The former bank branch at 3214 Skipwith Road was bought by the local arm of the Girl Scouts. (BizSense file)
The regional arm of the Girl Scouts has secured a former bank branch in Henrico for its new local headquarters.
The Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia recently purchased the old BB&T building at 3214 Skipwith Road for $3.6 million, per online county records.
The 18,000-square-foot, two-story building near the intersection of Broad Street and Parham Road will replace the nonprofit’s current offices at 4900 Augusta Ave. near Willow Lawn, where it has operated for about a decade in a leased space smaller than the Skipwith building, spokeswoman Janna Joyner said.
Two dozen employees who work at the Augusta location will be relocated as part of the move and will occupy the Skipwith building’s upper floor. The ground floor will be devoted to programming with event space and an educational kitchen as well as a store where Girl Scouts can buy their uniforms and other gear.
The Girl Scouts plan to be operating out of the new space in late March after a round of renovations. Joyner said a budget for the upfit was still being finalized. The Girl Scouts declined to share the name of the general contractor that will handle the project.
The Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia has a membership of 4,800 girls and 3,460 adults, Joyner said. The nonprofit reported $3.5 million in revenue and $4 million in expenses for 2023, per tax filings.
The Girl Scouts bought the Skipwith property from North Carolina-based Self-Help Credit Union in a deal that was recorded with Henrico in early September. The property was most recently assessed at $5.2 million.
Self-Help never opened a branch in the Skipwith building, though the credit union owned the property for about two years. It bought the property in late 2022 from D.C. developer Madison Marquette, which owned the property for a several-months stint earlier that year.
“The 3214 Skipwith property was part of a bulk purchase of retail properties across several states. It was sold to a mission aligned buyer, the Girl Scouts, because we recognized it was too large for us to develop it as a Self-Help branch location,” a spokeswoman said in an email.
Self-Help doesn’t have immediate plans to open a Richmond branch at this time.
The BB&T bank shuttered at the property as part of a wave of branch closings tied to the 2019 BB&T-SunTrust merger that created Truist.
Former location of a great roller skating rink.
I hope they get back to selling some cookies during that season too; picking up at Augusta pre-pandemic was very convenient especially leaving Gold’s Gym.