Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Eastern Henrico — Richmond’s New Growth Frontier

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by

James A. Bacon
in

One of the quirky aspects of the Richmond New Urban Region is how little development has occurred east of the city’s downtown area in contrast to the massive, leapfrogging growth that has radiated in every other direction. The result is striking. If you drive out Route 5, which takes you to the James River plantations, you hit countryside right outside the city limits.

Eastern Henrico offers incredible proximity to downtown Richmond and the regional airport, yet it has remained utterly uninteresting to developers — until the past couple of years. The first major project in this area, Rockett’s Landing, is redeveloping a rusted-out industrial district east of Shockoe Bottom. Rockett’s is planned as a mixed use, pedestrian-friendly, densely developed project along the James River — extending the urban fabric of downtown/Shockoe Bottom into Henrico County.

Now comes the news that developers, backed by former state Sen. Elmon T. Gray, wants to develop the 500-acre Tree Hill Farm off Route 5. I can’t tell from the Richmond Times-Dispatch article if the project would border Rockett’s Landing, but, even if not, it will be very, very close. Tree Hill Farm, which offers a spectacular vista of the city skyline, would represent a near-uninterrupted extension of Richmond’s urban fabric. This is efficient growth.

Even more encouraging is the involvement of Daniel K. Slone, a local McGuire Woods attorney with a national practice in New Urbanism-style development. Dan is a friend of mine, and I know him to be a passionate and articulate advocate of the right kind of development. Meanwhile, the developers are negotiating for the services of the Duany-Plater Zyberk architectural firm, one of the leading practitioners of New Urbanism in the country. It goes without saying that plans call for mixed-use development emphasizing pedestrian-friendly, traditional neighborhood design.

The Tree Hill project shows every sign of being the right kind of development at the right place. I couldn’t be more delighted by this news. It’s this kind of project — mixed use, pedestrian friendly development along the beautiful James River — that will make my home town an exciting, vibrant place to live in the years ahead.

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2 responses to “Eastern Henrico — Richmond’s New Growth Frontier”

  1. Jeremy Hinton Avatar
    Jeremy Hinton

    I’m not as familiar with the Richmond region (being a Hampton Roads lifer mostly), but i’m glad to see that the location sounds good. While Andrés Duany may be a pillar of New Urbanism design, most of his work (as i understand it) is pure greenfield, usually in the middle of nowhere. While this does sound like greenfield, atleast it sounds to be (almost) adjacent to the urban core.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Even though these faux downtowns contain tinges of suburbia, they’re taking advantage of a growing backlash against the sprawl that rings Dallas and other U.S. cities. The reaction began in the 1980s with the rise of New Urbanism, a movement of architects and planners calling for a return to traditional towns where people work, shop, live and play.”
    ………

    “For a developer, however, it’s much easier to make a fake city than it is to work on real downtowns with their patchwork landholdings and planning restrictions.”

    http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20060601-herrick.html

    Credit for the tip to the story to Real Central VA.
    http://realcentralva.com/

    Maybe these really represent the realization that we need “more places”.

    That is a beautiful area and it is sad to see 500 acres woofed up like it was nothing more than a dog treat.

    As the story notes, it is much harder to work on real downtowns, and to a lesser degree the same problem applies to infill of other sorts that might have some effect on the loss of less developed areas. To change that problem is going to require a lot of money.

    But even if you could raise that money to give to those that speculated in the “right places”, it would amount to a penalty to those that own places like Tree Hill Farm: you would be screwing around with the free market.

    On the other hand, Tree Hill Farm can’t continue to exist without enough money coming in to provide a satisfactory living to the owners and operators. If, however, you took the money that it would take to solve the redevelopment and infill problem and somehow used it to support Tree Hill Farm, then that would be screwing around with the market, too. But the difference is that if Tree Hill Farm is saved, then that makes the prospects for infill and redevelopment BETTER. Whereas if you simply support infill and redevelopment, that makes the prospects for places like Tree Hill Farm WORSE.

    Since we don’t have and refuse to raise the money for either one, we can’t very well complain about the results, and it is all speculation anyway.

    It is interesting to note that the downtown areas that are so popular are a hodgepodge of ownership and planning restrictions: they seem to have gotten that way over time almost by an accidental confluence of luck and private interests.

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