CREW Richmond kicked off the year with a lunch at the John Marshall focused on updates for the newsworthy Navy Hill Development. We heard from speakers Susan Eastridge (CEO and President of Concord Eastridge) and Jennifer Mullen (partner at Roth Jackson). The discussion focused on the overall status of the Navy Hill Development, the Commission’s review and findings, and City Council’s next steps.
Overall, the Richmond Coliseum is a local landmark, so the plans for what to do with this area of the City can sometimes seem to fall under a microscope. In general, the Project is estimated to cost $1.5 billon and would include the following as currently proposed:
17,500 seat arena
541-room hotel
2,000 market-rate apartments
280 income-based housing units
Renovated Blues Armory
GRTC transfer center
Additional retail, office, and city-use buildings
2.5 acres of rooftop greenspace
It was also recently announced that CoStar Group has a tentative agreement to occupy 400,000 square feet of Class A office space as part of the proposed Development. We were able to hear from Lisa Ruggles, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Research at CoStar Group, on why this Development is attractive to CoStar and its expansion in the Richmond market.
Even though this proposed Development ultimately did not get approved by City Council, it was an exciting time to think about the evolutions the City of Richmond can experience in the future. It may not be Navy Hill, but we can all take what was learned from that experience and apply something better down the road to make the City of Richmond the best it can be.
