Midas’s Church Hill rehab driving plan to update Shockoe Bottom historic district

Midas of Richmond’s Church Hill location at Broad and 21st streets. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

About two dozen properties in and around Shockoe Bottom would become newly eligible for historic preservation tax credits – and thus riper for redevelopment – with a proposed expansion and update of a state and national historic district that’s being prompted by a recent auto shop rehab.

A public meeting is scheduled today (Monday) on the proposal to expand the Shockoe Valley and Tobacco Row Historic District by about 5 additional acres and extend its “period of significance” by 34 years to include buildings that were constructed through 1967.

The change would make 21 more buildings in the existing 129-acre district eligible for state and national historic tax credits as “contributing” structures, and would add five more buildings in the proposed expansion area, including the new Midas of Richmond auto shop at Broad and 21st streets.

A map shows the district outlined in black and the proposed expansion area in red. (Images courtesy DHR)

Midas’s rehab last year of the century-old garage building is what’s prompting the proposal by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which is hosting a public information hearing at the Midas at 6 p.m. today.

The requested change was submitted on Midas’s behalf by local consulting firm Sadler & Whitehead, which discovered over the course of the rehab that the former Duke’s Auto Electric & General Repair property was not within the boundaries of any state or federal historic districts in the area, despite its inclusion in the City of Richmond’s Shockoe Valley Old and Historic District.

Falling within the city district put Midas’s project in the purview of Richmond’s Commission of Architectural Review, requiring its approval of any changes to the building’s exterior.

Midas’s Mark Smith said that while the building turned out generally as planned, some changes were made to paint colors and designs, window treatments, lighting and other details, even though what was planned to be a historic preservation rehab was in fact ineligible for state and national tax credits due to the property being outside a historic district.

“I was doing all of this while thinking, okay, I’m doing this buildout to be in compliance. When we got 85 percent done, we realized being in compliance was a non-issue because we weren’t even in the zone,” Smith said.

Mark Smith inside the nearly century-old building, which was used as an auto repair garage continuously until it went dormant several years ago. (File photo courtesy Mark Smith) 

The issue was discovered by Sadler & Whitehead’s Catherine Easterling, who Smith enlisted to process the tax credits.

When she went about it, Easterling found that the property was in what she described as a “no-man’s land” between the Shockoe Valley/Tobacco Row district to the south and west and others to the north and east, including the Union Hill, Church Hill North and St. John’s Church districts. The neighboring New Light Baptist Church, originally Trinity Methodist Church, is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“It’s really penned in by all of these historic designations, and yet Mark’s property was not in a national register district,” Easterling said. “He was getting the stick of city old and historic district restrictions, but not any of the carrots of tax credits.”

Easterling initially proposed expanding the St. John’s Church district to include the Midas property, but she said the National Park Service, which manages the national register, suggested that the more-industrial Shockoe Valley/Tobacco Row district would be a better fit.

The existing district spans 129 acres.

In addition to the Midas property at 2018 E. Broad St., the boundary increase would include the full city block across Broad Street from the Midas and about half of the block to the west of that. Buildings in that area that would be considered “contributing” include the E. McLauchlan & Sons building at 2000 E. Grace St., built in 1960, and two 19th-century rowhouses at 209-211 N. 20th St., among others.

Buildings in the existing district boundary that would become “contributing” and credit-eligible with the period-of-significance extension include the 1920s-era former Texaco gas station at Main and 25th streets, a 1950s-era building at 2220 E. Main St., and a former Henrico County office building built in 1954 at 2025 E. Main St., a block west of the old Henrico courthouse building.

According to Easterling’s application, 1967 is proposed for the period-of-significance extension “to reflect a significant shift in the architectural character of new infill constructed between circa 1930 and the 1960s as the neighborhood continued to host industrial and commercial properties.” The application states that 1967 was the last year that one of those infill properties was built.

While the Midas rehab was completed last year and the location opened in January, the project could still be awarded tax credits if the district expansion is approved. Easterling said the cutoff for the final part of a federal credit application is 30 months after a project’s completion, and the state credits is 12 months and requires listing on the Virginia Landmarks Commission.

“That has to be in place before he’ll be awarded any credits, but he certainly still has time even though the project has been completed,” Easterling said.

Midas rehabbed the century-old auto shop property, which had been dormant for years.

Smith said the project wasn’t contingent on the credits but he was nonetheless expecting to benefit from them – as had been the case with his previous rehab for the Midas in Scott’s Addition. State credits are generally 25% of general expenditures involving work on the building, while federal credits are about 20%.

“I absolutely was expecting to get historic tax credits, but in no way, shape or form did the project depend on them,” Smith said. “It was the single most expensive project we’ve ever done, and I don’t regret a dollar of it.”

Smith declined to share the overall cost of the Church Hill location, which he said has been outperforming its peers. He bought the half-acre property in 2023 for $1.6 million.

“We opened with the third-highest first month volume any Midas shop has ever had,” he said. “The store is doing great.”

After today’s hearing, the proposal will be reviewed by Virginia’s State Review Board and Board of Historic Resources and considered at their joint quarterly meeting on June 12. The two boards consider nominations of historic places for listing on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the national register.

The Shockoe Valley/Tobacco Row district was last updated in 2015.