The 12-story hotel would replace a vacant Hardee’s. (City documents)
Where biscuits once rose for decades, a new hotel is set to rise much, much higher.
Shamin Hotels, one of the region’s largest hoteliers, is planning a 12-story, 299-room hotel on the site of the longtime Hardee’s restaurant at 921 Myers St.
The new, 257,000-square-foot structure would carry two Marriott brands: Residence Inn and AC Hotels. The latter is one of Marriott’s “Select” brands and originated in Spain. Shamin CEO Neil Amin said AC Hotels have many European-inspired design elements.
Neil Amin
“They’re very elegant, very modern with clean lines and a lot of great finishes like stone,” Amin said. “Marriott typically wants (AC Hotels) in neighborhoods that have other things that people want to visit, like breweries and restaurants. They’re not really looking to put these hotels in suburban office parks.”
There are nearly 250 AC Hotels worldwide and Shamin’s would be the first in Virginia.
Shamin, based downtown, owns 75 hotels throughout the East Coast. The majority of its holdings are in the Richmond region.
Amin said the in-house restaurant is a big part of the AC Hotels brand, and added that the restaurant in the new Richmond hotel would have dining areas both on the ground floor and on the roof with a lounge and bar. Event spaces are also part of the plan, including a 10,000-square-foot ballroom and on the rooftop.
A seven-floor, 370-space above-ground parking deck is planned as part of the project.
The hotel would be the first AC Hotel in Virginia.
The new hotel would be among the largest and tallest both in Shamin’s portfolio and throughout the city. Shamin bought the land for $4.75 million last summer after Hardee’s closed in 2022, and Amin said the company set out to maximize the potential of the 1.3-acre parcel.
“We’ve been trying to do something in Scott’s Addition for some time and the stars aligned. We had to move quickly on this site,” Amin said. “We could have found a site deep into Scott’s Addition, but the visibility of Broad and Boulevard as a gateway to Scott’s Addition and the Boulevard district was very important to us.”
Amin said the company also wanted to be near the many museums in the area, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Science Museum of Virginia and Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
“There’s not a great hotel option for people to use when they’re visiting those locations,” Amin said. “I’ve been in conversations with those (museums’) directors and they’re all very excited to have a hotel and hospitality product close by.”
Shamin is preparing to work through the plan of development process with the city for the Myers Street project. The parcel’s existing TOD-1 zoning allows for up to 12 stories and won’t require a special-use permit or rezoning to move forward.
Timmons Group is the development engineer and Nitin Kulkarni is the architect. Amin said a general contractor has not yet been selected, nor has the company finalized a project cost or construction timeline.
Amin said he views this new hotel as a potential trophy-type of development for Shamin’s portfolio. He said the firm is drawing inspiration from an AC Hotel that opened in a neighborhood similar to Scott’s Addition in Asheville, North Carolina.
“They have a hotel right in the middle of their downtown area, which is very similar to Scott’s Addition with lots of breweries, and the hotel just became the centerpiece of the development,” Amin said. “People would go there, they know that’s where they’ll stay, and then they frequent all the local establishments. So we want to replicate that and improve on that here.”
Another local hotelier, KM Hotels, tried to build an AC Hotel downtown along the Kanawha Canal in 2019. Those plans ultimately were scrapped and local developers WVS Cos. and Fountainhead Real Estate Development now are planning to build the final phase of their Locks apartments on that site.
While Shamin’s hotel will tower over the intersection of West Broad and Arthur Ashe Boulevard, additional hotel projects are in the works in the vicinity.
A 180-room hotel is included in the plans for the massive Diamond District development to the north. On Roseneath Road in Scott’s Addition, local development firm Capital Square is considering razing the old Dairy Barn building to make way for an eight-story hotel.
South of Broad Street in the Fan, two boutique hotels are in the works: a New York firm is converting the Shenandoah building at 501 N. Allen Ave. into a 70-room hotel, and the owners of Shyndigz are building a four-story, 19-room hotel adjacent to their new bakery at 1904 W. Cary St.
