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Short Pump Developments


TBurban

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How about this... you can help by getting in touch with all the retailers you want to see downtown and demand they come. Or better yet ask them about how they choose locations. They are the ones not seeking out downtown. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. We need our water to look so good they're thirsty for it. The changes in the past few years downtown have been remarkable... hardly at the pace of tectonic plates.

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I advised you not to let downtown become the collection of stores and places I described, I didn't say you were okay with violent clubs. But you are okay with whatever firms and such say, why defend them? With those formulas and such, they can legally deny thousands of people business and they do just that. It's like Jim Crow lite. And you say we're moving forward, ok I'll give you that, just as continental drift is moving us forward. Break the mold and think differently and never settle is all I ask. It's not a risk unless you think it's a risk. We could create something grand, but it seems no one wants that. That money spent out there could be spent to spruce up all of downtown but no one seems to really want it. I'll help when they give me a place to help.

Have you ever taken a course in economics? If you have not, then you should. It may explain your concerns.

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Have you ever taken a course in economics? If you have not, then you should. It may explain your concerns.

I understand economics to a degree but not this isn't just simple economics. It's subtle racism and classism as well as overt hatred for the city of Richmond.

If the horse won't drink, drown it.

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Break the mold and think differently and never settle is all I ask. It's not a risk unless you think it's a risk. We could create something grand, but it seems no one wants that. That money spent out there could be spent to spruce up all of downtown but no one seems to really want it. I'll help when they give me a place to help.

Furthermore, do you honestly think that the city DED, real estate firms, and developers aren't trying to pull downtown the types of retailers that haven't located downtown? Do you think any of them settle and don't want to risk it? Ridiculous. Like Douglas Development isn't trying to attract all sorts of retailers/businesses into their Broad Street empire? Hahahaha

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When he gets something in a building worthwhile, if the CNB is full, I'll believe he's trying. Most developers given what has been said earlier would rather look at the Promised Land of Short Pump. Downtown Richmond has to live up to being a downtown, it has to bustle. I only see an office park like Innsbrook. After 5PM, turn out the lights and roll out. You see things changing, but I doubt I'll be alive to say you told me so.

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^^^It appears to me that your negative screen on Short Pump has hindered your ability to realize that Downtown is indeed up and coming. There are developers who see a future market for Downtown and are investing there. There are developers who do not have the financing to do something Downtown, which causes them to be in the red until the market improves. There are developers (very rare) create a market that makes things happen - Douglas is one of them. Different developers have different ways of doing business.

Where the people go, the developers will stay one step ahead. Land development is a very complicated business.

Things just do not happen over night. It takes time just like economics teaches us. Short Pump and West Broad Village did not happen overnight.

P.S. I hope you will be alive when Downtown is riding at high potentials. Good things are already happening.

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There are a couple of sales centers that have opened. (Each residential developers has oened a slaes office. It is a complex of trailers around the southeast corner of the development. It can be accessed from Three Chopt Road.

Any others updates and /or photos on progress?

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When he gets something in a building worthwhile, if the CNB is full, I'll believe he's trying. Most developers given what has been said earlier would rather look at the Promised Land of Short Pump. Downtown Richmond has to live up to being a downtown, it has to bustle. I only see an office park like Innsbrook. After 5PM, turn out the lights and roll out. You see things changing, but I doubt I'll be alive to say you told me so.

CNB isnt full... I overheard the project managers conversation at the Grace St Revitalization meeting... in fact Jemal is trying to spin it off as a hotel/condo locale...

just the hotels haven't quite bought into it yet... saying (get this) they will wait and see if miller and rhodes is successful first as a business model...

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Actually, I must admit, last Thursday my team at work had an outing and went bowling in Short Pump. I am so glad that the dinner was at Stony Point. There are places I would go in Short Pump, I have listed them before, but WBV and the mall are being boycotted. In my fascination with Richmond's old roads, this weekend I tried to trace a section of the Old Westham Road, so I took Park Ave to about Strawberry and since I couldn't ride west on Cary had to follow it on Main, then did Cary St Road to Three Chopt. I followed Three Chopt all the way along its old path until I couldn't where that stupid shopping center sits in the middle of it and makes Three Chop do a twist to Broad. I wondered if I should take pics as I had my camera, but given my objections, should I have? I will actually because I have a before set on that end of Three Chopt.

