Brookland Park Boulevard Archives

GRTC Connects: Route 2 – Northside to Forest Hill

Wyatt Gordon | January 2, 2020

Topics: Brookland Park Boulevard, Brookland Park Historic District, Cafe Nostra, forest hill, Forest Hill Avenue, Forest Hill Park, gentrification, gentrification in Richmond, GRTC, GRTC Connects, Melissa Vaughn, Northside, Richmond and Manchester Railway Company, RVA Dirt, Westover Plantation, William Byrd III

The ninth installment in a monthly series in which a hometown Richmonder who has spent over a decade abroad explores the many different neighborhoods accessible by GRTC bus lines to discover the ways transit connects us all.

Northside:

If one were to make a Northside bingo game, the word that would be at the very center of the board — the freebie — would be “potential.” Whether you live, work, or just hang out at one of the area’s charming breweries, cafés, or restaurants, the waves of change lapping at each and every neighborhood are almost palpable.

Like the East End, “Northside” represents an amalgamation of many distinct neighborhoods, ranging from Highland Park to Bellevue and from Ginter Park to Gilpin. However, the one stretch of Northside that best encapsulates the area’s economic, demographic, and cultural change is Brookland Park Boulevard.

As streetcars stretched ever further north from Richmond’s downtown, developers plotted out leafy neighborhoods, often called “parks,” along each trolley line. The new residents enjoyed their easy connectivity to the downtown via the streetcars, but still wanted neighborhood establishments to cater to their needs. Thus in each development a commercial strip was set aside: MacArthur Avenue in Bellevue, Six Points in Highland Park, and Brookland Park Boulevard at the heart of it all.

Sandwiched between the wealthy neighborhoods of Battery Park, Ginter Park Terrace, Barton Heights, and the eponymous Brookland Park, this boulevard became one of Richmond’s premier commercial corridors, featuring banks, boutiques, bakeries, and even a theater. The former affluence is visible in the stately bungalows and American Foursquare architecture that permeates the surrounding neighborhoods.

*The spread at Shrimps. Photo by Wyatt Gordon.*

The White flight and suburbanization of the post-WWII era drained the area of its prosperity as residents abandoned property and fled the city en masse, seeking to raise their children in the “right” (read: mostly White) communities. Disinvestment and the prioritization of the personal automobile further damaged the corridor through razed storefronts and the addition of hideous parking lots.

The establishment of the Brookland Park Historic District in 2003 and the corresponding historic rehabilitation tax credits provided the first chance at rejuvenating the corridor for the Black residents and business owners working to spruce up the boulevard. Over the past five years, those seeds of growth have begun to blossom into a coterie of small businesses along the corridor, including Shrimps, Boogaloos, Michaela’s Quality Bake Shop, and Nomad Deli.

The more recent openings of a yoga studio, dog groomer, and coffee shop demonstrate that it’s not just longtime residents who see the potential of Brookland Park Boulevard. The claim that this will become a second Carytown both excites and worries nearby residents, depending on where they rank on the socio-economic ladder.

The proliferation of brightly painted front doors, state school flags hanging from porches, and fenced-in backyards serve as canaries in the coal mine of displacement. In 2012 only three percent of Barton Heights residents were White. Since then sixty-eight percent of home-buyers have been White, however. In another generation, much of Northside may become prohibitively expensive to those who pioneered the area’s restoration.

Although gentrification has made this beloved Northside corridor safer (minus the wild speeding and lack of pedestrian amenities), without changes to liberalize the surrounding neighborhoods’ zoning from single-family use only, many existing residents will be priced out of their homes. Ending the ban on multi-family zoning across Richmond, legalizing accessory dwelling units, and introducing ten-year averages of property values for taxing could all weaken the tide of displacement and foster a more inclusive Northside. If Richmond does nothing, then most current residents will be pushed into the counties before they ever get to enjoy Brookland Park Boulevard’s full revitalization.

*Melissa Vaughn. Photo by Wyatt Gordon.*

The Ride:

On Saturday mornings Brookland Park Boulevard can feel like a ghost town. Even the confusingly named Café Nostra — which often feels like a reluctant outpost of Black Hand Coffee Co. rather than a true coffee house — was empty save the singular employee behind the counter. With a smile and a joke about the lack of customers, we had our coffees in hand and were ready to catch the Greater Richmond Transit Company’s Route 2 southward.