The 12-story hotel would replace a vacant Hardee’s. (City documents)
Where biscuits once rose for decades, a new hotel is set to rise much, much higher.
Shamin Hotels, one of the region’s largest hoteliers, is planning a 12-story, 299-room hotel on the site of the longtime Hardee’s restaurant at 921 Myers St.
The new, 257,000-square-foot structure would carry two Marriott brands: Residence Inn and AC Hotels. The latter is one of Marriott’s “Select” brands and originated in Spain. Shamin CEO Neil Amin said AC Hotels have many European-inspired design elements.
Neil Amin
“They’re very elegant, very modern with clean lines and a lot of great finishes like stone,” Amin said. “Marriott typically wants (AC Hotels) in neighborhoods that have other things that people want to visit, like breweries and restaurants. They’re not really looking to put these hotels in suburban office parks.”
There are nearly 250 AC Hotels worldwide and Shamin’s would be the first in Virginia.
Shamin, based downtown, owns 75 hotels throughout the East Coast. The majority of its holdings are in the Richmond region.
Amin said the in-house restaurant is a big part of the AC Hotels brand, and added that the restaurant in the new Richmond hotel would have dining areas both on the ground floor and on the roof with a lounge and bar. Event spaces are also part of the plan, including a 10,000-square-foot ballroom and on the rooftop.
A seven-floor, 370-space above-ground parking deck is planned as part of the project.
The hotel would be the first AC Hotel in Virginia.
The new hotel would be among the largest and tallest both in Shamin’s portfolio and throughout the city. Shamin bought the land for $4.75 million last summer after Hardee’s closed in 2022, and Amin said the company set out to maximize the potential of the 1.3-acre parcel.
“We’ve been trying to do something in Scott’s Addition for some time and the stars aligned. We had to move quickly on this site,” Amin said. “We could have found a site deep into Scott’s Addition, but the visibility of Broad and Boulevard as a gateway to Scott’s Addition and the Boulevard district was very important to us.”
Amin said the company also wanted to be near the many museums in the area, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Science Museum of Virginia and Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
“There’s not a great hotel option for people to use when they’re visiting those locations,” Amin said. “I’ve been in conversations with those (museums’) directors and they’re all very excited to have a hotel and hospitality product close by.”
Shamin is preparing to work through the plan of development process with the city for the Myers Street project. The parcel’s existing TOD-1 zoning allows for up to 12 stories and won’t require a special-use permit or rezoning to move forward.
Timmons Group is the development engineer and Nitin Kulkarni is the architect. Amin said a general contractor has not yet been selected, nor has the company finalized a project cost or construction timeline.
Amin said he views this new hotel as a potential trophy-type of development for Shamin’s portfolio. He said the firm is drawing inspiration from an AC Hotel that opened in a neighborhood similar to Scott’s Addition in Asheville, North Carolina.
“They have a hotel right in the middle of their downtown area, which is very similar to Scott’s Addition with lots of breweries, and the hotel just became the centerpiece of the development,” Amin said. “People would go there, they know that’s where they’ll stay, and then they frequent all the local establishments. So we want to replicate that and improve on that here.”
Another local hotelier, KM Hotels, tried to build an AC Hotel downtown along the Kanawha Canal in 2019. Those plans ultimately were scrapped and local developers WVS Cos. and Fountainhead Real Estate Development now are planning to build the final phase of their Locks apartments on that site.
While Shamin’s hotel will tower over the intersection of West Broad and Arthur Ashe Boulevard, additional hotel projects are in the works in the vicinity.
A 180-room hotel is included in the plans for the massive Diamond District development to the north. On Roseneath Road in Scott’s Addition, local development firm Capital Square is considering razing the old Dairy Barn building to make way for an eight-story hotel.
South of Broad Street in the Fan, two boutique hotels are in the works: a New York firm is converting the Shenandoah building at 501 N. Allen Ave. into a 70-room hotel, and the owners of Shyndigz are building a four-story, 19-room hotel adjacent to their new bakery at 1904 W. Cary St.
