The 30th installment of Richmond BizSense’s Hard Hat Happy Hour, presented by Sands Anderson, was held Wednesday evening and brought a crowd of 300 to get a glimpse of Ainsworth, the massive redevelopment of the former Laurel Park Shopping Center near Lakeside in Henrico County.
Guests heard from developer Pavan Malhotra, whose New York-based Aurelie Capital has transformed the intersection at Woodman and Hungary roads thanks to hundreds of new residential units and a sizable commercial section.
Also on hand was Henrico Supervisor Dan Schmitt, who updated the crowd on the planned lane expansion of Woodman Road to help ease traffic in the area and spur new development like Ainsworth.
Enjoy the slideshow above with scenes from the evening.
And a huge thank you to Sands Anderson and all the loyal Hard Hat Happy Hour sponsors that have supported this festive event series over the years.
Stay tuned next month for more info on the next Hard Hat event, which is set for June.
The Ainsworth is Pavan Malholtra’s first ground up apartment community and it’s a fulfillment of his dream to add something significant to a Henrico region that needed a catalyst for redevelopment. He had some inside knowledge about the hole in the market after upgrading Mill Creek Towns and cashing out on that investment. He carefully researched the most successful of the new local apartment communities and modeled his amenity package from the best in the region. He surpassed them! Ainsworth has 23,000 sf of indoor amenities and a huge, gorgeous courtyard. This is a model now for others to emulate.… Read more »
Pavan and his team absolutely knocked it out of the park with The Ainsworth. It’s well thought out, gorgeous, and fills a need for new housing in that part of Henrico. I can’t wait to see what he does for an encore!
There will be 12,000 SF of retail space, at Hungary Road, fronting the Ainsworth Apartments that will become an added amenity for the community. It will be the first of its kind for this type of a project in the Richmond market.
Any word on what will fill those retail slots?
Back in the late ’90s I lived about 2/3 of a mile east of the old Laurel Park Shopping Center and with the exception of the big dollar store that was there, it was essentially a ghost town. I’m amazed to see such a robust redevelopment on this site that will absolutely transform Laurel. I’d be curious to know whether this might spur further redevelopment in this part of the county.
Kudos to everyone involved who are making this development come to pass. It looks great!
What excites and pleases me is the universal acclaim I am finally seeing for an apt development hereabouts!! Usually I see peanut gallery or ivory tower criticism as if every developer was supposed to be creating a low-income Geneva or something.