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Libbie Mill / Westwood


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22 minutes ago, Wahoo 07 said:

Third apartment building at Libbie Mill to add nearly 400 units - Richmond BizSense

Nice article on a new building at Libbie Mill.  Interesting that the article states that there isn't much developable land left at the  site.  I guess some suburban parking must persist, although I wished they'd consolidate in a parking deck and build on the rest.

My thoughts exactly!  I couldn’t figure how they were saying that they were built out after looking at the sea of parking that surrounds this development…like a small island in the Pacific!!  Surely they could build more in the parking lots and incorporate parking within decks as part of additional residential in that sea of parking!  Innsbrook seems to be moving in this direction as well.  Why hasn’t Gumenick learned this lesson yet?

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FWIW, as someone who lives in the area, Libbie Mill doesn't "feel" like it has as much surface parking as it does. That's probably because a good chunk of it is devoted to the old Southern Season/current LL Flooring, making it kind of irrelevant, another chunk of it is devoted to the library, and the Shagbark/Crafted quadrant is served by parking garages or parallel parking, which takes up less of a footprint. But ... from the 30,000 foot view, yeah, that's a lot of surface parking.

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The lots won’t still be there 10 years from now.  Claiming it is already built-out is just marketing.  
The second a developer wants to spend the money on the lot and offers to build a deck, it will be sold. 
 

I’d give it a 6/10 too but I expect that rating to go higher with a few more developments (the townhome section doesn’t seem connected to the commercial part right now, I’d like there to be a transition area instead of being so black and white). 

Edited by Brent114
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You know, when they got Libbie Mill approved originally, there may have been some commercial to residential ratios the developer agreed to. Since the commercial has lagged, perhaps that is the limiting factor. I’m sure they could always go back to work on additional density. This is more likely than selling to another developer. They don’t really sell their holdings all that much. They’ve owned Libbie Mill long before it was Libbie Mill. 

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Looking at the rendering (see below) of the entire completed Libbie Mill - parking appears to take up right around 50% of the land. I'm hoping that Libbie Mill will be SO successful that, down the road, the developers will circle back and revisit the density and start picking off big squares of surface parking one-by-one with new construction that integrates parking into the overall development.

One commenter in RBS comments section made a good point - it seems like a PULSE line along Staples Mill from Broad Street to the Amtrak station would be a no-brainer - and as we've discussed here - perhaps it could travel along Broad all the way to downtown - thereby increasing PULSE frequency at the Broad Street stations. As discussed elsewhere here - counterintuitive as it seems, GOOD public transit SPURS development (we're seeing it in Richmond - the single PULSE line is already having a significant impact on new construction along its corridor). With that in mind, perhaps additional BRT that would directly interact adjacent to Libbie Mill could be a catalyst to nudge the developers to come back with additional density, thereby eating into the big "moat" of surface lots that surrounds the core of Libbie Mill.

 

Libbie-Mill-site-map-2023-700x398.jpg

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About a year ago, VDOT and an engineering firm did a Q & A regarding the Staples Mill study area. They were posed this exact question -- Are there plans to put a GRTC Pulse route along Staples Mill? -- and the answer was no, although they alluded to public transit in some unspecified form. Whether they were trying not to speak out of turn because this was a VDOT thing, not a GRTC thing, I don't know.

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4 hours ago, benstyree said:

Pretty pumped for this.  I live in the neighborhood across Broad from this area, so pass through here quite frequently.  The Westwood area has SO much more potential than it's being used for right now, and I'm glad to hear about developments like these that will help reach it.  If we could only get some of the projects on Broad underway (and some more announced), like the Motley's site, the building on the south side of Broad next to the 7-11, etc.  Broad could look so much more visually appealing with just a little lipstick.

image.png.8e72cdd98e018279b5d4f0f72357df0a.png !!!

Absolutely on-point all the way around. I think Westwood is finally going to start realizing and actualizing that tremendous potential. Imagine what the entirety of Westwood might look like in even just five years - and certainly within the next decade. It will be unrecognizable. 

As for the two developments you mentioned on Broad - AMEN! Would love to see them underway soon. The density (not to mention the physical impact of really urbanizing that stretch of Broad) will be tremendous. Tell you what - that Pulse line is about to get one heck of a workout a few years from now, because density is coming.

