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It’s On: Richmond’s Next Mayor Must Deal With A Changing City

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While the presidential election remains at the forefront of news coverage, Rich Meagher reminds us that for Richmonders, the most important election of 2020 might be that of the city’s next mayor.

Everything is politics these days. Thanks to the Democratic Party’s takeover of the state legislature, we’ve seen more laws than we can follow. Super Tuesday brought a gaggle of Presidential candidates to Virginia, and helped reset the race for the Democratic nomination. Richmonders might not have had time to catch their breath, let alone think about what might be the most important political question this year:

Who will be Richmond’s next Mayor?

Second District Councilwoman Kim Gray made her long-rumored campaign official when she announced her candidacy on Sunday. Local lawyer Justin Griffin, who was a vocal critic of the recent Navy Hill arena development plan, is “exploring” a run. And at least according to one report, another Navy Hill critic, longtime political operator Paul Goldman, is collecting signatures as well. Others may step up before the June 9 filing deadline. And then of course there’s the incumbent, Levar Stoney, who will certainly run for a second term.

All of these candidates will have to reckon with a city that is, in many ways, transforming before our eyes. The same old political formations exist, but they are overlaid with new power sources and new voices.

The Mayor just learned this lesson the hard way, with the aforementioned two words he is bound to hear a lot this fall on the campaign trail: Navy Hill.

The downtown development plan was supposed to restore the eponymous neighborhood to its former glory, as well as to help secure for Stoney a second term and a political future. Instead Navy Hill was blocked by a coalition of City Council members, including the Mayor’s now-opponent Kim Gray.

The Richmond Coliseum, which sits at the center of the proposed Navy Hill development. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe

The Mayor and the plan’s developers tried to force Navy Hill through in the same way that these development plans have always worked in the past. First you bring city elites on board – not just the Mayor, but familiar white business leaders (Tom Farrell, Bill Goodwin, C.T. Hill, Marty Barrington). You recruit support from black political leaders like former Council President Michelle Mosby, and enlist respected local non-profits like the Better Housing Coalition. You leverage these folks (and your tremendous wealth) to put pressure on City Council from above and below. Political scientists call this “growth machine” politics, and it typically gets your plan through.

Only this time it didn’t work.

The city has changed, and not just in the number of beer bros and tattoos. There is a new political class forming in the city – younger, with varied influences.

We saw the first obvious signs of this change when the city’s Democratic organization was forced by the state party to throw out its election results. J.J. Minor, a longtime power broker in the city, was forced out in favor of new blood. (Minor, the son of state legislator Dolores McQuinn, is a key Stoney ally and stumped hard for Navy Hill.)

More recently, opposition to Navy Hill, public housing “reform,” and other city policies led to the formation of Richmond for All, a biracial coalition including prominent voices like WRIR radio host Chelsea Higgs Wise and School Board member Kenya Gibson. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), energized nationally by the Bernie Sanders campaign, have a vocal city chapter centered on VCU. A cadre of young citizen watchdogs, led by Francesca Leigh-Davis and Melissa Vaughan of RVADirt, live-tweet public meetings and share information.

A special election for the City Council’s 5th district seat last year featured some of these new voices. The district’s voters rejected older faces like former Council member Chuck Richardson and former Stoney advisor Thad Williamson in favor of millennial Stephanie Lynch. Former VCU DSA head Nick Da Silva also won significant support. It’s not exactly “a little child shall lead them,” but the city seems to want something new.

Now this November’s election looms over this changing political landscape.

Mayor Stoney has to try to mobilize citizens to keep him in office, and yet many voters were alienated by his two-year adventure with the Navy Hill developers. He has a number of other accomplishments he can run on, despite Navy Hill’s implosion. He had a lot to talk about in his state of the city address earlier this year, for example, including new aftercare programs for city kids and school construction.

Stoney reminded us of his powerful friends this past week as he appeared with former Governor Terry McAuliffe to endorse Joe Biden ahead of Virginia’s presidential primary. Stoney even had a fun viral moment when he and his mentor were trapped in an elevator for 30 minutes. (Trapped in an enclosed space with T-Mac: the worst nightmare of every Virginia Republican… and more than a few Democrats.)

But statewide Democratic officials are not city voters. Stoney will certainly retain the relentless positivity that is his trademark, but can his formidable skills and backing overcome the noise from his failed development plan?

Councilwoman Gray has her own baggage, particularly with what some critics think is an abrasive personality and an inconsistent voting record where her wealthy Second District constituents are concerned. These criticisms should be blunted by her lead role in the “Gang of 5” opposition to Navy Hill, as well as her successful efforts to push through the renaming of Arthur Ashe Boulevard. 

