The Richmond Times-Dispatch has done their due diligence on the future of developing the current baseball diamond space, known as The Boulevard, into retail, housing, offices and entertainment.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch has done their due diligence on the future of developing the current baseball diamond space, known as The Boulevard, into retail, housing, offices and entertainment.
Currently, the 60-acre space between the Blvd., Robin Hood Rd, and a bit before Rhoadmiller St. makes up The Diamond and other city property which could all be paved to make way for condos, big box retail, and entertainment, according the presentation posted on the TD’s website.
The TD acquired a series of artistic renderings and sketches, and financial documentation related to the plan through a Freedom of Information request, meaning the city wasn’t might have been less excited to let these images see the light of day. But Tammy D. Hawley, Mayor Jones’ press secretary told the TD “… we are considering sharing the various images of what the site could accommodate, just so that people could understand the concept of how much space there is to develop.”
Either way, this proposal, submitted in April of this year to the City by a design firm called Odell, seems to be all speculative. The TD gives more details as to the financial impacts from this plan according to the obtained documents:
A separate slide in the April presentation says the renderings are based on 382,220 square feet of retail, 428,000 square feet of entertainment/retail, 960,000 square feet of office, a 35,900-square-foot conference center, 507 apartments, 541 condominiums, a 288-room hotel and 8,395 parking-garage spaces. The plan also envisions 263,700-square-foot fitness club and 174,600 square feet of medical offices as optional development on the site of Sports Backers Stadium.
Those numbers track closely with the square footage estimates used in the Davenport analysis, which predicts that the redeveloped Boulevard site could have an assessed value of $654 million to $721 million, but there are some differences, one of which is an increase in the number of parking spaces to 10,600.
City officials have said the square footage and use estimates were based on previous studies of the Boulevard and input from local developers, architects and economic development staff members. The analysis assumes that the Boulevard site would be fully built out by 2018.
