of the the Fan.
Yeah. That expressway put me out of business when my paper route went from about 80 papers to about 25 as the bulldozers came through. I was able to get back on that gravy train when I got a route covering some of Grove Ave. and Hanover Ave. from the Blvd. to Cleveland St. I used to love those old houses across from the VMFA on the route.
I know I’m probably an outlier on this – but in a way I actually like the design in as much as the two sets of 10 townhomes facing Maury and Everett streets have the potential to bring the look and feel akin to the endless rows of “block-fronts” in older sections of Baltimore and Philadelphia. It’s a very old-school urban look and feel – particularly if the buildings come right to the sidewalk. I’m very much in favor of developments that emphasize just how much Richmond physically developed far more like a big northeastern city than like a smallish… Read more »
A lot of interesting design cues that could have informed this project and really centered it in Manchester. Wonder if design team even visited area and looked around a bit.
Oh, yeah …. Oil tanks, treatment plants warehouses!! Gotta blend in!!!
Three-bedroom units generally come with children. Have the developers taken into account what schools these children would attend?
I have my doubts.
Three bedrooms are now for DINKs and both work from home – needing their own offices
I MISS these designations that were so popular in the aughts.. DINKS!!! Yes, families with kids may get STARTED in these homes, but probably won’t attract folks who already have kids. I SUSPECT that the developers want to have the option to go condo if the neighborhood changes enough — though given RIchmond’s philosophies about how to run public schools are, I serious doubt that anyone other than homeschoolers would be interested in buying a condo there. Interesting thing in Petersburg: The housing prices were once so low that a lot of two parent households were buying in Petersburg to… Read more »
Townhome rentals!? The prices about to be ridiculous. The area is already congested with the apts they just put down there and add this on right next to the highway entrance!? Just putting people on top of people. And this is Blackwell not Manchester which is further up Hull Street. White washing at its finest…
Definitely NOT Blackwell which never came across Commerce. I always thought west of Maury and riverside of Commerce is industrial Manchester. When you go east of Maury and Commerce makes that curve to me it becomes Commerce Road Industrial Area. Blackwell was Decatur to Maury (and some of the start of the A, B, C, D Streets – Albany, Boston, Chicago…..) Commerce to Richmond Hwy. And somewhere in the A,B,Cs it becomes Oak Grove neighborhood.
One of the more important points is that it’s been forever since anyone ever lived around there anyway. This is about as far away from “Ancestral Tribal Hunting Grounds” as one can get — their neighbors are going to be big oil tanks.
Is this some kind of racist comment? Funny that some people are complaining about putting people on top of people, but a lot of their political allies are also here basically arguing for ever more orders of density.
Anyway, building more homes does NOT tend to make the prices go up — indeed, eventually it often leaves to oversupply and lower prices, it is usually a cycle.
The city needs to start setting some light design requirements. It won’t deter development and has huge benefits.
Well,you do have the Big Apple Supermarket,which have a variety of food items!
You have a point, but I am not sure how big of one — how big a variety???
Where my wife is from they have a similar named Apple Supermaket in town, but many residents drive 45 minutes to the Walmart in the next bigger town because Walmart has a much bigger variety.
Of course, some of the people who make the trek do so because the in-town supermarket is run by fundamentalist christians and they are Catholics and the two groups don’t like mixing much.
Where in these wonderful large developments are the affordable housing units so needed for families?