Photo via Arthur Ashe Boulevard Initiative/Facebook

Griffin is more of a wildcard. His principled opposition to Navy Hill made him a frequent presence in various media, social and otherwise, over the past year, and he seems to want to parlay a brand of common sense criticism into the Mayor’s office. But he’ll need more than complaints about city services to overcome both Gray and Stoney’s considerable advantages as incumbent public officials.

One thing Navy Hill’s failure has demonstrated is clear: the path to victory, as well as the way forward in governing the city, is much harder than it used to be. New forces are challenging Richmond’s old power structure, and anyone who wants to be Mayor should plan accordingly.

Top Image: Levar Stoney, photo via Facebook; Kim Gray, photo via Facebook; Justin Griffin, photo via Facebook; Paul Goldman, photo via Twitter

VCU ASPiRE: Engaging Beyond Campus

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VCU’s ASPiRE program helps students at Richmond’s largest college discover, engage, and make a difference in the city outside their campus.

VCU ASPiRE is a program at Virginia Commonwealth University that focuses on students learning about the history of Richmond, with the aim of sparking community engagement for areas of the city that are in need. Established in 2012, it has expanded its partnerships from campus-based organizations or organizations near the campus to habitat restoration centers in the northside, landscaping and renovations at the Oak Grove-Bellemeade Elementary School and community center, aided in renovations for historic African American East End cemeteries by finding lost grave markers, and more. 

During the last two years of my college tenure, I was enrolled in VCU ASPiRE’s community engagement program, and when I graduated last May, I received not only a bachelor’s in Health, Physical Education, and Exercise Science but also a certificate in community engagement through the VCU ASPiRE program. A native of Richmond, Southside born and raised — Jefferson Davis Highway and Terminal Avenue, to be specific — I grew up in the former murder capital all my life, and I have seen the city change. To quote Noah-O from his first visit on Sway in The Morning, “I’m from the RIC before it became RVA.”

I joined VCU ASPiRE because I wanted to bring my own perspective to it from a true local standpoint, having grown up in poverty, in the middle of food deserts and gang influences, living in a part of Richmond that was once highly known for sex and drug trafficking. It was an indirect challenge from an old teacher inspired me to become a part of the program. Mr. Stevens, my old math teacher from Thomas Jefferson High School, said to me months before my high school graduation, “Get out of Richmond — there’s nothing for you here.” Years later, I found a way to challenge what he had told me through working with VCU ASPiRE.

Thanks to the program, I learned more about the story of the African American neighborhood of Navy Hill, how it was torn down to build I-95, and how Jeff Davis (aka Route 1) was I-95 before I-95. I expanded my knowledge about the origins of Oregon Hill, learning that it was a blue-collar neighborhood in the 1900s. I even heard the story of the Richmond Vampire, who ran all the way from Church Hill to the Richmond Cemetery [more on the truth behind this legend coming soon from RVA Mag -ed].

By becoming a part of the program, my love for helping the community that I once starved in truly grew. I went back and volunteered at homeless shelters in Southside, and helped renovate the same community center where I used to work out, which influenced my eventual degree. The program also aided in connecting me to resources in the city that I can refer other people and organizations to.

In my second year at VCU ASPiRE, when I was able to do independent events for my required hours, I used my contributions to Richmond’s hip hop culture, such as organizing events and speaking at WRIR for Lovelace Magazine and HennyNCoke, along with lecturing at VCU, the University of Richmond, and Virginia State University in the same semester. The program even allowed me to get volunteer hours when I organized a community hooping session at the basketball courts in Randolph, where friends from ATL and artists like Mally Goku and Van Silke helped bring people out and donated food and drinks.

Through the program, I was also able to create volunteering opportunities at the Richmond City Health District when I was an intern in the opioid department, during my very last semester of college. In February 2019, I represented the program alongside other classmates at the National Impact Conference at UVA. For a former grade school dropout who once lied about going to college, I never could have imagined myself representing a university in a national conference coming straight out of Richmond. But VCU ASPiRE brought me there.

VCU ASPiRE helps inform students about the city, showing them how to find hidden gems well beyond the campus and the popular downtown and Carytown scenes usually affiliated with the RVA tourist brand. I’m grateful for the opportunities it brought to me and brings to many VCU students, and very appreciative of the program’s staff, including Erin Brown, Michael Rackett, Nanette Bailey, former staff member Samuel Brown, Nerice Lochansky, and everyone else invloved.

If you’re a VCU student and the opportunity to engage with your city beyond the campus sounds appealing, look into the VCU ASPiRE program at community.vcu.edu/aspire.

