A rendering of the 35-story glass tower that’s one of three proposed developments for the site. (Images courtesy LaBella)
A developer from the Big Apple is lining up something big in downtown Richmond.
An unnamed New York firm is floating a plan for a mixed-use high-rise tower for the vacant lot at 703 E. Main St., according to planning documents obtained by BizSense.
Preliminary conceptual plans show that the new tower could stand over 400 feet tall and include hundreds of residential units, hotel rooms, a grocery store, office space and restaurant/retail space.
The mystery firm is working on a development proposal that it plans to submit to the Commonwealth of Virginia, which owns the roughly 1.25-acre plot.
The plot is currently a gravel lot. (BizSense file photo)
The developer is working with LaBella Associates, the Rochester-based architecture firm that has a Richmond office and is also on the design team for the Richmond Flying Squirrels’ new ballpark.
The downtown site, which covers over half of the block bounded by Main, Seventh, Cary and Eighth streets, is the site of the former Virginia Employment Commission building. The old VEC office was razed a few years ago and the site is currently a gravel lot.
The state government once considered it a potential site for a new office of its own, but the Department of General Services, the state body that oversees the commonwealth’s real estate, is opting instead to build at 1401 E. Broad St.
Earlier this year, DGS Director Banci Tewolde told a House committee that Gov. Glenn Youngkin had proposed selling the land at 703 E. Main. Spokespeople for DGS weren’t available for comment by press time.
A rendering of the Cary Street-facing area of the first development option.
Planning documents show that three different tower designs are being considered by the developer.
The first option is a 35-story glass-paneled tower reaching 400 feet. The top 18 floors would be for 189 residential units, and below that would be 10 floors totaling 200 hotel rooms. The first seven floors would be for office and retail space, including a ground-floor, 20,000-square-foot grocery space.
The second option would be slightly taller at 410 feet, and would not include hotel rooms. Instead it’d have 252 residential units across 24 floors plus five stories of office and retail space. It also would include a grocery store.
The third option shows two builds on the site: a seven-story, 140-room hotel, and a 22-story mixed-use building with 231 residential units. The two buildings would be on a three-story podium with 140,000 square feet of retail and office space.
Renderings of the second and third options.
Each of the three options would have a multi-story, below-grade parking deck with around 600-700 parking spaces.
Nick Cooper is the office director for LaBella’s Richmond office and is working on the proposal. He said that the developer, who he would not identify, is looking to build off momentum in the downtown and riverfront area, fueled by projects like CoStar Group’s 26-story office tower and the Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront venue that’ll host its first concerts later this year.
Cooper said the development would be “iconic in terms of form, program and ground plane activation,” and a “one-of-a-kind piece of architecture that Richmond deserves.” At around 400 feet in height, the development would be among the tallest buildings in all of Richmond.
While a formal proposal for the project has yet to be submitted, a few hundred apartments and hotel keys are already en route to the 700 block of East Main Street, as Douglas Development has recently purchased Dominion Energy’s 20-story Eighth & Main office tower and is planning to turn it into 290 apartments and 200 hotel rooms.
This is the tower Richmond deserves.
Agreed!
Preference would be for the grocery store option with condos, not apartments as the city needs more for-purchase units
And a rooftop restaurant
It often makes financial sense to start out with apartments, depreciate the property for about five years, and then convert the apartments into condos. I’m not saying this is true for this project, but the model has been successfully us in previous projects.
Urban development, along with redevelopment, in downtown Richmond is what the entire metropolitan Richmond area deserves. Having a healthy, strong, growing and vibrant urban core helps elevate the entire Richmond region. A rising tide in downtown in terms of development and activity Richmond will lift all ships in terms of our surrounding communities. Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina has also witnessed and fostered this type of economic development and growth. I would like to think that Richmond is equal to or better than Raleigh since we have so many more attributes like the James River and the James River Park System… Read more »
The skyline needs this and I would love it for that block of Main St!
Build this up and bring the Monroe building down will do wonders.
Those are big plans. I hope they see one of those options to a grand opening in my lifetime.
The comment about the parking deck tells me they haven’t studied much in way of actuality for doing this project.
That part of Maine is some solid bedrock and there’s a reason most buildings downtown only have two or three levels of parking underground.
If not, look fondly on all the Sheetz ribbon-cuttings you have enjoyed.
