The Shockoe Institute has a contractor for its interpretive center. (Photos courtesy Eric Steigleder)
A new venue that’s seen as a starting point for the larger Shockoe Project slavery memorial campus in Shockoe Bottom is set to get underway.
The City of Richmond announced this week that it has chosen the general contractor for and is ready to begin the build-out of the Shockoe Institute, a 12,000-square-foot educational and interpretive center to be housed on the northern-end ground floor of the Train Shed at Main Street Station.
The venue is funded by an $11 million grant from the New York City-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s monuments project, founded in 2020 to award $250 million toward commemorative projects across the country.
With that funding in place, Richmond recently landed on Newport News construction firm Team Henry Enterprises to lead the construction of the interpretive center. Richmond architecture firm Baskervill is handling the design.
Marland Buckner
Now that the team is assembled, Marland Buckner, who will lead the center as president and CEO, said the hope is to open the center by the end of this year or in the first quarter of 2026.
“Over the course of the last number of months, we have been working assiduously with our design team to design the space, do the script writing and the asset acquisition for images and things,” Buckner said. “Our hope is that those trains will gracefully meet in 2025.”
The center will be divided into two sections: a 10,000-square-foot exhibition space that will explore the evolution of racial slavery in Virginia and the U.S., and a lab space that will host programming such as lectures and book talks.
Buckner said that design will help make the center a draw to visitors.
“That’s going to make the experience different than other places [visitors] might attend,” he said. The creative dimension is designed to create an expansive set of answers to questions.”
Team Henry was founded in 2006 by President and CEO Devon Henry. The firm has been involved in numerous Richmond-area projects, including the renovation of Tilt Creative + Production headquarters and the construction of the University of Richmond Burying Ground Memorial Garden.
Team Henry also was the contractor hired to remove several Confederate statues, including the Stonewall Jackson statue on Monument Avenue, over several years starting in 2020.
“We are extremely excited and honored to be involved in a project of this impact and this nature and importance,” Henry told BizSense.
A rendering of the north-of-Broad portion of the site with the national slavery museum in the distance. (Images courtesy City of Richmond)
The interpretive center build-out is an initial component of the greater Shockoe Project, a relaunching of the previously named Enslaved African Heritage Campus, and later, the Shockoe Bottom Heritage Campus. The long-term project aims to transform 10 acres of Shockoe Bottom into a campus that reckons with the history of slavery in Richmond.
Development plans for the overall Shockoe Project were unveiled last February.
The Main Street Station interpretive center would serve as a starting point for the project, leading into other components, such as a long-planned 62,000-square-foot slavery museum, burial ground memorials and other commemorative sites, including a 21,000-square-foot building commemorating the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail/Devil’s Half Acre site.
A site plan shows the 10-acre campus site on both sides of Broad Street between the interstate and the train tracks.
Other facets include improvements to the Richmond Slave Trail and the Winfree Cottage, an enslaved woman’s home that is planned to be moved from Shockoe Bottom back to its original location in Manchester.
According to the city website, design is complete on the Slave Trail improvements and the Winfree Cottage. A mural project at the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is complete, while additional project design at that site will continue based community engagement. Schematic design is underway at the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground and structural engineering analysis is ongoing at the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site.
While a total project cost is still being determined, the city has allocated $25 million in funding and the Virginia General Assembly has designated $13 million for the Shockoe Project, with an additional $10 million proposed in the city’s FY26 budget. All that is in addition to the $11 million from the Mellon Foundation for the interpretive center at Main Street Station.
Private fundraising dollars are expected to supplement the interpretive center and the slavery museum, the latter of which is being driven by the National Slavery Museum Foundation.
The city’s goal is to complete the Shockoe Project by 2037, commemorating Richmond’s 300th birthday.
The Shockoe Institute has a contractor for its interpretive center. (Photos courtesy Eric Steigleder)
A new venue that’s seen as a starting point for the larger Shockoe Project slavery memorial campus in Shockoe Bottom is set to get underway.
The City of Richmond announced this week that it has chosen the general contractor for and is ready to begin the build-out of the Shockoe Institute, a 12,000-square-foot educational and interpretive center to be housed on the northern-end ground floor of the Train Shed at Main Street Station.
The venue is funded by an $11 million grant from the New York City-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s monuments project, founded in 2020 to award $250 million toward commemorative projects across the country.