Joining me for this month’s ride was long time Northsider, WRIR Volunteer Coordinator, and co-founder of RVA Dirt, Melissa “Busy Bee” Vaughn. Although we wanted the 2A or 2B that pass by Forest Hill Park, we were unwilling to wait another fifteen minutes and hopped on the 2C.

The 2C to the McGuire VA Hospital runs once every thirty minutes. The 2A and 2B that deliver passengers to Stony Point and Chippenham, respectively, only run once per hour. The overlap of these two until Westover Hills Boulevard creates a 30-minute frequency up to that point as well. This staggering of route variations allows the trunk of the line to have the desired fifteen-minute intervals, which studies show is the minimum frequency required at which people will choose to live car-free.

As we trundled through Barton Heights and Gilpin, the bus gradually picked up passengers until, by Broad Street, it was standing room only. The electronic display that shows the name of the next stop intermittently flashed the number for the housing crisis line hotline — an ingenious advertisement for anyone homeless who may have bought a bus ticket just to get out of the cold for a while.

A zippy half-hour later we alighted the bus along Midlothian Turnpike (thanks to our choice of the 2C) and began to walk down Dundee to the heart of Forest Hill, where its eponymously named avenue intersects with Semmes Avenue. After passing houses ranging from quirky to charming and downright spooky, we came to the stop in front of WPA’s Southside bakery.

Here the bench and trash can amenities GRTC installed are an inexplicable 50-plus feet from the actual stop. The inconvenience to riders waiting on the bus is clear. The reason the stop got moved so far away from its amenities will likely remain a mystery in perpetuity.

Forest Hill:

Anyone could guess the history of Forest Hill from 1728 to 1889. It should come as no surprise that a large swath of land just beyond city limits was owned by a series of entitled White men who took advantage of slave labor to build palatial abodes upon the grounds of their country residence.

It is only after William Byrd III squandered his family’s immense inherited wealth on gambling, bad investments and the boondoggle that is the mansion at Westover Plantation does the story of Forest Hill’s history get good. In an attempt to avoid bankruptcy, Byrd sold his family’s 179,000 acres of Virginia land and hundreds of enslaved people, but was still unable to fully pay off his creditors. Despondent, he committed suicide, leaving his wife and fifteen children to fend for themselves.

His vast estate on the southern bank of the James eventually landed in the lap of the Richmond and Manchester Railway Company. Seeing a chance to expand, in 1890 the company extended their Semmes Avenue line all the way down Forest Hill Avenue to 41st Street. From Manchester out to today’s Forest Hill Park, frame bungalows and homes built in the Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Mission Revival styles sprouted up along the route.

To incentivize ridership on their new route, the railway company employed an unorthodox tactic: they constructed Richmond’s first ever amusement park. Long before the dawn of King’s Dominion, River City residents would hop a streetcar south to ride the roller coaster and enjoy a day of merriment at Forest Hill Park. Beyond the big-ticket rollercoaster, the attractions on offer eventually grew to include a fun house, a carousel, a swimming area, a skating rink, a dance hall, a penny arcade, a golf course, a bath house, outdoor “moving pictures,” and even a boating lake in the former quarry on the premises.

The Great Depression heralded the end of Richmond’s first rollercoaster, and the railway company ceded the land to the City to become a public park. Between 1935 and 1943, craftsmen and stone masons sent by Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration tore down the wooden amusement structures, paved the park’s paths, and even planted an azalea garden. The work completed in that era laid the foundation for what has become Southside’s largest and most beloved greenspace.

Over the years Forest Hill has garnered a reputation as a placid, verdant corner of the city filled with large lots, quiet streets, and tidy single-family homes. The attractiveness of both its reputation and its location, however, look set to add a denser, more lively flair to the area.

Later this year, developers Birck Turnbull and Charles Bice will open a new mixed-use project at the intersection of Forest Hill Avenue and Westover Hills Boulevard, at the junction of GRTC’s Route 2 and Route 20. The new development will bring 38 apartments and 12,000 square feet of commercial space to what is currently a vacant lot. Anchoring the project are some popular Richmond brands: Charm School Social Club, a Boho Yoga Studio, Stella’s Grocery, The Veil Brewing Co, and Blanchard’s second café.

