Petition To Turn Bus Depot Into “Creative Class Village” Hits the Web

by | Feb 12, 2014 | POLITICS

A petition hoping to sway Mayor Dwight Jones into turning the GRTC Bus Depot on Main St. (current home of the RVA Street Art Fest) into a space for Richmond’s creative class has started to gain steam.


A petition hoping to sway Mayor Dwight Jones into turning the GRTC Bus Depot on Main St. (current home of the RVA Street Art Fest) into a space for Richmond’s creative class has started to gain steam.

“It is time to focus on our creative class and build a front door to RVA where creative technologists, makers and civic innovators can build things in tinker garages, enjoy an indoor farmers market, have access to tools from a community tool shed, work out of state of the art coworking space with an indoor climbing wall, invite our friends to stay in a boutique hotel, and be part of a true sharing economy.” states the petition which has over 200 signatures so far.

The bus depot is in a weird limbo as is. While the RVA Street Art fest was a wild success, the mugging of a security guard led to the permanent closure of the space to the public.

There’s also a bunch of environmentally hazardous waste (oil and other byproducts from repairing city buses) buried under the facility which has to be removed before any construction can take place. This removal can’t happen until around summer 2016.

The entire lot is also privately owned by GRTC. The city gives substantial funds to GRTC for the space, but in the end, it’s the GRTC board who will make the call on who gets to purchase the land.

The city does have people on the GRTC board, so, in theory, Jones could ask those board members to prefer a “creative class village” over other development projects, but we are getting into all kinds of theoreticals here.

Sign the petition if you are so inclined; voice your support for the expansion of a arts/tech hub on Main Street… at least it’s not a new baseball stadium, right?

Brad Kutner

Brad Kutner

Brad Kutner is the former editor of GayRVA and RVAMag from 2013 - 2017. He’s now the Richmond Bureau Chief for Radio IQ, a state-wide NPR outlet based in Roanoke. You can reach him at BradKutnerNPR@gmail.com




more in politics

Letter To The Editor | The Quiet Erasure of America’s Poor

Disclaimer: The following is a letter to the editor. It represents their personal views on this issue. RVA Magazine is committed to providing a platform for community voices on important local matters. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those...

Echoes from the Sea | Part I: Into the Deep End

Editor’s Note: Mark Pryor isn’t a journalist. He’s not a career aid worker or a social media activist. He’s a regular guy, a bartender in Richmond, who took a month off from Get Tight Lounge and a few other familiar haunts to volunteer with Sea-Watch, a German...

Echoes from the Sea | Part IV: Waves That Don’t Break

Read the first chapters HERE. May 8th, 2025 RHIB crew about to head out. Photo by Kenya-Jade Pinto The call came over the night radio channel to prepare for rescue at 4:40am. A small fiberglass boat with about 50 people on board, according to Alarm Phone. The bridge...

Ghazala Hashmi Wins with Progressive Values

If there was a moment that changed the race for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor, it would definitely be when Senator Ghazala Hashmi delivered a speech in the bed of a pickup truck outside of a protest against Governor Glenn Youngkin in Church Hill....

Richmond Showed Up. Now the Real Work Begins. Get Involved.

Richmond showed up this weekend. We’ve got to hold our leaders accountable—applaud them when they get it right, and hit the streets when they don’t. But protest is just one part of the work. If you were out there—or even if you wanted to be—don’t let it end with the...