I love Option #3. It’s a very modern South Beach looking design with all the large balconies that people want to have today when they choose condo living. As much as I like the tall twisted glass building, I think that location is too close to our gorgeous state capitol building and it would overshadow it. If it was built north of Broad, near the Coliseum, I’d be more supportive and enthusiastic of it.
Respectfully, I’ll have to disagree with you – particularly regarding the idea that a 400-foot-tall tower is somehow “too close” to the Capitol building. Let’s not forget that the now named Truist building (originally built as the United Virginia Bank headquarters) built in 1983 is also 400 feet tall – and it stands literally a pitching wedge’s distance away no more than 2 1/2 blocks south of the Capitol. Does it somehow “overshadow” the historic Capitol? I think not. Capitol Square provides a wonderful “break” between the intensity of the legacy Financial District & the government district and the legislative… Read more »
…as long as Richmond doesn’t turn into Charlotte or Atlanta.
Charlotte or Atlanta? Meh – I’d rather we shoot for the stars and take a run at Philly or New York — now those two are REAL cities, unlike our soulless Southern “Johnny-come-lately” counterparts.
Don’t hold your breath — we don’t build em like that anymore.
Sad but true.
Potentially cool. But I’m skeptical that its not a bait & switch. Especially with ‘mystery’ developer…
Tallest building by a substantial margin? Massive underground parking in a city that generally builds above ground parking garages? Grocery store – even if it is just 20K SF? Sounds like overpromising just to get the land from govt then a year or two afterwards they will scale back plans and build an all-glass rectangle citing economics…
But ultimately I’d be fine with it if no TIF or other deep tax breaks are extended. Build with private money…
Proposing a grocery store in this location is not serious and makes me question the rest of the proposal.
I’d love a grocery store closer to home that was better than farm fresh. I would think the apartment and condo units would help provide some demand for it, no? Not completely disagreeing with you, but… why not? (Not a challenge, just a discussion)
@Lee – intuitively just hard to believe Manchester doesn’t have the critical mass to support a grocery store yet somehow the downtown CBD would. Just for the record 20K SF is probably 2/3 the size of Farm Fresh. So while another option might be welcome to shopper it won’t necessarily be a better option. Some quick google searches suggest a population of 15000-20000 is needed to support a full-service grocery store. Since this 20K SF space would not be full-sized you might be able to argue maybe 7000-9000 might be sufficient. Even with some of the recent office conversions and… Read more »
The only thing we’ve seen from grocers in central VA in recent decades is that they prefer an already established high density of residential wealth. They don’t want to lead development or redevelopment, they want to follow. The only divergence from that pattern has been the Market at 25th which is subsidized and has still really struggled to stay open. When a developer says “Grocery (eg Whole Foods/Trader Joes)” that means they don’t have a tenant lined up and they’re just saying what they know residents want to hear.
Please do it!!!! Make it be the tallest in all of VA we are the Capital
Like Albany? Springfield?
Yes, we need a marquee bldg though, and it should be visible from 95.
This could be pretty cool. Downtown could do with some more shopping.
Get out of my dreams skyscraper and into my city’s skyline.
This is pretty cool this beast would be 400 foot tall tax revenue and housing making machine that would fit in a acre of space. If this works out it could allow more 400 foot and a 500 foot skyscraper to come to Richmond.
I hope, we need something else iconic to really define our skyline and make it unique.
It is unique.
Spoken like a Virginian.
Uniquely bland, maybe.
“Nothing to see here” The Skyline Screamed.
We already have 3 400+ foot buildings in downtown (4 if you let Federal Reserve @393 “round up”), and I think the new CoStar building is supposed to be in that neighborhood too. If they wanted this to truly stand out they should go to 450 or more and eclipse the James Monroe building, or at least 420+ so it’s taller than the Dominion building and would be the city’s tallest if Monroe is demolished as planned. I also question how they’re going to fit 35 stories into a 400 foot tall building. Currently Monroe is 443 feet tall and… Read more »
Yeah – the math doesn’t work. I might be wrong on this, but I believe most residential high-rises use 13′ floor plating. Correct me if I’m wrong but 13′ is the standard for residential, right? So to cram 35 stories into a 400-foot-tall tower – they’d have to use 11 1/2-foot floor plating. That’s awfully short between floors, is it not? Bruce – perhaps you could help us here – I’m just going off of accumulated facts & figures I’ve read over the years. If the more standard floor plating (13′) was used – then at 35 stories, the building… Read more »
Last night I attended a planning department presentation which discussed a Fan height limit of 4 stories/55’. That would be a bit over 13’ per floor.
