Mention Rocketts’ Landing to anyone with financial ties to the Richmond riverfront and chances are you’ll receive a steely response.

To date, investors and developers have treated the Rocketts’ Landing development project more like the famous Manhattan Project than a few acres of run-down flood plain and a couple of old warehouses along the James River.

They may have good reason to be secretive.

A group of investors that includes James S. Ukrop and Bill Abeloff is behind a massive plan to develop Rocketts’ Landing, which stretches along the river east of Tobacco Row on Route 5 from the edge of the city into Henrico County. Those familiar with the plans say the project will include an upscale mix of residential housing, restaurants and retail shops, as well as a marina.

If all goes according to plan, Rocketts’ Landing will become the city’s premier upscale residential community. It will also become the first true waterfront residential development in the city’s history and may help bolster development along Shockoe Bottom’s Tobacco Row and the canal.

“I think it’s very exciting,” says Mayor Timothy Kaine of the project. “It’s the part of the city that has the best view of the city.”

For now, however, there are still more questions than answers.

Will Route 5 be closed and Main Street rerouted? Will there be a marina? A replica of the U.S.S. Merrimac? Is Crown Petroleum in or out? Will it be condos or apartments? And what will happen to the mammoth Richmond Cedar Works complex, which is bounded by the James River and Route 5 and sits right on the line between Henrico County and Richmond?

So far, most of those questions solicit “no comments” from those involved. It’s also something of a mystery to adjacent property owners, many of whom are taking a wait-and-see attitude regarding the area.

Historian Bill Trout has been watching the area for years and has written a history of the canal, which ends at Rocketts’ Landing. He has been a longtime advocate for responsible development along the river and around the canal.

“It’s pretty exciting but it’s strange it hasn’t happened before,” Trout says of the development. “We want to keep an eye on it and make sure it’s scenic.”

One thing’s for sure – there will be plenty of eyes watching Rocketts’ Landing. Since other development sites around the city have been renovated or picked over and Richmond’s downtown canal project is now complete, interest is finally shifting to the Rocketts’ Landing area.

Reached at his Tobacco Row office, potential developer Abeloff wouldn’t comment. Ditto with Stan Joynes, the LeClair Ryan attorney for an investment group led by Abeloff, one of the driving forces behind the redevelopment of Tobacco Row.

But sources say Abeloff is attempting to assemble parcels into a Rocketts’ Landing development west of the City Dock.

Mayor Kaine says the city has held discussions with several investors and property owners in the Rocketts’ Landing neighborhood. He says he is generally supportive of any improvements in the area, adding that city-owned property in the area has been terribly underutilized. Currently, Kaine says, the city only uses the mammoth Intermediate Terminal on Route 5 for storing its heavy, ancient voting machines.

“We can find another spot for the voting machines,” Kaine says.

So far, the only concrete improvements in the Rocketts’ Landing neighborhood have come from Riverview Farm Associates LLC, the development company of Jerry Cable, owner of the Tobacco Company Restaurant and the Byrd Theater.

Cable purchased the Dock Street Tarmac cement plant that sits next to Great Shiplock Park just over four months ago. In that time, Cable’s company has been busily clearing the thousands of pounds of concrete on the site for a complex that is expected to include condominiums and a restaurant.

On the waterfront

Rocketts’ Landing is key because of its waterfront access. Many Virginia cities have special developments planned for waterfront property to appeal to visitors who arrive by water. Even the most modest waterfront town usually has a marina, or at least a special seafood shack or a restaurant. At the very least there is a dock with old Gulf gas pumps where, theoretically, wayward mariners can stop for a fill-up.

Richmond currently has no such thing. The city does have a wharf at the site of the successful cruise boat the Annabel Lee, but that’s about it.

That’s not the way the area always was. It was once well known across the globe as Rocketts’ Landing or the Port of Rocketts. Like Dundalk in Baltimore, Rocketts’ Landing was Richmond’s riverfront center of commerce.

