The Richmond Coliseum has been shuttered for five years. (BizSense file photos)
City administrators are looking to move forward with demolishing the dilapidated Richmond Coliseum with the goal of eliminating public safety risks, cutting security costs and rejuvenating the seemingly stagnant City Center redevelopment project.
Administrators are requesting that $3 million for the demo be included in the budget for fiscal year 2025, which starts July 1. The onetime cash payment is the largest requested administrative expenditure in the proposed spending plan, which City Council is reviewing ahead of an initial public hearing April 22.
While the timing for the demo is not clear, it would be funded in a fiscal year that runs through a city-imposed November deadline for the Coliseum property to be sold to a developer, as part of the City Center project that would redevelop the shuttered arena and adjacent city-owned properties.
The City Center project has not moved forward since negotiations with prospective developers got underway last year.
Prospective developers and designers were given a tour of the shuttered arena in 2022.
In a presentation to council last week, Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders said demolishing the Coliseum would help reenergize City Center while also removing a public safety liability and costs of about $500,000 annually to keep the shuttered structure secure.
“The structure poses what we would consider to be fairly significant risks from a liability and security standpoint,” Saunders said. “If we do not move forward with advancing the demolition of the Coliseum, we will likely have to offset that with additional security costs to maintain the integrity of the fencing, etcetera, that is intended to keep folks from getting inside and causing challenges.
Lincoln Saunders
“Doing this would also, I think, help with advancing and/or enabling the City Center project to move forward at a faster pace, without adding that cost and challenge to the (project),” Saunders said.
The demolition cost had originally been planned to be borne by the selected developer, as it had with the ill-fated Navy Hill plan that would have replaced the half-century-old Coliseum with a new arena. Saunders said both approaches were considered but that going forward with the demo was favored in light of the liability risks and security costs that remain for the city.
Responding to questions from Councilmember Ann-Frances Lambert, who scrutinized whether the $3 million should be put toward other city needs, Saunders said: “It is a cost that will likely have to be borne either by the city or through the establishment of the City Center project. It will be an anticipated cost, because we’re hoping to see redevelopment on that site.”
Saunders later clarified that the demolition cost was seen as likely to involve the city in some way, such as through the establishment of a project financing authority or other terms to be laid out in a development agreement.
Sale deadline approaching
The 50-year-old Coliseum would make way for new development including a 500-room convention center hotel.
Two years ago, when the Coliseum was transferred to Richmond’s Economic Development Authority to position the property for redevelopment, the city required the EDA to solicit proposals from developers and to sell the 7-acre property within 24 months – a deadline that is set to expire this November.
If the property is not sold by then, its title would revert back to the city, according to ordinances that completed the transfer.
While a solicitation was issued immediately following the transfer, a developer selection has yet to be made after proposals from four finalists were submitted last April. The EDA has been negotiating the proposals along with the Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority, which took part in the joint solicitation, and a selection had been targeted for last summer.
Nearly a year later, a selection still has not been made, leaving little time for a development agreement and sale to be completed.
Nonetheless, Saunders said the city can wrap up that process in time to meet the November deadline, which he said is not driving the demolition request and could be extended if needed. Saunders told BizSense that negotiations with developers are far enough along that such an extension shouldn’t be necessary.
“We fully intend to get this deal done before that deadline would come into question,” Saunders said Monday.
The city shuttered the Coliseum in 2019 and opted not to pursue a replacement after Navy Hill was voted down. The Coliseum was declared surplus along with other city-owned properties that were included in a real estate disposition plan adopted in 2021, setting the stage for the City Center solicitation.
The 9-acre City Center project involves demolishing the Coliseum, adaptive reuse of the neighboring Blues Armory building, infrastructure improvements, and development of a 500-room hotel to support the convention center.
The Blues Armory building on Sixth Street is part of the project area.
At last week’s budget workshop, Councilmember Ellen Robertson, whose district includes the City Center assemblage, said she supported the demolition but also said an update on the project was in order.
