Nichols brothers sell full city block in Scott’s Addition to D.C. developer for $13M

hoffmannsite

The Hoffman site sits next to The Otis, a large apartment building from Capital Square and Greystar.

A D.C. firm has set a new high bar for per-acre land purchases in Scott’s Addition. 

Hoffman & Associates this week paid $13.3 million for the entire city block at 3200 W. Moore St., where the company is planning a mixed-use building with hundreds of apartments. 

The price for the 2.4-acre plot comes to $5.6 million per acre, the most paid by any developer for land per acre in the neighborhood. The previous per-acre record was held by Henrico-based Capital Square, which last year paid $5.2 million per acre for the former Dairy Bar complex in Scott’s Addition.

The high per-acre price in the city is held by Avery Hall Investments, which paid $6 million per acre for a plot in Manchester in 2022. 

Hoffman’s purchase closed Jan. 21. The seller was an entity tied to the Nichols brothers, who formerly owned HandCraft Cleaners. The city most recently assessed the property at $8.3 million.

Hoffman is a major developer throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, with 75 properties in its portfolio valued at over $6 billion. Its holdings include The Wharf, a 3.5 million-square-foot development along the Potomac River in D.C.

hoffman rendering 2

A rendering of the planned building. (Courtesy Hoffman & Associates)

The Moore Street deal is Hoffman’s first in Richmond, though the firm did vie for the city’s Diamond District project in 2022. 

The company’s $130 million-plus development at 3200 W. Moore St. has been in the works since 2023, and is slated to include 366 apartments and 17,000 square feet of commercial space. 

The building was initially planned to reach six stories, but Hoffman president Maria Thompson said in an email last week that the firm is now planning to go to seven stories.

Thompson said construction is expected to begin before the end of 2025.

Hanbury is the project architect and VHB is the engineer. Thompson said a general contractor has not yet been selected.

The majority of the block is currently a surface parking lot, save for a pair of industrial buildings, one of which formerly housed Roy’s Electric Motor Sales & Service, a longtime local company that relocated to Mechanicsville in 2022. 

City records show the Nichols had bought the land for a total of $4.6 million. They bought the bulk of the 1.4-acre parking lot in 2011 for $300,000 before buying the Roy’s Electric property for $4 million in 2023.  

As for the aforementioned Dairy Bar complex, Capital Square received city approval last summer for a 320-unit mixed-use development on the site, but construction has yet to begin.

Correction: The purchase price is the highest per-acre for land in Scott’s Addition, not citywide as previously reported. The story has been updated.

hoffmannsite

The Hoffman site sits next to The Otis, a large apartment building from Capital Square and Greystar.

A D.C. firm has set a new high bar for per-acre land purchases in Scott’s Addition. 

Hoffman & Associates this week paid $13.3 million for the entire city block at 3200 W. Moore St., where the company is planning a mixed-use building with hundreds of apartments. 

The price for the 2.4-acre plot comes to $5.6 million per acre, the most paid by any developer for land per acre in the neighborhood. The previous per-acre record was held by Henrico-based Capital Square, which last year paid $5.2 million per acre for the former Dairy Bar complex in Scott’s Addition.

The high per-acre price in the city is held by Avery Hall Investments, which paid $6 million per acre for a plot in Manchester in 2022. 

Hoffman’s purchase closed Jan. 21. The seller was an entity tied to the Nichols brothers, who formerly owned HandCraft Cleaners. The city most recently assessed the property at $8.3 million.

Hoffman is a major developer throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, with 75 properties in its portfolio valued at over $6 billion. Its holdings include The Wharf, a 3.5 million-square-foot development along the Potomac River in D.C.

hoffman rendering 2

A rendering of the planned building. (Courtesy Hoffman & Associates)

The Moore Street deal is Hoffman’s first in Richmond, though the firm did vie for the city’s Diamond District project in 2022. 

The company’s $130 million-plus development at 3200 W. Moore St. has been in the works since 2023, and is slated to include 366 apartments and 17,000 square feet of commercial space. 

The building was initially planned to reach six stories, but Hoffman president Maria Thompson said in an email last week that the firm is now planning to go to seven stories.

Thompson said construction is expected to begin before the end of 2025.

Hanbury is the project architect and VHB is the engineer. Thompson said a general contractor has not yet been selected.

The majority of the block is currently a surface parking lot, save for a pair of industrial buildings, one of which formerly housed Roy’s Electric Motor Sales & Service, a longtime local company that relocated to Mechanicsville in 2022. 

City records show the Nichols had bought the land for a total of $4.6 million. They bought the bulk of the 1.4-acre parking lot in 2011 for $300,000 before buying the Roy’s Electric property for $4 million in 2023.  

As for the aforementioned Dairy Bar complex, Capital Square received city approval last summer for a 320-unit mixed-use development on the site, but construction has yet to begin.

Correction: The purchase price is the highest per-acre for land in Scott’s Addition, not citywide as previously reported. The story has been updated.