Named for entrepreneur Robert Rocketts, who ran a tavern and ferry in the area, Rocketts’ Landing sits aside Gillies Creek, which runs into the James. Just across the river from Rocketts’ Landing were the infamous slave docks and just around the bend was the James River and Kanawha Canal, which carried most of Virginia’s goods west.

Rocketts’ Landing was the birthplace of the industrial age Confederate Navy and the site of most of Richmond’s marine activity from the city’s founding in the 17th century to just after World War II, when Richmond’s port traffic moved downstream to the Deepwater Terminal. Even through the early part of the 20th century, Richmond saw regular steamship service to cities like Norfolk and Baltimore.

Cleveland-based maritime artist and historian Bill McGrath was in Richmond about five years ago to paint a historical rendition of Rocketts’ Landing. His print, which depicts the Rocketts’ Landing of the 1860s, has sold almost 1,000 copies around the United States. The romantic moonlit view he captured shows the James River, brick warehouses and the ironclad U.S.S. Merrimac in an animated dock scene that would have rivaled Charleston or Savannah.

McGrath says it’s about time that the area, which saw so much history, finally got some attention. Its history already draws tourists from around the country.

Landscape architect Carlton Abbott has been watching the area for years. Abbott and his father, also a landscape architect, completed the first modern planning study of the area for the Richmond Planning Commission in the mid-1960s in conjunction with a then-new effort to revive the Kanawha Canal.

Abbott, who works out of Williamsburg, is pleased there is renewed interest in the area, especially now that work on the James River and Kanawha Canal is mostly complete. Massive, federally funded civil-works projects such as the floodwall construction, combined sewer replacement and canal reconstruction have cleaned up much of the James River’s pollution, Abbott says, making Rocketts’ Landing more attractive.

“It was a foul mess,” Abbott remembers. “Early on, there wasn’t a sewer system.”

But in some ways, Abbott feels the area has gone backward. As late as the 1960s, there was a collection of powerboats along the riverfront and houseboats just inside the locks, near what’s now called the Great Shiplock Park.

Also along the waterfront were picturesque tall ships and a riverboat restaurant, which made the area colorful, if somewhat salty and decrepit.

Abbott, whose firm is currently working on waterfront design projects in Lexington and Yorktown, says developing Rocketts’ Landing should be successful provided the flood-plain issues are taken into consideration.

“If you’ve been down there during a big storm, [you can see] it still floods,” Abbott says. “[The James River basin] drains about 25 percent of the state.”

Nevertheless, Abbott says that sites near the Great Shiplock Park provide great views and tourist possibilities, as does the massive Cedar Works complex, which fronts Route 5 and the James.

“I would say that there are wonderful design opportunities,” Abbott says. “It’s Richmond getting its soul back. It’s about making human places.”

Table with a view

The main focus of riverfront interest today is near the Great Shiplock Park, just below the easternmost end of Tobacco Row. That site, which totals just under five acres, is currently owned by Cable’s Riverview Farm Associates.

Alan Kemp, a project manager with Riverview Farm, says the property is in the middle of grading and demolition work.

While Kemp says the project is early in the planning stages, the company is thinking about building a restaurant and developing some combination of condominiums that would capitalize on views of the James River and the site’s proximity to the locks of the old canal, which the property abuts.

Canal historian and preservationist Trout is supportive of development in the Shiplock area. Not having a restaurant and better dock facilities in the area has been a detriment, he says.

For the 1976 Bicentennial, the Great Shiplock Park opened, and part of the park’s renovation was opening the old locks so that small boats could pass through. But Trout recalls that the gate would sometimes stick and jam, and since then the park has been underutilized by mariners.

“The city had to have a diver on call” to loosen the locks when they were stuck, says Trout. He is confident the system will eventually work again.

Meanwhile, to the west of the city’s wharf area, plans are less developed but moving ahead.

In the late 1980s, New Kent real estate developer Tolar Nolley attempted to pull together a massive deal to revive the Rocketts’ Landing area. The project failed as it hit the real estate slowdown of the late 1980s and other obstacles.

