Foundry Park - CoStar HQ

[eandslee]

30 minutes ago, 123fakestreet said:

Infill, height, jobs, skyline.  Very nice Christmas gift for us.

...Oh, and the state's new tallest! 
 

Reposting renderings in this page for reference:

 

A third rendering just released:

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by eandslee

[CitiWalker]

34 minutes ago, eandslee said:

A little bigger picture:

 

 

One small leap for local business and one Giant leap for Richmond  breaking the 500 ft barrier. Costar is kicking the doors in with this one!

[eandslee]

510 feet tall, but topography of the land it will sit on doesn't do much for making it look over 100 feet taller than the Fed Reserve tower.  Maybe it's just a bad angle of the rendering.

[flaneur]

This is AWESOME!!!! Hopefully this will also support more growth and activity along the Canal Walk. 510' fits in nicely with our skyline, though it doesn't really look much taller than the 393' Fed next door in the rendering. But I feel that way about the Dominion tower; at  417' you can't notice much height difference from the Fed. Now we just need Capital One to move most of its West Creek campus to downtown. I know that has almost zero feasibility, but hey, I can dream. 

[CitiWalker]

1 minute ago, eandslee said:

510 feet tall, but topography of the land it will sit on doesn't do much for making it look over 100 feet taller than the Fed Reserve tower.  Maybe it's just a bad angle of the rendering.

Traveling north on 95 will definitely give the riverfront  skyline some additional presence.

[eandslee]

Uh oh...looks like RBS has removed the part about the 510 feet height.  Maybe it won't be the State's tallest after all.  I'm sure there are some information that is probably getting crossed and incorrect right now.  Perhaps we celebrated too early.    EDIT: My bad.  It's still there.  I must have been too hasty and saw something else.  WE ARE STILL AT 510 Feet!

Edited December 17, 2021 by eandslee

[123fakestreet]

Love everything about this. I see some people on reddit are bemoaning the loss of greenspace... gimmie a break. Absolutely no one used that greenspace, the JRPS is right there, and there's still massive greenspace right across the street plus Kanawha Plaza up the road.  It's downtown for sheets sake, it's supposed to have buildings. Unreal.

On a positive note Iove that this is pulling "downtown" across the expressway.  As of now you've only got the Federal Reserve which is a "black zone" in terms of foot traffic or traversibility given its security, then the BB&T twin towers on an island between the expressway and very-wide 9th street.  Costar will really open up 5th, 7th and maybe Tredegar/10th as more usable streets and connect downtown to the riverfront. I can see some businesses coming in to the empty lots on either side of 5th street north of the expressway to serve all the people that will be in the million sqft of office space a block away.  Long term would love to see some big infill at Byrd and 2nd.  City probably needs to look at connecting Spring street over to 5th if that happened.

 

 

[whw53]

1 minute ago, eandslee said:

Uh oh...looks like RBS has removed the part about the 510 feet height.  Maybe it won't be the State's tallest after all.  I'm sure there are some information that is probably getting crossed and incorrect right now.  Perhaps we celebrated too early.  

Are you sure - i still see it - "At 510 feet..."

[blopp1234]

Talk about an impact on the skyline! Even in the renderings this dwarfs the fed in both height and massing. Very nice to see this lot get developed after how many years of it sitting vacant. Hopefully it includes some retail fronting Tredgar but even if it doesn’t, talk about a Christmas gift and a cherry on the cake for RVA development in 2021.

Edited December 17, 2021 by blopp1234

[eandslee]

Yeah, my bad, guys.  I think I saw a different loaded page that didn't have it on there, but I just confirmed...it's still there - 510 feet!!

[Icetera]

2 minutes ago, whw53 said:

Are you sure - i still see it - "At 510 feet..."

Same, refreshed to be sure.  I imagine CoStar is pushing to be the tallest, since it was not too much effort to do so.

[blopp1234]

Also look at the crown on that building, no doubt they wanted the states tallest and that the height was meant as a statement piece!

Edited December 17, 2021 by blopp1234

[eandslee]

3 minutes ago, Icetera said:

Same, refreshed to be sure.  I imagine CoStar is pushing to be the tallest, since it was not too much effort to do so.

I think what's happening is RBS is adding more information as they receive it and when they do, some part of the page are going out and then coming back, which is why I saw a version that didn't have the height on it.  Now, I'd like to know when groundbreaking is!

[Downtowner]

Just now, blopp1234 said:

Also look at the crown on that building, no doubt they wanted the states tallest and that the height was entirely intentional!

It will definitely stand out more than the Westin va beach town center tower. Someone told me on Reddit that it’s 508 feet tall with the spire and ours has no spire making it stand out even more. So excited about this. 

[CitiWalker]

1 hour ago, blopp1234 said:

Talk about an impact on the skyline! Even in the renderings this dwarfs the fed in both height and massing. Very nice to see this lot get developed after how many years of it sitting vacant. Hopefully it includes some retail fronting Tredgar but even if it doesn’t, talk about a Christmas gift and a cherry on the cake for RVA development in 2021.

From what someone knowing on the inside hinted to me, there is going to be an element of commercial retail space on ground level.... at leas that is what was talked about. 

[eandslee]

6 minutes ago, CitiWalker said:

From what someone knowing on the inside hinted to me, there is going to be an element of commercial retail space on ground level.... at leas that is what was talked about. 

That is really good to hear!  Also, I hope more businesses sprout up in the area to get some foot traffic going along that part of the financial district.  Also, would love to see more residential nearby, which will add to the good 24-hour activity in and around that area.

