The former Pet Dairy facility along Robin Hood Road, as viewed from the interstate. (Jonathan Spiers photos)
The day after Virginia Commonwealth University held a groundbreaking ceremony for its long-planned Athletic Village, VCU Health closed on a nearly $10 million purchase of the former Pet Dairy industrial property next door.
The VCU Health System Authority now owns the 6-acre assemblage at 1501-1507 Robin Hood Road, which it purchased for $9.5 million in a deal that closed Oct. 31, according to city land deeds.
The property is adjacent to the 42-acre Athletic Village site, where work has gotten underway in recent weeks.
It’s also beside a VCU Health-owned property at 1500 Sherwood Ave., which the health system purchased in 2013 for $1.3 million. The area is just west of VCU Health’s Brook Road Pavilion, the Northside campus of the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. The sites are on opposite sides of the interstate but connected by Sherwood Avenue via an underpass.
A VCU Health spokesperson said the purchase was made using funds generated from health system operations and said the authority bought it due to the property’s “strategic location and adjacency” to the Athletic Village.
“There are no approved plans or timelines for development at this point,” the spokesperson said.
An aerial shot of the former Pet Dairy site beside Interstate 64-95. The parking lot at 1507 Robin Hood Road is outlined in red. (Thalhimer marketing flyer image)
The seller in the deal was Thalhimer Realty Partners, the local development firm that is leading the initial mixed-use portion of the nearby Diamond District development. Site work on that 67-acre project’s anchor ballpark to replace The Diamond also is underway.
TRP purchased the Pet Dairy site in 2018, years before it vied for and won the Diamond District project as part of a team that included D.C.-based Republic Properties and Chicago-based Loop Capital. Both of those firms have since bowed out of the project, leaving TRP to lead a new iteration of the team that will develop a non-ballpark portion of the overall project.
TRP paid $5.5 million for the Pet Dairy property six years ago and has since leased the building to local retailer Evergreen Enterprises, which has used it as warehouse space.
The three parcels that make up the property are currently assessed by the city at $7.83 million combined.
The facility along Robin Hood Road is opposite the Athletic Village site from The Diamond, visible in the distance.
Matt Raggi, a principal with TRP, said the firm had been in discussions with VCU Health “for quite some time” about a potential sale. When TRP first purchased the site, Raggi said its long-term plan was to redevelop it and lease it in the meantime.
“In parallel with those conversations (with VCU Health), we had been evaluating a redevelopment of the site,” Raggi said. “Ultimately, we decided a sale made the most economic sense right now. VCU Health was great to work with and we’re looking forward to seeing their plans for the site come to fruition.”
In addition to the Diamond District, TRP has been active in the area around The Diamond with projects including the recently completed Novel Scott’s Addition apartments, which TRP co-developed with Crescent Communities. It also developed Scott’s Walk, a cluster of restaurants that have popped up farther north along Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
Adjacent to that site, TRP earlier this year sold 1.2 acres it had planned for 150 apartments to HCA Virginia, which is planning an emergency center there.
BizSense reporter Mike Platania contributed to this report.