Nevertheless, Nolley’s plan was ambitious. He spent thousands of dollars developing plans for the area, which included the now-defunct power plant on Old East Main Street and the Crown Petroleum tank farm.

For a time, Nolley helped to attract a mega-yacht to be berthed at the docks for corporate cruises and parties. He has heard the persistent talk of an Abeloff development, but hasn’t been contacted.

“It’s a great area and if it’s done right, it will be an anchor for Shockoe Bottom and Tobacco Row,” Nolley says.

Reluctant neighbors

Some of the property owners in the area, however, have yet to sign on.

One key player is Bill Hill of the William R. Hill Co. Hill’s merchandise brokerage, founded in 1910, sits along Route 5 overlooking the river and the Annabel Lee docks.

He says that while he is interested in seeing improvements to the area, he only recently moved there from Shockoe Slip. He says he has been approached to sell his property but plans to stay. He likes the area – and the view.

“We’re a working, modern facility,” Hill says. “I have no reason to move.”

Hill says he would be against plans to divert Route 5 it if it were officially proposed. Not only is the street a busy route from Henrico, he says, it would landlock his warehouse.

E.B. Honeycutt of Virginia Rigging, which owns property just past the Cedar Works, also has been contacted to be a part of the development. He isn’t selling, either.

One of the largest players is Crown Central Petroleum Marketing Co. of Baltimore, which owns a building near the river, has a petroleum-tank farm across Route 5 from the Rocketts’ Landing development and depends on a pipeline that runs under the James and through the middle of the area.

Doug Fritz, Crown’s vice president of real estate, says that Crown is not yet a part of any project in the area. “We’ve had conversations and will consider anything that is reasonable,” Fritz says.

Kaine says he’s had “discussions” about possible developments with some of the investors and developers. The mayor has been generally supportive of the Abeloff plan and holds out the possibility that the city could include its properties and wharves as part of the master plan for developing the area.

Whether the city property, which is actually a number of parcels, is to be leased or sold has yet to be determined, Kaine says.

Kaine confirms that there has been talk of rerouting Route 5, which separates some of the property in the area. But he says that no decisions have been made.

“We’re very anxious to include the city parcels in the development,” says Kaine.

He also says that the site, at the border of Richmond and Henrico County, could foster some positive regional cooperation.

Some say the key to making the development work is the marina, something the city hasn’t had downtown since closing Ancarrow’s marina. When the city opened its sewage treatment plant about 40 years ago, Ancarrow’s, located just across the James from the Annabel Lee, closed for good.

“A marina is a key function of this development,” Kaine says.

For the city, the other missing link to the area will be opening the padlocked Great Shiplock Park again for marine traffic, so that sailboats and powerboats can anchor overnight in a safe harbor. Development in the area, Kaine says, will increase the demand for the lock and provide a reason to keep it fixed.

RICHMOND – Last week, Richmond-based First Union Securities introduced a new advertising campaign to show off its new identity as Wachovia Securities.

With the new campaign and tagline “Uncommon Wisdom,” the company will forever shed the name First Union Securities and rename itself Wachovia Securities. The change is a result of the Sept. 1 megamerger between North Carolina banks Wachovia Corp. and First Union Corp.

With the merger, Wachovia had tough questions to answer. Does the securities arm of the bank, once known as Wheat First Butcher Singer, brand itself with Wachovia? Or does it create a new identity, separate from the bank?

Wachovia chose all Wachovia, all the time, for all its divisions: securities, lending and banking. But in the same week, Atlanta-based SunTrust took a slightly different route. It created a separately named subsidiary, Alexander Key, to sell some securities.

Instead of using the SunTrust name to sell securities to wealthy customers, SunTrust purchased the Richmond office of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown and renamed it Alexander Key. The name Alexander Key refers to no actual person and has no historical significance; rather, it is meant to connote an old-world banker: SunTrust decided it needed to use a different name after research showed its wealthier customers preferred using institutions other than banks to help with investments.

Although SunTrust successfully manages more than $100 billion in investments, the bank name didn’t translate with some customers.