After decades of disinvestment and depopulation, it’s clear that Richmond is on the rise. The economic pressure of a growing local economy and job market mean Northside and Forest Hill are in flux. By channeling development onto two of the area’s busiest corridors, Forest Hill is charting the way forward for Richmond to accommodate our city’s growing population.

As a city, we face a choice as to what our future development looks like. We can either do nothing and thus allow the displacement of many of our longtime friends and neighbors, or we can change our zoning to be more inclusive and repurpose underutilized lots to build new housing along transit routes. Nothing can stop the gentrification of our city (and we shouldn’t even want to), but we as Richmonders get to choose our path forward: displacement or density.

Top Photo courtesy Architecture Richmond. Historic photos via The Valentine archives.

Where Will We Live When The Entire City’s Been Gentrified?

Marilyn Drew Necci | July 31, 2018

Topics: Blackwell, Brookland Park Boulevard, food deserts, gentrification, Manchester Historic District, median household income, Michael Hild, Safety Team Brewing, Savage Apparel, style weekly, The Dogtown Dish, Urban Capital Collaborative

Late last fall, my wife and I moved into our first house. We had gotten married a couple of months before and were really excited to get out of a tiny bedroom in a house full of roommates. We ended up renting a house in the Brookland Park neighborhood, just a bit north of the downtown area, and we really liked it. But almost as soon as we moved in, we started seeing ominous signs of gentrification creeping into our neighborhood.

You might think this is ironic — a white lady worrying about gentrification in the traditionally African-American neighborhood she’s moved into. And you’re right; there’s an extent to which my wife and I are part of the gentrification process. But I’m a trans woman married to another woman. Both of us have independent-contractor jobs that pay well below the city’s average per capita income. We live paycheck to paycheck, unable to establish a significant credit history.

All of these factors make it almost impossible for us to move into this city’s traditionally white neighborhoods, which are dominated by upwardly-mobile middle-class families with what people like to call “real jobs.” If we want to rent from a company that won’t screen us out during the application process, we have to rent from the same landlords that are willing to rent to working-class families of color. There really isn’t anywhere else we can afford to live.

But once the sort of younger middle-class white hipster types start seeing people like us — queer people, artists, and other cultural outsiders who thrive on lower income requirements (and, it must be said, are predominantly white) — on the streets of a particular neighborhood, they start feeling safe there, when they wouldn’t necessarily have before. Soon, the young white entrepreneurs with college degrees and access to startup capital are making plans for the area.

That process is already underway in Brookland Park. Richmond BizSense recently reported on development groups who are in the process of building a brewery and a “business accelerator” on a two-block stretch of Brookland Park Boulevard, just west of North Avenue. Earlier this year, plans were revealed — again by BizSense — for a $14 million apartment complex at the other end of Brookland Park Boulevard, right next to the intersection known as Six Points.

It’s clear what motivates such projects. Developers are watching the massive boom taking place in Scott’s Addition, spurred mainly by condos and breweries. They want in. And while it may be too late to buy into Scott’s Addition, they’re looking for places where the land is still cheap. A working-class African-American neighborhood on Northside definitely fits the bill.

Here’s the problem: unlike Scott’s Addition a decade ago, Brookland Park is not empty. There are already black-owned businesses lining the dozen or so blocks of Brookland Park Boulevard between Griffin and Barton Avenues. The intersection of Brookland Park Boulevard and North Avenue is downright busy during daylight hours. Granted, not every storefront is occupied, but many are, and residents of the neighborhood can be seen frequenting them on a daily basis.

Regardless, property values are not high, and developers noticing the northward progress of VCU students and youthful post-graduates into the area are jumping at the chance to snatch up undervalued buildings and get the gentrification process started. At the moment, the getting is good — Safety Team Brewing and Urban Capital Collaborative got their parcels of land, and the buildings that sit on them, for $25,000 each.

Savage Apparel bought their previous location, at the corner of Brookland Park Boulevard and Hanes Avenue, for $105,000 in March 2017. Less than 18 months later, they decided to move two blocks up the street, and were able to sell their old building for $250,000 — a 238 percent value increase in under a year and a half. It seems buildings around here get more valuable if white-owned companies occupy them.