 

So, with all this inside information coming out from some of you...makes me wonder - how many of you knew this was coming and was going to look like this?  I mean, before the model was posted here a few days ago?  You guys need to be better than that.  This is UP here - we thrive off of inside information!  Must have been tough to keep this a secret so long!  Hope you lost sleep.  Just kidding, but not kidding.  LOL!

Edited December 17, 2021 by eandslee

[123fakestreet]

26 minutes ago, CitiWalker said:

From what someone knowing on the inside hinted to me, there is going to be an element of commercial retail space on ground level.... at leas that is what was talked about. 

An office that big usually has it's own food court, convenience store, gift shop, etc so I guarantee it has that stuff. But it's not typically open to the public. 

[Icetera]

Here is the image from Tredegar St., posted on CoStar's page, rather than an angled photo of the same image.



https://www.costargroup.com/costar-news/details/costar-group-announces-plans-for-expanded-corporate-campus-in-richmond-virginia

[eandslee]

This!  I just posted it at the same time as you, but you beat me by a few seconds.   A good angle here!

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by eandslee

[I miss RVA]

The only thing I can say to ALL of this is:

 

[ancientcarpenter]

This is unbelievable news. Huge. And to think, the only reason CoStar came here was because some politicians were fearmongering their voters into bathroom-gender laws. Wow, what a loss to them and a huge gain for Virginia. RVA!

Edited December 17, 2021 by ancientcarpenter

[Downtowner]

4 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

The only thing I can say to ALL of this is:

 

I was waiting to see what your response to this would be. Ive been waiting all day. Honestly I thought you would be one of the first to respond to it. I know all of us are extremely pumped for this. It’s going to be something that I honestly never thought I’d see ever in my lifetime. I wasn’t even a thought when the Monroe building was completed. I was born in 1988. I’m glad to know I was wrong about never seeing a new tallest in my life time here in Richmond. 

[blopp1234]

If you zoom in real close on the rendering from Fred far street, it appears to have a boutique sign in the window and what looks to be a restaurant on the ground floor.

[Shakman]

This is best news I have ever read for our lovely city.  Hopefully the momentum continues.

 

Can't wait to see those port-a-potties onsite!

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Shakman

[I miss RVA]

28 minutes ago, Downtowner said:

I was waiting to see what your response to this would be. Ive been waiting all day. Honestly I thought you would be one of the first to respond to it. I know all of us are extremely pumped for this. It’s going to be something that I honestly never thought I’d see ever in my lifetime. I wasn’t even a thought when the Monroe building was completed. I was born in 1988. I’m glad to know I was wrong about never seeing a new tallest in my life time here in Richmond. 

My apologies, my friend! I'm dragging anchor today - I got my COVID booster (3rd) shot yesterday afternoon -and as a result didn't sleep at all well last night and have felt really schvach since about 9 p.m. last night... Mind you, I'm quietly doing my Snoopy dance today, celebrating! This is absolutely EPIC - to the point that even feeling 100% I'm so gobsmacked by all of this -- WOW ... 510 feet. Tallest in the Commonwealth. And a GORGEOUS building/complex. Combined with Westrock - it gives the CoStar campus an amazingly mighty presence on the riverfront.

Honestly - I figured Elvis was the only way to express everything - because I'm just blown away. This is SUCH a game-changer for downtown, for RVA, for the metro. Bruce and a few others on the RBS comment section to the story there made an outstanding point - Bruce said - "anyone want to building some new apartments?"  He's right - 2,000 jobs will mean the likelihood that significantly MORE than merely 2,000 people will be moving to RVA in taking those jobs. How many of those CoStar workers will bring families with them. I'm sure quite a few. Another poster wrote that this could trigger the development of taller apartment buildings - because of the influx of people coming in. I concur. 

My hope is that this really is the door-buster for downtown and for RVA. That this kicks in the door on breaking height "barriers" downtown -- obviously, economics are the big drivers - and when you consider that when the CoStar HQ is completed - the two most recent PRIVATELY developed/owned (non-state gov't or state-supported (VCU)) buildings that will have been built - will be the tallest (CoStar) and 3rd tallest (Dominion) in the city -- with CoStar, for now, the tallest in the state. 

The biggest thing now that comes to mind is building on this momentum- and bringing MORE companies here - who steps up to build the next "tallest in Virginia" skyscraper in downtown RVA? 

Someone earlier has posted that perhaps Capital One could be persuaded to relo their entire workforce from West Creek to downtown RVA. As unlikely a scenario as that might seem -- did we realistically see THIS (huge CoStar) building coming even a year ago? Much as we were joking about the UP site "sanitizing" my use of a Yiddish turn of phrase -- who's to say that once CoStar brings its huge workforce here to the downtown riverfront, someone at Cap One might get the wild idea to try to "one-up" CoStar? Maybe a vanity project of some kind - another "pesto-measuring" contest so to speak -- but who knows - what if they DID bring the entire workforce downtown and build a tower 550-600 feet tall? Perhaps they manage to pry loose from Dominion the block where OJRP once stood. Imagine having 3 of the 4 tallest buildings in the city - and the two tallest in the state - just blocks apart from each other on the downtown RVA riverfront.

No matter how unlikely it might be right now -- it COULD happen! We didn't see this coming. And I can't help but believe that CoStar's epic presence downtown is going to start a period of real bullishness on building big in downtown RVA. 

I'm warming up the popcorn maker because I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

Edited December 17, 2021 by I miss RVA