“We have a very good track record,” said Bob Owen, director of marketing services for SunTrust. “[But] there are a fairly sizeable number of individuals who don’t give banks a whole lot of credit for their investment expertise.”

At Wachovia, the bank and securities firm had a different problem – how to create a consistent image among different parts of a company that seems to change names each year. Wachovia Securities spokesman Tony Mattera, based in Richmond, said picking the name for the brokerage and securities arm of the newly merged bank was not an afterthought. Wachovia even considered creating a new name for the unit. Long term, however, bank officials decided the securities arm could promote the bank and vice versa. The bank hired a design firm, Interbrand, to develop a new logo for Wachovia with wavy lines that move through a blue box.

“We’d get a lot more leverage by sharing the brand,” Mattera said. “Banking is in 12 states and the brokerage is in 49 states.” Using the same name also means that the company can promote Wachovia consistently and not dilute advertising and promotion budgets.

“We can put a lot more resources behind the name,” he said.

Wachovia Securities is the fifth name for the Richmond securities outfit. Company officials hope this is the last name change for a long time, as the company has confused customers with rapid name changes. Among them: Wheat First Butcher Singer, Wheat First Union and First Union Securities. Because of the confusion, some brokers have continued to use the Wheat name on the sly, not in first reference but as a way for customers to understand who was calling.

RightMinds President and Creative Director Bill Chapman refers to what is happening with securities firms a period of “brandwashing.” Many of the brands consumers have known and trusted are erased and replaced.

“A brand is a promise of expectations,” he said. “A brand change throws all of those promises into question.”

That brokers still use an old brand to sell the new name is not a good situation to be in, what Chapman calls “making an end run around the new brand.” To prevent this, companies either must change names slowly, or not change them at all.

When BB&T Corp. purchased the venerable Richmond brokerage Scott & Stringfellow Inc., it kept the Scott & Stringfellow name, which has slowly moved from a full-service securities company to a brokerage centered on retail clients, not investment banking.

Chairman Buford Scott said that through the 1970s, as Scott & Stringfellow bought smaller brokerage houses, the acquired brokerage was branded with the Richmond moniker. As BB&T continues to buy brokerage offices, it will use the Scott & Stringfellow name, Scott said, though BB&T Capital Markets will continue to have its separate identity for finance.

Scott & Stringfellow President and Chief Executive John Sherman said brokers use both the Scott & Stringfellow name, as well as BB&T in second reference, to indicate that the firm has a strong bank behind it.

Using many different names to separately brand financial services is not new to BB&T or the industry. For instance, Citigroup offers the Diners Club charge card, which is specially designed for business travelers and is a step up from its Citicorp card. For even higher income folks, Citicorp offers Carte Blanche. And locally, the Virginia-based Middleburg Bank offers trust services through the Tredegar Trust Co., a separate unit based in Richmond.

James N. Bell, a Charlottesville resident and senior partner at the New York branding and design consultancy Lippincott & Margulies, said that both Wachovia and BB&T are pursuing smart, albeit different, strategies. For Wachovia, branding the securities arm with Wachovia shows that the company “wants to be seen as a national powerhouse.”

Bell said that when First Union got rid of the Wheat name, it lost a well-known brand that has been hard to replace. It forced brokers to go through “four years of whipsawing,” he said. “Wheat was a very important person in Richmond.”

But the Wheat name might not have translated out west, where First Union purchased brokerages such as Everen Securities.

BB&T’s decision to keep the Scott & Stringfellow name was wise for a different reason, Bell said, because it is a “century-old name with a good reputation among high net-worth investors” and changing names too often makes the customer think yet another brokerage house has been gobbled up by another bank.

“It doesn’t promote a sense of stability,” he said.

Having a time-tested name helps. Bell, whose father worked for the former Virginia National Bank in Norfolk, said that when a group organized a new bank in Charlottesville, it grabbed the name Virginia National Bank, which had been jettisoned when the first bank by that name become Sovran.

“The further up you move in terms of net worth,” Bell said, “the more a name that is evocative of history is going to work.”

