The former industrial site is just a block north of the Otis in Scott’s Addition. (Google Earth)
Another Scott’s Addition industrial site is set to be redeveloped as an out-of-town firm is picking up where a local one left off.
The Breakwater Cos. is under contract to buy the former Richmond Machinery & Equipment Co. site at 1701 Roseneath Road, where the Maryland-based firm is planning a mixed-use multifamily development.
The site previously had been under contract to locally based Blackwood Development, which in 2022 began planning a mid-rise apartment complex for the site. That deal fell through, opening the door for Breakwater.
Andrew Rubin
Led by Andrew Rubin, Breakwater also is working on a six-story mixed-use development that would replace the Commonwealth Building on the 4600 block of West Broad Street, just east of Willow Lawn.
Rubin said he’s continuing to look for deals throughout the Richmond region and jumped at the opportunity to get in on Scott’s Addition with the 1.2-acre Richmond Machinery & Equipment site.
“Scott’s Addition has a national reputation and the developers, business owners and residents who are there have built an excellent neighborhood,” Rubin said. “The opportunity to be part of that was attractive.”
While Blackwood’s proposed development would have reached seven stories and totaled 250 apartments, Breakwater’s is set to be a bit smaller at five stories and about 200 units. Rubin said he believes the new proposal is “more feasible and better addresses the market.”
About 5,000 square feet of commercial space facing Roseneath Road is included in Breakwater’s plans. Rubin said he believes the company will land a resident service type of tenant rather than a restaurant operator.
The 1.2-acre site has been vacant since last fall after Richmond Machinery & Equipment Co. relocated to Goochland. (Mike Platania photo)
Breakwater is working with Divaris’s Read Goode on the land deal, and 510 Architects is designing the development.
Founded in 1919, Richmond Machinery & Equipment had spent decades in Scott’s Addition selling, renting and servicing heavy equipment such as excavators, pavers and more. Last fall the company finished building a new headquarters at 2350 Greystone Court in Goochland and relocated there.
Rubin said Breakwater continues to work through the development plan review process with the city of Richmond for the Commonwealth Building project and hopes to have those plans approved soon.
Should it move forward, Breakwater’s Scott’s Addition project will add to other new development in that section of the neighborhood.
Catty-corner to the Richmond Machinery & Equipment site is the former Dairy Bar and Tang & Biscuit properties at 1600 Roseneath Road and 3406 Moore St. Those two properties were just purchased as a 2-acre assemblage for future development by Henrico-based real estate firm Capital Square. It paid $11.5 million for the parcels last week.
A block to the south is a surface parking lot that D.C.-based development firm Hoffman & Associates is under contract to purchase. The developer, which was a finalist for the city’s Diamond District development, is looking to build a $133 million, 367-unit development on the 2.4-acre lot.
Can we get a “We Hate Outside Money” Chorus going here?
Or maybe we can be happy the virtuous cycle in Richmond seems to still have legs?
(Uh…. that kwanzit hut looks kinda “Historic” …. don’t tell anyone….)
Outside money is the best money. It’s a strong indicator that RVA has relevance and is attractive to investors nationwide. So count me in as being happy the “virtuous cycle in Richmond seems to still have legs.”
I find it amusing that our vote counts are opposite even though we are saying exactly the same thing. 🙂
Minus of course my snarky Kwanzit hut attempt at humor.
I don’t think people understood your point. Irony and sarcasm and the like don’t really come through clearly on the internet
A possibility — I have had THAT problem my whole life — but it is also possible that people don’t like the irony and sarcasm because of a “I resemble that remark” resentment. I think that is more probable.
It’s a Quonset Hut. I thought you were trying to be racist making a pun about “kwanza” with your misspelling.
Ooops.
Thanks. No, I just never knew how to spell Quonset hut — I always thought it was spelled with a K ever since my mother told me about how she and my grandfather’s family lived in a, uh, Quonset hut in Guam right after WWII when she was a little girl.
And I don’t really know how to spell Kwanza either. Give people grace. No idea why anyone would associate that style of building with Kwanza.
All this residential development and no way could you send your kids to RPS
Money invested in RPS can change that. The problem with RPS has never been the City’s fault. The problem was the racism that caused white people to abandon the City and then to use the moratorium on annexation to institutionalize racism. Unfortunately, the entire RVA region has suffered the consequences. I remember when Richmond was bigger than Charlotte, Raleigh, and Nashville. Our institutional racism killed our potential prosperity.