Navy Hill: From Thriving Black Community to Debated Redevelopment

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Richmond’s Navy Hill neighborhood was demolished to make way for interstates. Can a hotly debated city redevelopment plan make it a community once again?

Before it was the name of a downtown development plan, Navy Hill was the neighborhood Faithe Norrell called home. 

“I just remember it as a really warm community, where everyone wanted to know your accomplishments,” said Norrell, a retired educator who worked with Richmond Public Schools for 28 years. “A very nurturing community.”

Situated north of Broad Street between Third and 13th streets, Navy Hill got its name after plans were made to erect a memorial in the area for those who fought in the War of 1812, which was primarily a naval war. At first, Navy Hill was largely populated by German immigrants, but by the turn of the 20th century, it was one of Richmond’s most prominent black neighborhoods, along with nearby Jackson Ward and Carver. 

Norrell remembers Navy Hill as a neighborhood with a strong sense of community and equality. She recalls going for walks every morning with her “auntie” and stopping by to see friends. 

“There were professional people living there and people that were housekeepers, like my sisters… it was a financially diverse group of people, but everybody was treated equally,” Norrell continued. “You were as respectful to a custodian as you were to the doctor. You were raised to do that.” 

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, an actor and tap dancer famous for dancing alongside Shirley Temple in the 1930s, called Navy Hill home. Navy Hill was also home to other notable residents, including Maggie Lena Walker, the first black woman to charter a bank and serve as bank president in the United States. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service.

An interstate runs through it

Many of those who owned businesses in Jackson Ward would return home to Navy Hill at night. In fact, Navy Hill was significant in that many leaders of Richmond’s black community made their homes in the neighborhood. Maggie Walker, the first black woman to charter a bank in the U.S., lived in Navy Hill before she relocated to Jackson Ward. In the era of Jim Crow, Walker helped to foster entrepreneurship in Richmond’s black community. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, famous for tap dancing alongside Shirley Temple in four 1930s films, had a home in Navy Hill. A Bojangles statue perches at a busy intersection in nearby Jackson Ward, where he is credited with putting up the funds to install a stoplight.

Norrell’s grandfather, Albert V. Norrell, was a longtime resident of Navy Hill. His Navy Hill home was located at 1015 N. Seventh St., where her aunts also lived. 

Originally born enslaved, Albert V. Norrell taught in Richmond for 66 years, including at Navy Hill School, which for many years was the only school in Richmond with black faculty. A school in Richmond’s Northside was renamed Albert V. Norrell School. 

“One of his direct descendants taught in Richmond Public Schools until I retired in 2017,” Faithe Norrell said. “For 133 years, he had a direct descendant teaching or administrating in Richmond … we say it was our family business.” 

Though Faithe Norrell left Navy Hill in 1951, her connections to the neighborhood were strong throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She would visit with her aunts, who babysat her. 

“I just remembered the joy of being there,” Faithe Norrell said. “My family actually owned about four houses on that street, so we would just go from house to house.” 

A walk through Navy Hill today reveals a different neighborhood than the one Norrell remembers. In the remaining part of Navy Hill where homes, churches, and an elementary school once stood, Reynolds Community College and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical Center campuses now dominate the landscape. The Richmond Coliseum — which was closed in 2018 — and the historic Blues Armory stand unused. 1015 N. Seventh St. has been replaced with a small parking lot. 

“Individual citizens must be inconvenienced for the good of the community.” 

Construction of Interstates 64 and 95 destroyed Navy Hill in the 1950s and 1960s. An article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch from Aug. 2, 1955, details how the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike — now a portion of I-95 — would help people outside of Richmond make it into the city faster, and those living in the city would benefit from reduced traffic. But the story also noted that those living in the path of the road would be displaced.

“Unfortunately, the demolition of scores of dwellings and business places will create difficult problems for some of the persons involved,” the article read. “This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when individual citizens must be inconvenienced for the good of the community.” 

Another RT-D article later that month reported that 726 buildings, 526 of which were homes, were to be torn down to make way for the interstate. 

Then on Oct. 29 of the same year, a RT-D report noted that about 1,000 families in the Navy Hill area would be displaced by the construction of the interstate. 

Navy Hill School was demolished in the 1960s. 

“Because of gradual disappearance of residences in the section, what with the highway construction, there appears to be no other reason for the erection of another school,” an article appearing in the Sept. 14, 1965, edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The next week, another story in the RT-D noted that Navy Hill School would be demolished “to make way for an interchange of Interstate Rt. 64.” 

In 1966, Norrell’s family was displaced from Navy Hill. She said her family was so rooted in the community that many of them died within a year or two after being forced to move to another part of the city.