The key is to know the long-term vision of the organization and to let the names correspond to that. There isn’t always a simple answer.

“Most organizations tend to say let’s get one brand name,” he said. “But GE still keeps NBC as a separate brand.”

By Garland Pollard; Ran Monday June 10, 2002, Richmond Inside Business

(Published 2001)

Most mornings, as I pull into an on-street parking space on 19th Street in Shockoe Bottom, I think about diagonal parking.

Why, you ask? Am I that much of a bore?

INSIDE BUSINESS’ office is at 19th and East Franklin. The street where I park is one way, with diagonal parking on one side and parallel on the other. This means that cars officially can park at an angle. A very old sign at the beginning of the block even says “Park 45 degrees.” It reminds me of pictures of old, showing just about every southern Main Street with a row of Model Ts lined up diagonally in front of busy downtown storefronts.

That this block remains is probably an accident of history. Perhaps a traffic engineer had a soft side and couldn’t let it go. Whatever the reason, I am grateful for it.

What makes me worry is that in the city’s downtown plan, 19th Street is scheduled to become a two-way street as part of the Shockoe Bottom Land Use and Development Strategy, which was adopted by City Council in January 2000. To make way for the two-way street, the diagonal parking will have to go.

For the record, I have nothing against parallel on-street parking. I just think diagonal parking has a very useful purpose.

One advantage of diagonal parking is that it eats up more of the street. Better yet, it slows down traffic and adds parking capacity, which makes retail more viable. While I can’t say that diagonal parking doubles the amount of on-street parking, it certainly adds many extra spaces.

That the city plans to get rid of the diagonal parking goes against a national trend of putting diagonal parking back on city streets and turning four-lane streets into two-lane streets by adding parallel parking. The trend has been identified by Patrick Siegman, a town planner in Palo Alto, Calif., and a principal of the firm Siegman & Associates. Siegman is putting together a study of parallel and diagonal parking with the goal of publishing a peer-reviewed paper.

“I’ve never seen a place where they put back on-street parking and [retail sales] went down,” says Siegman, who’s researched dozens of success stories, including cities like Burlington, Vt., Tallahassee, Fla., and Sacramento, Calif. Those cities have replaced wide roads with diagonal parking as a way to revive struggling downtown shopping districts and add parking spaces for the price of paint and a few signs.

The benefits of diagonal on-street parking are numerous, and are not just the obvious benefit of having more places to park and slowing down traffic. First, the parked cars create activity on the sidewalk as people walk to and from their cars. Second, they put a wall of steel protection between the pedestrian and the street.

The view in the 1970s was that cars were bad. They needed to move quickly through a district to make a shopping area succeed. Traffic flow was king, and the movement away from on-street parking was aided by traffic studies that seemed to show a decrease in accidents. But Siegman contends that by bringing back on-street parking, fatal and serious injuries diminish.

“You may get more fender benders,” says Siegman. “But a lot of that is you have more parking spaces, and [you] therefore have more activity.”

In many places where on-street parking was removed, planners thought that they had solved the problem of accidents. This was especially true with diagonal parking. The problem with that logic, says Siegman, is that the accidents moved away from the street to off-street parking lots, where the accidents disappeared from public record.

Diagonal parking can only work on secondary streets, but adding parallel parking can help to slow down traffic in other arteries.

It is no coincidence that in our area of Shockoe Bottom, the street life is vibrant and most of the buildings are pretty well leased. But in areas like East Grace Street between Seventh and Fourth streets, where on-street parking has been eliminated, almost all of the storefronts have been shut down.

The trend in Richmond is not good. In the areas around our new convention center, most on-street parking has been eliminated. Not only will this hurt the convention center, it makes it unlikely that any stores around it in Jackson Ward or on Broad Street will get a boost. Even worse, those parking spaces are still needed, which means that more buildings will have to be demolished to make enough parking spaces to make it work.

It seems very obvious to me that clogged areas with on-street spaces, places like Carytown and Shockoe Slip, are stable and lively, but places with limited or restricted on-street parking continue to struggle.