Randolph is entirely correct. Our lack of acting like one region has been our collective failure. Richmond city doesn’t exist in a vacuum of the rest of the metro area. Thanks to how the counties fought annexation and regional transit for so long the poor community has been trapped without any mobility or support for decades. City taxpayers have been picking up the tab while Henrico and Chesterfield fought to stay separate and avoid any regional solutions to keep their tax burden low after white flight happened.
It wasn’t just “white flight” it was more “middle class flight” from what I have heard. And don’t think that City Hall wants their power over Richmond to be diluted by the populations of Chesterfield and Henrico. Keeping tax burdens low is smart. What’s bad is decreasing opportunities by keeping people bottled up in cities without enough well paying jobs, and the resultant despondencies and social ills that result from that. People get mad about “white flight” and then the same people get mad about “GENTRIFICATION”, meanwhile, people are just making decisions about where to live, like everywhere else that… Read more »
Hope you are doing your extra fair share,Sir.
Doesnt RPS already spend more per pupil than about 98-99% of the other school systems in Virginia?
Thank you for stating what should be obvious.
I don’t see it being city hall’s fault either. The people who are killing it now are the folks that are making it hard to have order in the classrooms, like that guy with the Harvard degree that is the Superintendent.
There is no shortage of money being spent on RPS, and teacher pay is higher than anywhere else in the area.
Your contribution to RPS , I’m sure will be gladly accepted.
It’s always one grievance or another from the community that complains the most about racism. All the money in the world spent on Richmond City Schools would never turn anything around as long as there are continued fatherless homes. Poor decision making and lack of personal self control are what perpetuate poverty, not “racism”.
Yes. One of the things that almost everyone dare not mention is that much of what remains of Structural Racism is now under the “Culture” heading, and the efforts to keep that discussion from even happening is a big part of Structural Racism as well. You can’t get stuff done, make improvements, until you can improve mindsets and hold people to higher standards. I am not saying we need to hire a bunch of Tiger Moms, but we DO need to learn to work together and meet each other where we are and not just finger point and have mutual… Read more »
Don’t forget public schools in general are being intentionally sabatouged to encourage public sentiment towards for profit schools.
Who exactly is doing this and how?
Yes, but that never stopped people from living in the fan.
Idealists in good elememtary school zones often try to keep their kids in RPS through middle school. Most take their kids out and either send them to schools that have consequences for bad behavior or move somewhere where outcomes are at least the Virginia state average.
But, still, there are a lot of singles and DINKS who like urban life.
The city needs to address the infrastructure in Scott’s Addition, it’s terrible. Sidewalks are cracked, non-existent or end without warning, there’s many dangerous intersections, the roads are a mess with all the on-going construction and heavy equipment.
Enter Richmond at your own risk.
He’s not typing about “Richmond” — he’s typing about Scotts Addition, and I could add a few more things but I have already done that here. Suffice it to say that the neighborhood was never designed to be residential.
this is only good advice for the exceedingly nervous and scared. But my 13 daughter manages to run around Richmond without fear and problems.
I guess some people are in love with being afraid of their own shadow.
This is a USA issue and not limited to Richmond or Scott’s Addition. Henrico and Chesterfield have very limited sidewalk infrastructure, as well.
while you are right, and the city is being it’s usual incompetent self, it’s not nearly so bad as you portray it. It’s a surprisingly quiet neighborhood, as my wife and I were discussing as we walked around there after dinner last night
Yes, as is most of the greater area around it, on both sides of the 95. Lots of quiet. We always feel safe, and there is a lot less sort of mean looks or hustler come-ons being thrown.
This is a big improvement since 2003 when I moved to VA — students were still getting murdered in the Fan even, and in Southside, even cops were getting killed.
And of course things were even worse before 2003….
You should actually go to Scotts Addition some time. The entire area us either freshly paved or the roads are closed to facilitate the paving.
I know the northside of Broad can be challenging for developers with the boundary spit but the Commonwealth Building is 4615 West Broad Street and the southside of Broad until you get to Willow Lawn has been, and is still in, the City of Richmond since 1942 annexation. If this developer is still “work(ing) through the development plan review process with Henrico County for the Commonwealth Building project” that might explain the SLOW review process!
a very good point. Though at a guess it’s still faster than the City of Richmond review process would be.
Its true the sidewalk, paving, street trees and storm water infrastructure has not yet been updated in many places. One can appreciate the paving that has recently been completed. Our City tries to time these improvements with the new development so as to minimize waste and interruptions for residents. A strategy gift for the area would be a second way to (safely) cross the train tracks to the north. Perhaps something for the City to negotiate with the Diamond District developers to do in in exchange for the recent changes granted to various agreements by the City. Its not an… Read more »