Fan height of 4 stories would be great, and would legalize a lot of buildings in the fan that are already 55′. I hope it was well received
Yes. Please eclipse the James Monroe bldg!
This will be a another missed opportunity to improve RVA’s downtown. The hidden meaning of “residential units” means apartments. Condos put skin in the game and bring people back downtown who are committed/ invested in the downtown lifestyle. APARTMENTS DO NOT.
I didn’t understand until I read the last part in caps
Does anyone else remember 20 years ago when a New York firm announced it would build a high rise tower in downtown Richmond that would be over 50 stories high? They called it a “vertical gated community”. Eventually it was whittled down to 30 stories and then 20 stories. The building that was finally constructed is only 5 stories high.
Was that the Millennial Towers? I think there was supposed to be one residential and one non-residential with office and hotel space.
It was called the Centennial Towers – and supposed to reach 40 stories tall. (I don’t ever remember 50 stories being floated).
I believe that was a victim of the great recession of 2008. Never to return.
Yep – which is what worries me about the economic uncertainty going forward given certain federal policies that could have deleterious impacts on the overall economy at the macro level and the construction industry at the micro level.
YES PLEASE!!!
The only thing I would note from the renderings is they seem to think the lot where the old Dominion building was taken down will be a park.
There’s underground tunnels for utilities in that area that have to be considered.
That would be wonderful, I hope the city and state bend over backwards to help get this built
Not saying it is bad or I do not like it but does Option 1 not look like one side of the top of One World Trade Center / Freedom Tower in NYC or is that just me.
It does remind one of One WTC/Freedom Tower in NYC. It also reminds me of the already iconic Duke Energy tower in Charlotte. Respectfully, I’ll have to disagree with you – because this is EXACTLY the kind of iconic architecture on the skyline RVA desperately needs. I do agree that we seem to have now defaulted to glass skyscrapers whereas other cities have moved on to more creative architecture in a lot of ways, but wow- this building on that footprint in the legacy Financial District could be a game-changer for downtown if it actually comes to pass.
Is it iconic if it immediately reminds people of something else though? (It’s not bad though, and why let the perfect be the enemy of the good?)
Great point. But it would be an improvement.
The Duke Energy building in Charlotte is quite iconic. It has really put a stamp on that city’s skyline.
Actually, yes it does.
Option 1 is probably the best option. Would love to see several more of these pop-up in Downtown. Heck, build a few along Broad Street near Staples Mill and Glenside. Continue to be creative with each design too.
What about that hideous Monroe Building. The Commonwealth should give that land away for the cost of demolition. Yet – it’s great to see the financial interest in developing Richmond – and I love the increase in revenue to the City.
Option 1.
It speaks with a confident visual clarity that the others lack.
Agreed.
The other ones are very “Richmond” trying to fit it what is already there — it’s a wonder that the downtown skyline doesn’t try to look like old brick warehouses and Georgian and neoclassical brick and clapboard.
Shhhh… don’t give the NIMBY’s and the preservation-uber-alles crowd any ideas!
Oh yeah…
Why do I get the feeling that even though we all want, and most agree Richmond needs an Option 1, this, if it’s built, will eventually devolve to a watered down option 3?
#1 reminds me of the new Trade Tower in NYC which makes sense since the Federal Reserve Tower is a replica of the old Trade Towers.
I don’t think it’s fair to call it a replica – it’s the same style because it’s the same architect (Minoru Yamasaki).
Actually, it is almost the exact same building except shorter and now they modified it after the 9/11 attacks to be stronger.
That’s correct.
What’s even more interesting, the original plans drawn up in 1970 had the tower at 32 stories and 461-feet tall – which would have made it even until today the tallest building in Richmond had those plans been realized. However, as a cost-saving measure, the building was scaled back to 29 stories – with three of the floors below ground – and 393 feet tall in 1972.
Even then – when it opened in 1978, it was the tallest building in Richmond, only to be supplanted in 1981 by the Monroe building.
Sorry pal, but it is fair because that’s the word I chose. It is duly noted in Richmond folklore. That’s what we called it; a replica. Near round the time it opened I was working down at 7th and Franklin St. and it was a sight to behold. Just so you know, I also went to the top of the original WTC in NYC to the observation deck in the early 1980’s.
Yeah, I went there in the 70s — Sears Tower too — that was back when “tallest Skyscraper” was a big deal….