Ellen Robertson
“I certainly hope that we can get an update on where we are with the central development plan and taking this onetime funding for the removal of a really big elephant in downtown,” Robertson said. “I would hate for us to miss another opportunity for an extreme and muchly needed economic development in our downtown core and (to) address some of the challenges that we still face in the Sixth District downtown.”
Council President Kristen Nye, who said she took part in a recent tour of the area with Robertson, also supported demoing the Coliseum.
“I think it needs to be demolished. I think it’ll help kickstart things downtown, and I’m definitely worried about the liability,” Nye said. “I wish we had addressed this a couple years ago, but we are where we are. And we do have the funding to take care of it, so I would like to see us move forward.”
Razing the Coliseum would add to other demolition projects underway downtown.
Three blocks east, prep work continues for the planned demolition of the former Public Safety Building at 500 N. 10th St., following an aborted redevelopment that was to include a high-rise anchored by VCU Health.
The health system is paying for the demo, which is estimated to cost $5 million and had been scheduled for completion by last month. An updated schedule could not be obtained Monday afternoon from VCU Health or contractor DPR Construction.
Farther west, Virginia Commonwealth University plans to start demolition this spring for its planned CoStar Center for Arts and Innovation at Broad and Belvidere streets.
Elsewhere downtown, demolition work is wrapping up on the former Virginia Employment Commission office tower at 703 E. Main St. and an adjacent parking deck at 7 S. Seventh St., uphill from the site of the former Dominion Energy building that the utility giant razed and remains vacant.
Good! Let’s get rid of that rust bucket. And, let’s get a developer for that site and the Public Safety Building site.
But the NIMBY’s refuse to let anything new or productive be brought to the area & this is why RVA is always stuck in time & the land where time forgot.
Let’s give Hissoner his due.
It’s a shame the city suspended all preventive maintenance on the coliseum, and shut it down in 2019. Similar to buyers of historic/protected residences when they remove the doors and windows and leave the house vacant until it becomes unsalvageable and can be demolished. One could guess the city hoped to incentivize the Navy Hill Project by making the coliseum unviable. Although that shouldn’t have been necessary since Navy Hill was such an amazing opportunity that wouldn’t have cost the taxpayers of Richmond anything… just like the Diamond District, which most certainly won’t be funded with taxpayer secured bonds.
Drinking the kool-aid. Saying “Navy Hill wouldn’t have cost the taxpayers anything” doesn’t make it true. You seemed to have not been paying attention.
Or sarcasm?
Another failure of the Stoney Administration. The Coliseum should have been demolished several years ago rather than wasting taxpayer dollars. This should be added to the mayor’s” credentials” for his desire to become Governor.
Exactly.
If they had just sold the land, we’d have big taxable buildings there now, and all the influx of dollars the mere building of the structures would’ve brought into our economic ecosystem.
But things had to be done a certain way, you see… and business leaders are too timid to speak truth to power.
Like someone else said , Richmond needs to stay out of the land development business.
Eh… based on the speed at which Michael Hallmark is moving his Green City arena project in Henrico, I wouldn’t assume anything would have been built yet in the city. And who knows… Stoney’s “failure” to move forward here may be perceived differently down the road.
I don’t think you understand — I am saying the city should’ve sold the land, and then let whoever paid the highest decide what the best use is — likely market rate residential.
In that case I agree with you.
He doesn’t stand a chance against Spanberger- although it would be a toss-up who would be worse for Virginia!
How so? It’s all the NIMBY’s who stopped any kind of progress (Navy Hill was backed by the Mayor) that would want to do something in RVA & the inhabitants here stop everything the moves the needle forward.
This is why this place is a wasteland & a 4th rate city
Stoney’s lasting legacy. He shut down the coliseum for the Navy Hill project and years later look at us…
Yep, A rusting, abandoned but still cost taxpayers lots of monies. Yep that is a good description of his legacy for sure!
I hope the city has provided for an asbestos abatement in this proposal and the plan isn’t to just demolish the building with an implosion. While researching this project and forming my proposal to the city I discovered that there is still a significant amount of asbestos material still located on the interior and exterior the building. Remediation of this asbestos material was a line item included with my plan for redevelopment.