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4 hours ago, Flood Zone said:

@benstyree, we're practically neighbors! I'm Willow Lawn area.

LOL!  This is why I’m promoting a meet up in April!  Come join us!  See my post in the off-topic thread. 
 

The great thing about this development is that just about everything one would need is within walking distance already. This will be a boon for the area and for the developers.  I even think they could be a bit more ambitious and still do very well!

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29 minutes ago, eandslee said:

LOL!  This is why I’m promoting a meet up in April!  Come join us!  See my post in the off-topic thread. 
 

The great thing about this development is that just about everything one would need is within walking distance already. This will be a boon for the area and for the developers.  I even think they could be a bit more ambitious and still do very well!

There are just SO many developments now in the pipeline for Westwood that it really is amazing to consider how this part of the metro will be totally transformed - and how it will spill over to the Broad Street corridor. The county's vision of turning this into something akin to a "Scott's Addition West" is close to becoming a reality. All it will take is the first domino or two to fall - getting shovels into the ground - turn some dirt - tear up some parking lots - get some cranes in the air. Can you imagine -- based on the all the projects that are in the pipeline and given the number of potential residential units that could end up being built - just how much the population of this one district will increase? Very much like Scott's & Manchester - Westwood is about to see a tremendous boost in population density. And the spillover to Broad Street will be a nice, albeit incremental, boost to the city's population as well.

Wow - every day that we see these developments being announced - I keep marveling because this is beyond unprecedented in my lifetime. When you stop and consider that -- for DECADES -- growth was a drop in the bucket. It was spotty. A project here. Another one there. RARELY would we see more than one or two in a given year.

NOW? Now - we're tallying up how many cranes we're seeing. This is the stuff of "other" cities. The "boomtowns" did this. Atlanta did this. The Carolina cities did this. Cities in Texas did this. Not Richmond. 

Until now! And WOW - it is just AMAZING to see! 

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Well this sucks. The development that was proposed for 4400 W. Broad St has been scrapped, because a conflict with the property. It's actually the county that's causing the issue, as it wants the developer to pay for county utilities to be extended to the sight. I haven't seen anything saying the city has a problem with the developer using city utilities, this is all Henrico driven.

 

https://richmondbizsense.com/2023/02/09/plans-scrapped-for-340-unit-apartment-project-on-richmond-henrico-line-after-utility-snag/

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I wish there was more info on this.  How far away is the Henrico water line and how much would it cost to run lines to this site  (and sewer too I presume)?  Is this site where the old Lowe’s was? If so, were they hooked up to Richmond water?  
 

This doesn’t bode well for any new development here.  Henrico is being bratty. Now they won’t get property taxes off of this site or water usage fees.  They probably wanted the developer to run the lines at their expense so that other lots could easily connect to it.  Greedy. 

Actually now that I think of it, the old Lowe’s was a block or two west, it’s a Chevy dealership now.  
this is the site where Pleasants was moving (to make way for Whole Foods and before that plan was scrapped).  Was Henrico going to allow them to use Richmond water (old boys club)? 

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53 minutes ago, Brent114 said:

I wish there was more info on this.  How far away is the Henrico water line and how much would it cost to run lines to this site  (and sewer too I presume)?  Is this site where the old Lowe’s was? If so, were they hooked up to Richmond water?  
 

This doesn’t bode well for any new development here.  Henrico is being bratty. Now they won’t get property taxes off of this site or water usage fees.  They probably wanted the developer to run the lines at their expense so that other lots could easily connect to it.  Greedy. 

Actually now that I think of it, the old Lowe’s was a block or two west, it’s a Chevy dealership now.  
this is the site where Pleasants was moving (to make way for Whole Foods and before that plan was scrapped).  Was Henrico going to allow them to use Richmond water (old boys club)? 

