Outside the area of the downtown charette’s gaze, big changes are taking place in our city’s landscape. New commercial spaces and 74 new apartments, lofts, condos, and townhomes are in various stages of completion along the stretch of Cary from Meadow to VCU. Sunday’s TD has the rundown.
Construction is underway for the Lofts at Cary Place on the corner of Cary & Meadow, and on the Townes at Cary Place, 28 expensive gated townhomes just next door. Further down the street at Cary Place 4 (these people are creative with the names!), construction is almost complete on storefronts and apartments.
Construction still in the planning phase includes converting the “white elephant” building at 9 S. Harvie (the old Flag Center warehouse) into a mixed use commercial and residential building.
Also of note, aesthetic improvements are planned for the BP at Cary & Meadow- including fences, and stucco. Can a gas station be attractive? Or are any improvements just lipstick on a pig?
The forces behind all this work are Ed Eck, who brought us the colorful buildings on the “Uptown” section of Main St. just past VCU, East West Partners, who developed Brandermill and Woodlake, and RRHA. Good to see the folks who helped lure folks out of Richmond put some effort into repairing some of the damage of years of suburban flight.
Also noteworthy, RRHA won an award for their role in the development of Cary Place (the original!). It is remarkable, actually, that high end lofts (The Lofts at Cary Place) were named after an affordable housing development (Cary Place). I’d never put that together before. Or am I missing something, was there a Cary Place before Better Housing Coalition and RRHA developed that corner? I anxiously await the collective historical knowledge of my readers. Someone must know the answer…
But kudos to RRHA and BHC for building some attractive affordable housing that helped a neighborhood’s rebirth.
July 30, 2007 at 9:28 am
Does anyone else remember the shooting that happened at that BP a few years ago? I was living about two blocks from there when it happened and while I can’t remember all the details of the shooting, I do know that it happened in the middle of a Sunday afternoon and there was at least one fatality. That incident sort of tainted that area in my mind.
July 30, 2007 at 9:49 am
I don’t know how they can get people to move into this spot with all the drug dealing that goes on between that BP and the Rennie’s on Main. There’s still way too much scumbaggery going on over there.
It’s almost worse than the influence that Broad street (west of VCU) has on Grace St.
Both sides of the Fan need an enema.
July 30, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Thankfully, McDude, not everyone is like you. They’re not “getting” people to move in. People are paying close to $300,000 for the opportunity to live there.
July 30, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Just more rich, bourgeois, high end, “push the poor out” housing that many lower class people cannot afford.
July 30, 2007 at 11:31 pm
EP- Thank you for reminding me to temper my enthusiasm for new developments with a closer look at their overall effect on our community.
I agree that it’s a shame that they’re not building MORE of the original “Cary 2000″ (aka Cary Place) type affordable units- everything else using that name is high-end. But at least they built those units and are keeping them with an income restriction. According to betterhousingcoalition.org there’s 88 apartments & townhomes and 6 single family homes on a 6-block stretch of W. Cary that are designated affordable. So I’m hoping that this new development at least won’t push out all the poor.
And it’s that affordable housing development, started in 1991, that’s sparked the gentrification of the neighborhood. Which is an odd sort of success, you know? Provide a relatively small number of quality, attractive affordable housing and rich folk don’t mind moving in next door. I also think a lot of the gentrification is due to the Police Precinct being located there on Meadow- which, despite Terra & McDude’s comments above, had a serious dampening effect on the criminal activity in that area. I can’t remember what year the precinct was moved there, but it was fairly recent.
I’d rather see those vacant buildings and abandoned lots on Cary turned into affordable non-luxury units (the townhomes are starting at $420,000!!), but with the small chance of that happening given the realities of our economic structures and political realities, I guess I’d rather have something there than nothing.
August 9, 2007 at 6:38 am
sketchyness:
8/1/07 4:40 p.m.
2010 Idlewood Ave.
A female said an unknown suspect shot into her house. There were no injuries.
——————————————————————————–
8/1/07 4:50 p.m.
2031 Maplewood Ave.
A female said an unknown suspect shot into her house. There were no injuries.
September 13, 2007 at 11:08 am
[...] whole Cary St. corridor between Boulevard and Belvidere is changing, if you haven’t traveled that way recently, you should definitely check it [...]
December 30, 2008 at 1:00 pm
[...]Along with the dramatic changes that the Lofts at Cary Place have brought to the block, Urban Richmond said in July 2007 that “aesthetic improvements are planned for the BP at Cary & Meadow, including fences, and stucco.” That corner is the West Cary Street Planning Committee’s “next priority,” which we can hope includes controlling crime and not just making a gas station look beautiful[...]
September 22, 2009 at 9:00 pm
[...] Along with the dramatic changes that the Lofts at Cary Place have brought to the block, Urban Richmond said in July 2007 that “aesthetic improvements are planned for the BP at Cary & Meadow, [...]