Agreed, Joshua. What’s more, asbestos abatement is very time consuming (as well as costly). Doing it the right way isn’t an overnight process.
Good point Joshua and I bet it is NOT included in the $3M estimate; giving the city inability to budget for the work tasks need and history change order I will take a 3 to 1 odd the final demo cost will push $10M!
That would be my guess as well, Michael.
Richmond “leadership” at its best…where do we find these losers?
They’re everywhere.
It is just certain areas where the political culture chooses such people to manage more based on ideology than on common sense.
Did Richmond “choose” Stoney? Winning only 34% of the mayoral vote means 66% did not want him.
He got the most votes. That says something.
LOL
The inhabitants who stop every project is the problem.
Be cool if they got the old Arcade building back up and running right next door to the Blues Armory too. That would make for a beautiful mini mall if they did it right. Look at the Grove Arcade in Asheville, NC if you want a reference on what I would envision for that.
Meanwhile the Hampton Coliseum and Norfolk Scope, two buildings of similar age to the Richmond Coliseum, are going strong.
Two buildings of similar age…and much better design and planning.
So another lie comes out. When it closed the City said we would see a savings on about $250,000 in subsidy payment in city budget as it was taking to maintain the aging structure after you counted the little revenue it produced. So in closing we did not save $250k a year but we upped the direct taxpayer budget cost to maintain it to $500k. And now we are going to pay it tear it down but were told with its closing and grand plan the future developer would bear all the demolition costs. PS City Center RFP is DEAD.… Read more »
That’s great to want to demolish the Coliseum, but if you doing it to build more expensive Apartments people can’t afford continuing to price minorities out of this city,that make know sense. Richmond doesn’t have a Downtown it’s become a neighborhood with nothing but Apartments lining Broad Street were there was once stores for people to shop and come downtown now you have nothing it a joke and a shame to the people living in the city leadership has sold out .To tear down the Coliseum with know plans for a New Arena is sickening. When was the last time… Read more »
Actually, there’s quite a lot of business at the Convention Center as well as all the other venues you mention except the Coliseum which was a net cost. It’s difficult—nearly impossible—to pay for such a venue without a tenant in hand. Hampton and Norfolk pay quite a bill for their coliseums. Meanwhile, hoteliers are doing very well downtown. They turned the corner about five years ago and are now a net positive to the City in revenue.
I am glad to hear the Convention Center is doing well — that was a bit of a mystery when they were building it, whether it would be a White Elephant.
I don’t really trust local govts generally when they want to build stuff other than things that clearly support what is working already like public parking garages, parks, etc…
I hear where you’re coming from. Respectfully, if I may offer a few counter points: (And please forgive the length of this response – I apologize in advance.) You’re 100% correct that downtown’s retail core is all but non-existent. Yes, there are businesses on Broad Street and a few on Grace. But the legacy retail core as it once was in its heyday no longer exists. At 61, I’m (barely) old enough to remember the tail end of that heyday – and it was glorious. Now – regarding building apartments and having downtown neighborhoods: what downtown RVA needs – and… Read more »
Thank you for explaining the realities.
Building high end apts doesn’t crowd anyone out. Low supply of housing does. Economics 101. I’ve seen MANY expensive apts become cheap ones when a place starts to suck, and cheaply built places become expensive when everyone wants to move there.
Things were worse a few years back when less people lived downtown — more people who live downtown = more shops.
You seem to get things backward.
The city as usual takes too long in acquiring proposals and bids from developers and the idea for the project tanks as developers lose interest orthe cities demands to be included and oversee become untenable.as well the city never maintains the properties they manage,never have. The diamond project is another fiasco in the mix, they choose a developer what three years ago and are still waiting to turn the project loose,the city is on the verge of losing the squirrels if they don’t get their act together and stop micro managing the development and let them get on with it..Typical… Read more »
Thank goodness more people are saying the obvious.
The coliseum should be retained as a “monument” representative of the Stoney administration, and it should certainly include a bronze statue of Stoney himself standing on the top of it.