Wow... how bogus and -- unfortunately -- typical is this?! This is where Virginia's insipid "independent city" status continues to screw Richmond over. Why does crap like this NOT happen in Charlotte or Seattle or Chicago? Because those cities are part of their respective counties (Mecklenburg, King and Cook). If Richmond were PART OF Henrico county, as it was prior to 1871, this wouldn't happen. Three cheers for typical Virginia post-Civil War Reconstruction-era STUPIDITY on the part of the General Assembly. 715020653_Screenshot(1704)-Copy-Copy.png.4c143bf8dbaad66914e742e76203d399.png1962913902_AngryFace1.jpg.adcd388658ec9cfb63f6718fcb03e03f.jpg

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4 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

Wow... how bogus and -- unfortunately -- typical is this?! This is where Virginia's insipid "independent city" status continues to screw Richmond over. Why does crap like this NOT happen in Charlotte or Seattle or Chicago? Because those cities are part of their respective counties (Mecklenburg, King and Cook). If Richmond were PART OF Henrico county, as it was prior to 1871, this wouldn't happen. Three cheers for typical Virginia post-Civil War Reconstruction-era STUPIDITY on the part of the General Assembly. 715020653_Screenshot(1704)-Copy-Copy.png.4c143bf8dbaad66914e742e76203d399.png1962913902_AngryFace1.jpg.adcd388658ec9cfb63f6718fcb03e03f.jpg

Something else that REALLY bothers me about this snafu:  In reading through the RBS article, front-and-center, it says the developer is based in Phoenix and this project was their first undertaking in Richmond. Oh my goodness - can we GIVE ourselves more of a black eye when it comes to being an inviting place for out-of-state developers to come and build???  This is absolutely AWFUL - and a real loss for not just 4400 W. Broad, not just for that sliver of Westwood (city AND county) - but for the city and metro region as a whole. Had this project gone well and been developed with no problems and proved profitable, who's to say this developer might not have built a second project somewhere else in the metro? Or a third? 

Now? At least for this developer, I think it's safe to say we can forget about it.

And I'm sure this problem will be circulated around the national CRE industry. And while it certainly won't be a "death-knell" to out-of-state developers coming to RVA to build (they know there's plenty of money to be made here) - RVA -- lacking a lot of the market-driven competitive advantages other cities such as Nashville, the two in the Carolinas, Austin, among others have, for Christ's sake, we don't need even the SLIGHTEST scintilla of anything that could potentially give us any sort of negative/bad reputation as a place to come and do business, particularly to out-of-state developers who DON'T encounter this insipid independent city/county bullscheitze that has plagued Virginia for 152 years. Were Richmond and Henrico a combined city/county entity like virtually every other major market outside of Virginia in this country except for Baltimore and St. Louis, then this isn't even an issue. I'm sure this is a "new one" on this developer.

I simply cannot face-palm hard enough.

Edited by I miss RVA
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19 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

And I'm sure this problem will be circulated around the national CRE industry. And while it certainly won't be a "death-knell" to out-of-state developers coming to RVA to build (they know there's plenty of money to be made here) - RVA -- lacking a lot of the market-driven competitive advantages other cities such as Nashville, the two in the Carolinas, Austin, among others have, for Christ's sake, we don't need even the SLIGHTEST scintilla of anything that could potentially give us any sort of negative/bad reputation as a place to come and do business, particularly to out-of-state developers who DON'T encounter this insipid independent city/county bullscheitze that has plagued Virginia for 152 years. Were Richmond and Henrico a combined city/county entity like virtually every other major market outside of Virginia in this country except for Baltimore and St. Louis, then this isn't even an issue. I'm sure this is a "new one" on this developer.

Agreed with your broader point regarding the city/county distinction, but I wonder if all of us on this board are a little too close to it sometimes. By this I mean that I'd suspect things fall through, everywhere, all the time, for a variety of reasons. I'm sure that in the long view this will be just a blip. And hopefully it's a test case for some sort of cooperation on this particular issue in the future because, back to your broader point, the Henrico/RVA line is literally in the middle of some parking lots over there (and also near me; I've got neighbors whose property is half-and-half).  

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50 minutes ago, Shakman said:

340 units on 5.75 acres is very spread out.  Perhaps it's great that this project has been scrapped?

There honestly could be a silver lining, given that the city's portion of this property (which is what - roughly the 3/4 acre portion, no?) is zoned TOD-1. Perhaps a developer could build ONLY on the city portion - and pack 340 units into a 12-story apartment building on Broad Street. Mind you - I highly doubt the Motley folks would want to break up the parcel - but then again, who know - given what's happened, perhaps a developer who wants to build only on the city portion could convince them to split the property out and purchase only the part in the city.

It's ridiculous, though, that it would have to come to this - that the city/county can't cooperate and work together in 2023.

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