It’s time city planners and traffic engineers gave on-street parking a second look.

Thus starts one of my favorite passages from the New Testament. I love the second chapter of Luke for all the reasons that I love a good History Channel documentary; it’s about facts and history. For all the legend and lore of Christianity and the reality of parting of seas and Noah’s ark, the central part of Christianity for me is the story of the New Testament, and those truths therein. For if it didn’t happen, it all becomes like some story of the Norse gods — a great tale with a useful message, but not something that you can bet your soul on. Perhaps there was some fellow who cleaned the Aegean stables? Myth makes good advice for living, but world-changing events like the birth of Christ are much more than that.

I am not a Biblical scholar, but what I can, as layman, understand is that this story, told over and over again, is recorded and witnessed. I think it important to think of Luke as a historian, and in that context, this all becomes real. It gives it so much more power than just some vague stories in the deserts of Palestine. Frankly, we sometimes turn all these disciples into mythological cartoon figures. But looking at Luke, and this famous passage, it is clear that there were witnesses and he is talking to me, with no atheist in the middle to tell me what I should think about it.

Right around Christmastime, there are always documentaries on television and magazines analyzing the facts regarding Christ and the New Testament. And what is always so satisfying is that it all makes some sort of logical sense. This season, there is fellow Episcopalian Jon Meacham, who wrote in Newsweek about the facts of Christ’s birth. But however these reports end, there are always unanswered questions about documents, versions, translations and archaeology. Of course, it is impossible to disprove a negative, and perhaps that is what we always require of skeptics — that they disprove our beliefs.

What I love about Luke and the New Testament is that there are many versions of a story by folks who lived in that time or close to that time, and they all say different nuanced versions of the same thing. Look in discussions of the Bible and there are all sorts of debates over when Quinirus lived, who he was, and whether the dates corresponded with Roman calendars. Were there two Quinirus rulers? I think those sorts of discussions all interesting and amusing, but what is often overlooked is that the New Testament is not seen as history, but everything else written in that time is. Certainly, facts are wrong in major history texts, but that does not make us doubt the birth of George Washington? Somehow, we must, as Christians, keep proving that this happened, over and over, in order to accept it.

History is always full of nuances and half-truths. Do we hold the rest of history to the same standards we hold the Bible? I think not — with the rest of history, there are many different accounts and many different witnesses. We know from our own lives how people lie and distort for their own ends, but we still accept a lot, as we should. But with the Bible, we seem to hold it to a far higher standard of truth.

And perhaps that’s all well and good. For no matter how many times the story is told, and as unlikely as it seems, it all seems to make so much sense, especially thinking about the different versions of it all. I borrow a thought from the noted Egyptologist John Romer — you can play all you want with the facts, archeological record and manuscripts, and he does. But the evidence of the church and the lives of the disciples and saints that followed is a sort of evidence in itself. And that makes it real.

RICHMOND – Richmond’s City Council took the first official step to beginning the $322 million Grace Park Center downtown revitalization project by approving a Broad Street redevelopment district that would allow for eminent domain.

Jack Berry, executive director of Richmond Renaissance, the downtown development agency which put together the plan, said that the plan is a continuation of already official downtown master plans.
“It respects retail in downtown,” said Berry, speaking in defense of the district at the end of a raucous City Council meeting Monday, July 26 that pitted preservation and arts groups against each other.

(The midnight discussion of the redevelopment followed another contentious decision by council to reinstall a controversial mural of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee near Richmond’s new Canal Walk, a move which offended some African-Americans.)

“We’re here to work with you,” said Berry to the assembled landowners and preservation officials gathered to speak against the plan.

Berry said that with condemnation issues out of the way, Richmond Renaissance could proceed with finding a developer to supervise the entire project, which would demolish the empty Miller & Rhoads building for a block-large park, and to tear down the also-vacant Thalhimers building for a new theater and arts complex and class A office space.

Council’s passage of the redevelopment district, while unanimous, was a compromise for city leaders and Richmond Renaissance, as it now includes official input from representatives from neighborhood groups.

