Officials with Better Housing Coalition, the City of Richmond and others involved in Highland Grove held a groundbreaking for the project last week. (Photo courtesy Better Housing Coalition)
With activity on the site ramping back up, the final phase of a decade-long residential redevelopment is officially underway in Richmond’s Northside.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held in recent days for the remaining phase of Highland Grove, a mixed-income development that’s filling the site of the former Dove Court public housing community at Dove Street and Richmond Henrico Turnpike.
The nearly $60 million phase on about 40 acres is planned to add about 125 attached and detached for-sale homes to the 128 rental units across Dove Street that make up Highland Grove’s initial phase, which developer Laurel Street Residential completed in 2013.
Better Housing Coalition is heading up the final phase after being selected as master developer in 2020, when the development cost was pegged at $35 million. BHC was selected through a competitive process by the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority, which submitted plans for the phase in 2019.
BHC is working on the project with fellow nonprofits Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, Project:Homes and Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity. It’s also added private builder Eagle Construction of VA to build the phase’s market-rate homes, as it did for BHC’s for-sale section of the Armstrong Renaissance redevelopment in the East End.
The final phase will be a mix of income-based and market-rate homes targeted to households with annual incomes between 50 and 120 percent of the area median income. The one- and two-story homes have been planned to consist of two-, three- and four-bedroom floorplans and include energy efficiencies, high-efficiency appliances and “smart home” technology.
A site plan for the next phase of Highland Grove. (File image courtesy Urban Design Associates)
Site work for the 40-acre phase had gotten underway last year, but was put on hold while agreements were finalized with the City of Richmond, which is providing nearly $7.3 million for infrastructure improvements. An additional $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds was previously provided for the project through a grant agreement.
The city’s contributions will help BHC sell the lots to the nonprofit and for-profit builders at a discounted price, which in turn will allow the homes to be sold at lower price points. BHC CEO Greta Harris has described the approach as a model that could be replicated in the region.
“That’s a partnership that we think the model could be washed and repeated, where we purchased the land, the locality is a significant partner in the infrastructure costs, and we’re able to sell lots at a discounted price to other partners,” Harris told BizSense in May. “We’ll have a mixed-income, new neighborhood in the city that’s five minutes from downtown.”
Site work for the phase has resumed in recent weeks, and Harris said the first homes could be completed by next summer.
Other firms involved in the project include general contractor F.G. Pruitt, which is doing the site work; Storefront for Community Design, which handled community engagement; engineering firm Timmons Group; law firm Fleckenstein Young & Pearson; and real estate brokerage Icon Realty Group.