“You can’t kill a whole segment of people’s culture,” she said. “I’m sure when you’re planning things you can find a different route or a different way to build without having to destroy a neighborhood.” 

The Richmond Coliseum opened in 1971 and is capable of holding 13,500 people. It has been defunct since the end of 2018. With the Navy Hill Redevelopment Plan, the Coliseum would be replaced by a new arena. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service.

Development on the horizon

In November 2018, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney proposed a $1.5 billion project to redevelop the Navy Hill neighborhood. A new hotel, a GRTC transit center, and a $325 million, 17,500-seat arena to replace the Coliseum are all part of the Navy Hill Development Project. According to the Navy Hill website, no taxes will be raised to fund the project. Private investors will pay for the development.

The city will borrow money to pay for an arena to replace the Coliseum, and tax increment financing, called a TIF, will be used to pay back the loans. The city has created an 80-block TIF district where incoming tax revenue would be frozen at current levels and any additional tax revenue go toward paying back the arena loan. 

Jim Nolan, press secretary to Stoney, said in a statement to Capital News Service that the Navy Hill Development Project will “rejuvenate” the downtown neighborhood while also bringing in a projected $1 billion in surplus revenue that will go toward funding schools, housing, and infrastructure.

“We believe the project will greatly benefit the city because it will create thousands of jobs, build hundreds of units of affordable housing and a new transit center, include a goal of $300 million in minority business participation, and produce a new publicly-owned arena to replace the 1970s era Richmond Coliseum, once a public asset, now a public liability,” Nolan stated. 

Plans to redevelop Navy Hill have been controversial. Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder wrote on Facebook last month: “when I now read of the ‘rehabilitation of Navy Hill,’ I ask how can you rehabilitate that which has been destroyed?” 

Justin Griffin, an attorney in Richmond with a background in accounting and economics, said he started the website called NoColiseum.com to bring attention to problems he sees with the proposed development.

“It’s pretty obvious from reading these financial projections — they’re just absurd and overstated,” Griffin said. 

“If we were having an honest conversation … I think we would have a vast majority say, ‘No, you can’t afford that right now, we should put our focus and our money into schools and roads and the other city services that need to be caught up on here in Richmond.’”

Now defunct, the Blues Armory once housed the Richmond Light Infantry Blues. With the Navy Hill Development Project, the Blues Armory will house a market and a live music venue. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service.

At least two members of the Richmond City Council — Kim Gray, 2nd District, and Reva Trammell, 8th District — have voiced clear opposition to the project. Councilmember Stephanie Lynch, who won a special election in November to replace Parker Agelasto in the 5th District, said previously that she doesn’t support the project in its current form.

Griffin said the new arena and the Navy Hill Development Project are technically two separate projects, but are inextricably linked. 

“They will not consider anything without an arena … it’s the arena which taxpayers are going to pay for, that is going to drive people and dollars into the private developments,” Griffin said. “The people are going to own the thing that is most likely a liability.”

Griffin said that projects like this do not typically work, citing the Kansas City Power and Light District in Kansas City, Missouri. 

“If you actually look into the Power and Light District, it might appear successful,” Griffin said, noting that people do visit the district. “But from a standpoint that it actually makes a profit for the city and has benefited the people of Kansas City, it has not.”

City financial advisors Davenport and Company state that TIFs have been used across Virginia, including for development of Short Pump Town Center in Henrico County and Stone Bridge in Chesterfield County, a new development in the former Cloverleaf Mall. They say the funding approach has been used several thousand times, which “underscores the relative success of this structure.”

As part of the arrangement with the city, NH District Corp. developers said the project will include 480 affordable housing units, with projected rents ranging from $1,001 for a studio apartment to $1,717 for a two-bedroom apartment in 2023. 

Stoney has called the project “the largest economic empowerment project in our history.” 

Albert V. Norrell lived at 1015 N 7th St. His granddaughter, Faithe Norrell, spent time at the house when she was being babysat by her aunts. Today, a parking lot exists where the house once was. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service.

Meanwhile, Norrell said she would like to see Navy Hill become a neighborhood again. She also said she’d like to see any revenue that comes from a redeveloped Navy Hill be earmarked to improve public schools.

“So many people are being displaced in Jackson Ward because of gentrification … it’d be very rewarding for me to be able to see people move back into Navy Hill and make it a community again, because that’s what it was — a community of friends and neighbors.”

Written by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Interstate 95 runs through what was once Navy Hill. Construction of I-95 displaced many families living in Navy Hill. The destruction of Navy Hill is generally attributed to the construction of I-95. Photo by Jimmy O’Keefe, Capital News Service.