Shakman, your previous post I appreciate your 7:07AM post (I'm not sure if that timestamp is what you have).

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Actually, I must admit, last Thursday my team at work had an outing and went bowling in Short Pump. I am so glad that the dinner was at Stony Point. There are places I would go in Short Pump, I have listed them before, but WBV and the mall are being boycotted. In my fascination with Richmond's old roads, this weekend I tried to trace a section of the Old Westham Road, so I took Park Ave to about Strawberry and since I couldn't ride west on Cary had to follow it on Main, then did Cary St Road to Three Chopt. I followed Three Chopt all the way along its old path until I couldn't where that stupid shopping center sits in the middle of it and makes Three Chop do a twist to Broad. I wondered if I should take pics as I had my camera, but given my objections, should I have? I will actually because I have a before set on that end of Three Chopt.

Shakman, your previous post I appreciate your 7:07AM post (I'm not sure if that timestamp is what you have).

I have 8:07am and 8:14am. Being at work early in the morning is fun. :P

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Tell me I'm lying again.

I couldn't find a link to post, so I scanned it from yesterday's paper. If I could find the original paper where the claim was made 10 years ago, I'd scan it too. Tell me I made it up, that people really didn't think of Short Pump as such.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch Home section April 5, 2008

edited, I'm not sure if posting images of articles is allowed, so if you have a copy of Saturday's paper, take a look. I've shown some proof.

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Cam,

Ever heard of the "sovereign nation" of Sealand? http://www.sealandgov.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

People can call a place whatever they want... whether it's an old WWII British gun platform in the Channel called the Sovereign Principality of Sealand or a suburban area of Richmond calling itself the "new downtown"

.... but it doesn't make it so.

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After reading that article and seeing the "new downtown" remark I better understand where Cadeho is coming from. I think he is being way over the top about the whole thing but there is some truth to what he is writing. We would probably all agree that for years downtown was the shopping, entertainment, lodging and dining center for the Richmond area. Shopping was probably the first to go and I think all would agree that more people shop at SPTC than downtown. Downtown was dead as a retail district way before SPTC. What about dining? I would say more people eat out in Short Pump at a given night than downtown. Perhaps if you include all the fan restaurants this is not the case and it may not be the case on a Friday or Saturday. Entertainment and lodging are still in downtowns favor but clearly Short Pump has gained in market share. Downtown has a lot more hotels so the Short Pump area will never overtake it there but entertainment is a kind of vague term.

I think Short Pump might overtake downtown (if it has not already) as a place to go just to have fun. I mean on a Saturday afternoon, where are you going to go to just hangout and walk around enjoying yourself. Maybe Carytown or the Westhampton area (are we including that as downtown?) or Short Pump. I've gone downtown on a Saturday and it is dead unless there is a festival. Now you have Funnybone in Short Pump and will soon have Dave and Busters. This is where the city and the region can really give downtown more life (and already do) is by having all the festivals and planned entertainment downtown that you can't really get in the burbs. Having more people living in the area (which is already happening) is another area the city is working on. Most urban areas have figured out that they must bring back people to live.

So in many ways Cadeho has something to worry about (if making downtown what it was 100 years ago is a valid concern). I don't think he is focusing his blame on the right area. Improving things in the city and creating ways to bring people downtown has to be the goal. Right now Short Pump is giving people what they want. It is funny that people complain about the traffic around Short Pump and list that as a reason why they hate it. Well can you imagine if all those people were driving around downtown looking for shops/restaurants each day. There would be major traffic problems too. I felt the city should have built the ballpark downtown near the river but the downtown power players could not get it done. I've never even been to the canal walk. I was in that area one Saturday afternoon but you could count the number of people walking around on one hand. I hope this improves as more people live downtown but right now the place is not very lively unless there is a festival. To me the ballpark would have provided a shot of life on days there was a game. But from what I know a lot of businesses worried about the traffic problems it would create.

The areas where I feel Cadeho is wrong:

- Downtown and Short Pump can thrive. The metro area is large enough where you can have both do well. We now have almost 1.3 million people living the area.