Could we please get rid of that trashy cvs next. Something prominent and elegant needs to go at that cvs with some nice height and a statement type of building at such a prime intersection.
Then the dirty bookstore next…….
What decade did you last visit the area?
You can’t possibly be serious? The “bookstore” has been a mexican restuarant since I moved to Richmond in 2014. TEN YEARS AGO.
What? I sure hope they don’t close the porn tacos. Guessing I want be able to park in that Hardees lot any more when I roll in to pick up take out from the “dirty bookstore”
There are so many people who never go into the city, who log on here and call it an “antifa run blighted wasteland”, please note the level of knowledge.
Yes, I’m imagining the bucolic view of the Subway and Chanello’s, which I expect will hold out until the end of time.
Doubt that. Why? Because all it takes is someone writing a check.
For instance, I guy I know had a small business in Brooklyn Heights in a rather run down location for the neighborhood. He was just a leasee and when someone wanted to develop the location during Brooklyn’s boom, they had to buy out his lease. He would not disclose what they paid him.
299 rooms, 370 parking spaces? Maybe the garage is open to the public?
The referenced AC Hotel in Asheville is attached to a public garage.
Parking for staff as well as guests
There is a ballroom facility
Perhaps the next great wave of development are hotels? Richmond certainly needs more of them. Perhaps the Shamin group can convince the City Police to do something about the noisy motorcycles that race on Broad Street at night. Many are doing 100mph+
Enforcing quality of life/1st world problem crimes are so pre Soros funded DA’s. Sorry boomer. This is what voting sounds like.
The city would have more hotels if the property taxes and other local taxes weren’t so high.
With all the development in the area of this location, it will not be a problem to pass on the expenses to the guests.
Yesssssssssss. Great use for this property. The parking better be open to shared use to the public because that is way too much parking to just sit there in a critical location.
With a 10,000 sf ballroom I would presume the additional deck space is intended to serve the non overnight guests who attend events in this space.
Barry: Employees need parking spaces as well as guests. My concern will be traffic congestion at this intersection.
Joey: Sorry, but the CVS has a prime drugstore location, and the area certainly needs to retain a drugstore.
I wouldn’t mind if they knocked down the old CVS and put in a 10 to 15 story building but the new CVS had a store front in the base of the new building.
That McDonald’s could go too–it is surely the worst run McDonald’s in the Greater Richmond area. Join those two properties and you’d have room for something impressive.
Seconded. That McDonald’s is beyond awful. The worst run location I’ve been to anywhere. And yes, the CVS in its current form needs to go. Have it be the ground-floor tenant in a beautiful new 6-story building.
Agreed – but I’ll see your six floors and raise you another six. 🙂
Indeed, let’s put the CVS on the ground floor – right on the corner and Arthur Ashe and Broad (with the store facing both streets) – but let’s build the max possible (without an SUP) on TOD-1 zoned property – and have it in a 12-story building.
Sure, on the first floor of some much taller and more majestic building.
CVS s can go into all the first floor commercial spaces — you go to midtown Manhattan there seems to be one every couple blocks.
I really think this is the type of project Richmond needs in that it is very cool looking and it will replace a decaying suburban eye sore.
I kind of wounder would this project have not come into being if Richmond had kept the zoning below the 3 story 1970’s zoning.
It may have still happened but it would have had to jump through many more hoops. And probably been several more years in the making.
Excited for the development but what is European about an AC Hotel?? The one is PR’s San Juan convention center is nice but rooms and hallways look like any Marriott or Holiday Inn; even the lobby is generic. Even the NYC Times Square one has unique spaces but I can’t see the Richmond one having a pool bar or floating sun chair in part of the pool.
Bravo. Checks all the boxes. Responsible development embraces parking.
Thanks for the reminder of this classic local satire account. https://twitter.com/BoulevardHardee
Thanks Boz, that’s a riot!
WOW!!! What a jump in land use!!!
I think it was a Bill’s Barbecue on that property before Hardee’s.
Bill’s was next door, the Aldi is there now
Those bollards better be anchored in bedrock.