With that funding in place, Richmond recently landed on Newport News construction firm Team Henry Enterprises to lead the construction of the interpretive center. Richmond architecture firm Baskervill is handling the design.
Marland Buckner
Now that the team is assembled, Marland Buckner, who will lead the center as president and CEO, said the hope is to open the center by the end of this year or in the first quarter of 2026.
“Over the course of the last number of months, we have been working assiduously with our design team to design the space, do the script writing and the asset acquisition for images and things,” Buckner said. “Our hope is that those trains will gracefully meet in 2025.”
The center will be divided into two sections: a 10,000-square-foot exhibition space that will explore the evolution of racial slavery in Virginia and the U.S., and a lab space that will host programming such as lectures and book talks.
Buckner said that design will help make the center a draw to visitors.
“That’s going to make the experience different than other places [visitors] might attend,” he said. The creative dimension is designed to create an expansive set of answers to questions.”
Team Henry was founded in 2006 by President and CEO Devon Henry. The firm has been involved in numerous Richmond-area projects, including the renovation of Tilt Creative + Production headquarters and the construction of the University of Richmond Burying Ground Memorial Garden.
Team Henry also was the contractor hired to remove several Confederate statues, including the Stonewall Jackson statue on Monument Avenue, over several years starting in 2020.
“We are extremely excited and honored to be involved in a project of this impact and this nature and importance,” Henry told BizSense.
A rendering of the north-of-Broad portion of the site with the national slavery museum in the distance. (Images courtesy City of Richmond)
The interpretive center build-out is an initial component of the greater Shockoe Project, a relaunching of the previously named Enslaved African Heritage Campus, and later, the Shockoe Bottom Heritage Campus. The long-term project aims to transform 10 acres of Shockoe Bottom into a campus that reckons with the history of slavery in Richmond.
Development plans for the overall Shockoe Project were unveiled last February.
The Main Street Station interpretive center would serve as a starting point for the project, leading into other components, such as a long-planned 62,000-square-foot slavery museum, burial ground memorials and other commemorative sites, including a 21,000-square-foot building commemorating the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail/Devil’s Half Acre site.
A site plan shows the 10-acre campus site on both sides of Broad Street between the interstate and the train tracks.
Other facets include improvements to the Richmond Slave Trail and the Winfree Cottage, an enslaved woman’s home that is planned to be moved from Shockoe Bottom back to its original location in Manchester.
According to the city website, design is complete on the Slave Trail improvements and the Winfree Cottage. A mural project at the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is complete, while additional project design at that site will continue based community engagement. Schematic design is underway at the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground and structural engineering analysis is ongoing at the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site.
While a total project cost is still being determined, the city has allocated $25 million in funding and the Virginia General Assembly has designated $13 million for the Shockoe Project, with an additional $10 million proposed in the city’s FY26 budget. All that is in addition to the $11 million from the Mellon Foundation for the interpretive center at Main Street Station.
Private fundraising dollars are expected to supplement the interpretive center and the slavery museum, the latter of which is being driven by the National Slavery Museum Foundation.
The city’s goal is to complete the Shockoe Project by 2037, commemorating Richmond’s 300th birthday.
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Curious as to the implied meaning of, “With that funding in place, Richmond recently landed on Newport News construction firm Team Henry Enterprises to lead the construction of the interpretive center.” Was contractor selection based on an open bid process? What criteria were used in the selection? How does the city “land on” a contractor?
Was thinking the same thing.
Me three. I thought it was a strange sentence. But then Landon Edwards’s comments got ne to wondering . I’m just not sure what I’m wondering.
You can use the City of Richmond procurement website to look up some details related to this award: https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/rva/projects/127290
According to the site, contractor selection was based on an open bid process. Looks like two bids were accepted.
So glad the ‘landing on’ may have been compliant with procurement law.
Compliant just barely….two construction bids and I wonder what relationship was between the two bidders! All the other local (and non-local firms) to busy to bid?? Makes one ask was there collusion or (as I think) most people know that without a hook working for RVA is not worth the time, headache, or hassle so they just do not bother to bid.
This is a great project, way overdue! Glad to see it coming to fruition.
This “project” for now is a buildout space the size of a small 7-11 in the basement of a sparsely used train station. After 25 years of planning that is all Stoney could get done. Don’t except much else in your lifetime.
Big difference in the two contractors bids.