- The problems downtown is having are independent of Short Pump. If Cadeho waived his magic wand and Short Pump vanished. Downtown would not fill the void. Another suburban shopping mecca would be built. Lets face it, for decades downtown suffered from poor leadership and all the problems will not be fixed overnight.

So in many ways Short Pump is the new downtown. Just like how Barnes and Noble or Starbucks has replaced the park gazebo as a place where people gather on a nice afternoon.

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Coupe, calling it something doesn't make it so, true, but it's what you do with it that does.

NYCJSW, thanks for seeing my view. It can be quite frustrating being brushed off. Short Pump does act as our downtown and people are calling it by what they see and do. The traditional downtown is our real downtown, but the 21st Century downtown is what Short Pump is, just as Roseland in Chesterfield, although sprawling, will be the 21st Century version of a close-knit town.

We can address traffic woes downtown by enhancing and emphasizing our mass transit system which plans seem to be heading in the right direction. Our downtown is not going to be overrun and jammed with SUVs. People can also park elsewhere and walkand those close by can walk. Short Pump and downtown can co-exist, but the preferential treatment has to cease. I've got to press the Red Button on Channel 6 for tagging Short Pump on par with Farmville, Staunton, Williamsburg etc. They might as well put Brandermill on their zoomed-out map.

Richmond does have a lot of problems but no one wants to help. We go to all these other cities and see how they are successful and see how city-county relationships are, but all these places we go, the cities are a part of those counties and the wealth is shared. We need to press upon the General Assembly to amend, chnage, or rewrite the Constitution to get rid of the separation between our cities and counties. It only hurts us all. However, I do think that Henrico and Chesterfield could stand without Richmond at this point and they will try. Everything favors them and that cause.

NYCJSW, I'm only counting downtown, I'll sey the area defined by the new master plan, but more tradtionally the area between Belvidere, 95, and the river. In the traditional sense, the Fan doesn't count and Westhampton is too far away. The problems were basically created overnight, but fixing them takes forever. I don't think the people wanted Short Pump, it was built, people were told it was the place to go, in some cases it is the only place to go, and as long as something is being built, people will go. If we demolished everything downtown and built it all new and moved the housing projects further out, gave tons of incentives to businesses and retailors, lowered taxes, they'd come in droves. We have to have that mass transit in place though... I remember being caught in the jam up 7th St when TSO was here and I wasn't even going to the concert. It took 20 minutes to get from Franklin to Broad. If downtown had suburban traffic, it'd be useless.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple other things worth being noted:

  • land clearing is underway at Church & Pump for the John Rolfe Parkway Expansion
  • the hotel planned for the WestMark Office Park in Innsbrook at the intersection of 64 and Broad has been approved at 11 stories and is to include a restaurant(s)
  • Whole Foods will be opening early 2009 rather than the late 2008 opening
  • Trader Joe's will be opening this fall in Short Pump Station
  • small land clearing for the Corner at Short Pump is underway(Lauderdale and Broad), with the new Kroger relocating there, it will close its store next to Target on Broad
  • Ukrops will begin remodeling their Short Pump store this summer
  • planned expansion for Tom Leonard's in Short Pump is to be underway by the end of this year(plans to double the size of current store)
  • Food Lion Supermarkets in the Richmond area will also begin renovations/expansions by the end of this year

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I thought they were going to be 13 stories high. Am I mistaken? :dontknow:

This is across the way from WBV, in the WestMark Office Park in Innsbrook. If you go directly across the 64 interchange shown in that plan you're at WBV. The two 13 story office towers will be at WBV, and this 11 story hotel will be at WestMark. When you drive down 64 they'll be straddling the interstate.

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This is across the way from WBV, in the WestMark Office Park in Innsbrook. If you go directly across the 64 interchange shown in that plan you're at WBV. The two 13 story office towers will be at WBV, and this 11 story hotel will be at WestMark. When you drive down 64 they'll be straddling the interstate.

OOOOOOOOHHhhhhhh! OK, I'm sorry - I got my bearings all screwed up. Of course! I don't know why I was thinking WBV. TB, the way you describe driving down 64 with these buildings being on both sides of 64 sounds like that area of town will be totally different when I come back and visit. Wow! Lots of changes! Thanks guys for getting me straight on this. :wacko:

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