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Bruce Milam
Bruce Milam
14 days ago

That’s a great sale, but it’s not the most paid ever in the city. Avery Hall paid $5.75M per acre for 3 acres at 301 W. 6th Street in Manchester, where it is approved to build 553 units in twin towers overlooking the River. That’s $17.25M. Stay tuned for dirt to fly all over Manchester as numerous companies are finalizing contracts for new construction.

Brett Themmore
Brett Themmore
14 days ago
Reply to  Bruce Milam

Any Grocery stores?

Bruce Milam
Bruce Milam
13 days ago
Reply to  Brett Themmore

Unfortunately, the only grocery site I see as a possibility is within the projected redevelopment of the Overnight four acres at 10th and Semmes. There’s been no news on that sale since it hit the market for about three weeks two long years ago. I suspect something or someone has that tied up with a large deposit awaiting an announcement that might be worthy of the wait.

Peter James
Peter James
13 days ago
Reply to  Bruce Milam

Has there been any news of whether the young couple who are realtors who own the cute, small SFH in the middle of the development tracts have agreed to sell yet? As of a couple of years ago it appeared that they were perhaps biding their time, indicating they weren’t interested in selling at the time – but – that they would entertain any and all offers. I’d love to know if they could be contributing to any delay in getting thing moving?

Peter James
Peter James
14 days ago
Reply to  Bruce Milam

I hope the list of companies finalizing contracts for Manchester construction includes Hourigan and their large tower on the riverfront on the silos site. And ditto the folks who were proposing South Falls II along the riverfront as well.

Patricia Ray Barton
Patricia Ray Barton
14 days ago

There’s a lot of density coming to that area – it’s exciting but traffic issues are a real concern. Hopefully they will create adequate parking.

Robbie Asplund
Robbie Asplund
14 days ago

Hopefully they will create adequate parking transit connections.

FTFY

Peter James
Peter James
14 days ago
Reply to  Robbie Asplund

Amen!!

Arnold Hager
Arnold Hager
14 days ago

The more Richmond traffic they can generate the better because they will adopt their own NYC policy to charge congestion fees, raise registration fees and raise parking prices. Towing wars coming soon. Tax and spend is what they do. They can’t solve the problem without creating it first.

Max Powers
Max Powers
14 days ago
Reply to  Arnold Hager

I’m sure you have some facts-based-evidence for your statement. Would you be willing to share those, or are you just talking hyperbole?

Arnold Hager
Arnold Hager
14 days ago
Reply to  Max Powers

Are you a lawyer? I thought this is a share your opinion space not a court room. Since most of what I posted is projected to the future it would be hard for me to provide proof of what has not yet happened. But there is no denying the democrat way of governing, so I am envisioning what is to come, like Nostradamus.

Shawn Harper
Shawn Harper
13 days ago
Reply to  Arnold Hager

Yeah but even San F and DC don’t have that — they just make things like parking enforcement and other sticking on tickets much more onerous — even if your car is parked on your street. I remember in Brooklyn if it said no Two Hour Parking after 6AM mon-fri, if you got out there at 7:50 there would literally be a meter maid out there looking at her watch waiting or for the little hand to hit 8AM…. they wanted that money. Don’t have a front plate or your inspection is a day past due — BAM! $100 (25… Read more »

Arnold Hager
Arnold Hager
13 days ago
Reply to  Shawn Harper

Yeah. We were in Hoboken once riding around looking for parking. It was crazy, residential factory area and every street had “no parking- permit only.” We ended up parking underground of a Trader Joe’s, taking an elevator into the store and just walking through and out the door, but had to be back in 1 hour. I would like to see Richmond avoid big city problems.

Peter James
Peter James
14 days ago
Reply to  Arnold Hager

Apples & oranges comparison between a city of 233,000 and a city of 8.6 million. Sorry, but your assertion doesn’t hold water.

Arnold Hager
Arnold Hager
13 days ago
Reply to  Peter James

People also wrote off Nostradamus.

Lee Clark
Lee Clark
13 days ago
Reply to  Peter James

You want to use the metro population of 1,200,000 for Richmond if you use the metro population of NYC..

Shawn Harper
Shawn Harper
13 days ago
Reply to  Arnold Hager

Totally not applicable — first, you usually get your congestion fees on bottle necks like bridges and tunnels. I mean, how many congestion fees do we have now? I’ve only heard about London and now NYC and that one was so contorversal that Hochel backed off of it and then split the difference and put it on but only half the original amount (and I hear it is VERY unpopular among the majority of the metro….)

Arnold Hager
Arnold Hager
13 days ago
Reply to  Shawn Harper

I hope you are right. I think the reasons will be more about the politics than the actual congestion. Speaking of Hochel, I recently saw in the NYPost where the MTA up there has 5 billion dollars of uncollected tolls/fines just in the past few years, 800 million from subway gate jumpers. If they collected the money they wouldn’t need the congestion fee.

Shawn Harper
Shawn Harper
13 days ago

Uh oh… You said “parking”……

Tyler Benson
Tyler Benson
14 days ago

I’ve always fantasized the city would buy that and turn it into a park. But development is better than an empty parking lot I guess.

Casey Flores
Casey Flores
13 days ago
Reply to  Tyler Benson

Same actually. Scott’s addition needs a park and this is central.