When property values take a jump because new businesses seeking a middle-class (and, again, predominantly white) clientele move into the neighborhood, it’s only a matter of time before the local residents can’t afford the rent anymore, and longtime area businesses are pushed out in favor of hip new establishments brought to you by the next wave of middle-class entrepreneurs.

This is a cycle we’ve seen in Richmond for years now — one that’s been chasing me from one neighborhood to another in pursuit of affordable rents for over a decade. A laundry list of Richmond neighborhoods — The Fan, Oregon Hill, Scott’s Addition, Church Hill, Manchester — have been gentrified out of my price range since the early 2000s. But it’s not even myself or my wife I worry about. We have cars, we can afford to commute to our jobs from more far-flung locales. What happens to Brookland Park residents who rely on public transit when they suddenly find themselves having to move significantly farther away from their jobs just to find affordable rent?

The working poor aren’t exactly at the forefront of most people’s minds when they think about the revitalization of lower-income neighborhoods in Richmond. And who can blame them? The majority of Richmond’s residents don’t have a ton of disposable income to throw around. According to the 2010 US census, median household income inside the city limits was around $38,000; neighboring Henrico and Chesterfield counties had median household incomes of $60,000 and $71,000, respectively. For businesses within the city, attracting those county-dwellers into town with fun, quirky places to spend an evening is the surest way to make businesses profitable.

That said, it seems the question of what actually will benefit those living within the Richmond city limits isn’t asked nearly often enough — and local press carries a share of the blame, too often taking an overly credulous attitude toward any announcement of urban redevelopment. Style Weekly’s recent Best Of Richmond issue gave an award for “Best Revivalist Couple” to hedge fund CEO Michael Hild and his wife, Laura Dyer Hild, citing their work as property owners in the quickly-gentrifying South Richmond neighborhood of Manchester.

Speaking of the responsibilities of local press, Hild is also the head writer for The Dogtown Dish, a local web publication that has non-coincidentally expressed very positive views about developments that would directly serve its creator’s economic interests. In addition to multiple glowing reports about businesses the Hilds are involved in, the site also reports about a “development boom” in Manchester, and pushes the Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority toward “developing the enormous swath of properties it holds in its portfolio.” Reports like this might read differently once you know who’s writing them.

Of course, one aspect of that work involved a push to extend the Manchester Residential and Commercial Historic District (and its corresponding tax credits for developers) into the Blackwell area, which borders Manchester to the west, and is still a lower-income neighborhood — one considered by The Reinvestment Fund to be a food desert. One of the Hilds’ plans to revitalize Blackwell was to reopen the long-shuttered Community Pride location between Bainbridge and Hull Streets. They didn’t announce plans for the building when they purchased it, but other buildings they’ve purchased in the area now host a brewpub and an upscale donut shop, so it seems unlikely that bringing an inexpensive neighborhood grocery store to a neighborhood in need of one was at the top of their list.

The Hilds’ future plans for development in the area may very well come to naught, though; a recent decision by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, to delay considerations of expanding the Manchester Historic District into Blackwell until its potential impact on the community can be further studied, is a sign of progress. It shows that the voices of community residents and advocates are starting to reach powerful people who previously only had ears for developers. The Hilds responded to this decision by declaring that they would be aborting plans to invest $250 million into the area. This certainly isn’t the most positive result possible, but if that investment would ultimately have made Blackwell unaffordable for its residents, it’s hard to see it going away as an entirely bad thing.

From Blackwell to Brookland Park and beyond, the City of Richmond’s issues with gentrification need to be addressed. As a newly-married queer woman just trying to afford the rent, I don’t have any big ideas for solutions. But I know of a few questions that area developers — and those who watch over and report on their actions — should be asking. What happens to working-class residents when their neighborhoods are gentrified? Where do the minimum-wage workers that staff drugstores and fast-food joints go when they can’t afford to live within a ten-mile radius of their jobs?

Most importantly, what can those with power over Richmond’s future do to put those who actually live within the city limits first? Urban redevelopment is good, and it’s hard to have a problem with businesses moving into long-vacant buildings. But before we all thoughtlessly praise upscale businesses for capitalizing on tax credits and low property values, we need to consider how those who actually live in the area will be affected.

Photos by Sara Wheeler