Included in the revised redevelopment ordinance was the inclusion of an ad-hoc community committee to work with Richmond Renaissance on the plan and a commitment by the city to historic preservation in the district, including Art Deco storefronts in the 400 block of East Grace Street.
Exactly how the buildings would be preserved was not determined, and preservationists also used the meeting to blast the subsidies that the hotel would need, the cost of the project, and the many unrealized plans for downtown Richmond, citing “years of strangers with beautiful drawings.”

“These are the plans of the country club set,” said architect Isaac Moses Regelson, the first to speak in opposition to the district. “Do not subjugate us to the whims of corporate welfare.”
Regelson, the mayor’s most recent appointment to the city’s Urban Design Committee, said that while downtown was all but dying two years ago, an economic boom in downtown was already here, and did not need to be pushed along by the city.

Lenard Shields of Shields Shoes, a 36-year-old business in the redevelopment area, spoke against the redevelopment ordinance, but worked on the compromise legislation with Councilman SaÕad El-Amin and Mayor Timothy Kaine before the meeting.

“I have this horrible feeling it’s going to come back to haunt us,” said Shields, who thought the compromise was better than nothing, but nevertheless an attempt to “appease the opposition.”
In original plans by the Massachusetts architectural firm TerraScape, a four-star convention hotel was slated to be build on Shields’ block, the 400 block of East Grace Street.

But in the compromise legislation, amended during the meeting, the storefronts would be saved and about 20 feet lopped off the back, from the alley. Instead, the hotel could front on Broad Street, across from the expanded Richmond Centre.

Shields said that he would lose heating and air conditioning units, but would be able to keep most of his retail footage. Shields said that the legislation also includes a March 1, 2000 date where the buildings could be taken if it proves necessary, depending “on the developer’s needs.”

The hoped for completion date for the hotel is near July 2002, when the Richmond Centre, the 1980s-vintage convention center, will be tripled in size to 600,000 square feet.

Alan Shaia, whose family owns the old Thalhimers department store, spoke against the plan, and asked that a time limit be placed on the district, so that private individuals could resume control of the district if the project does not take off.

“After nine years of plans, we should put a time limit on it,” Shaia said, referring to frequently issued consultant plans on downtown. “After two years, let the property owners have it back.”

Others wondered whether a subsidized hotel in the plan would preclude development of other empty buildings downtown, including the empty Hotel John Marshall one block away, and the Art Deco-style Central National Bank building, where city officials also hope to develop a four-star hotel at Second & Grace streets.

Chandler Battaile, interim executive director of the preservation group the Historic Richmond Foundation, said that the plan should not be written in stone, especially if a developer could be found for the 1920s Miller & Rhoads building, which could be eligible for federal tax credits.
Boosters of the plan and redevelopment included some of the major arts groups in the city, including the Virginia Opera, the Richmond Symphony, the Arts Council of Richmond, TheatreVirginia and the Richmond Ballet.

Stephanie Micas, executive director of the Arts Council, said that Richmond was one of the few cities of its size without a performing arts complex.

Amy Bridge, Richmond director of the Virginia Opera, said that the Carpenter Center, which would be expanded in the Grace Park Center plan, was inadequate for the opera, and sets were difficult to get in and out. Those comments were echoed by Marcia Thalhimer, representing the Richmond Symphony, which also performs at the Carpenter Center.

The Carpenter Center hopes to launch an $8 million capital campaign for expansion as a part of the Grace Park Center plan.

Bill Baxter, representing the Richmond Retail Merchants Association, also spoke in favor of the plan, saying it would “preserve the architectural fabric almost at all costs.”

The four-block project would include two office towers, a four-star hotel, a residential tower, parking for 2,000 cars, movie theaters and two new performing arts facilities.

The plan still has many barriers. The city will need to subsidize the hotel, and funds have not approved for site acquisition or construction, which could prove costly, as the street is still the main shopping district for inner city residents, including a G.C. Murphy department store and bustling Korean-owned shops.