RECENT COMMENTS
Joel Cabot on Power Outage on the Hill
Eric S. Huffstutler on What is up with the Church Hill Post Office?
Eric S. Huffstutler on What is up with the Church Hill Post Office?
Yvette Cannon on What is up with the Church Hill Post Office?
crd on Power Outage on the Hill
Echo Harbor is dead, but what’s next?
05/09/2012 6:58 AM by John M
Style Weekly is reporting that the controversial Echo Harbor condo development at the foot of Libby Hill has been nixed:
Developer George Ross says he’s spending the next two to three months studying the riverfront site along Dock Street, which is a crucial link between Shockoe Bottom and Rocketts Landing.
Three years ago the plans included about 100 condominiums in towers as high as 12 stories, studding the riverbank just below Church Hill’s Libby Hill Park. But Ross is going back to the drawing board. “We have no plans to build residential at this point,” he says, although he offers no further details.
TAGGED: Echo Harbor
It would be nice if we could get another grocery store. The market just doesn’t cut it and the west end is now going to have 4 all within a block from each other. Plus they have the Kroger at Willow Lawn and the VCU Kroger. The Martins at White Oak is the closest nicest store we have…
Billy,
I agree with the need but suspect this land is probably going to be a little too expensive to be used as a grocery store.
It’s going to take something pretty dense for this guy to make his money back. Looks like they paid $5.25M for this parcel so they’ll have to get creative. Sure it was a peak of the bubble price, but developers got to make a buck. I certainly don’t foresee this place sitting vacant and a high rise seems almost a given with the price per square foot paid for the land.
A grocery store? Its a historic stretch of urban river front that should be utilized in such a way to compliment, protect, promote and respect its historic integrity and natural beauty, for all to appreciate.
The Kings Retreat Riverside Location!!!!!
Echo Harbour site is on the flood plain. Any use must consider that it would be under water when the river floods. It would best be a park that would celebrate the history of Rocketts landing which was Richmond’s port and gateway to Richmond for over a century. The confederate naval yard and the where Lincoln came ashore to start his famous walk days after the city was abandoned by the confederate. Near this area during the Revolutionary War General Lafayette encamped troops to protect the city after Benedict Arnold burned the Capitol. Later that month British troops returned and destroyed Manchester, but did not cross the river to continue the destruction of Richmond because of the presence of Lafayette’s troop. Ship yards on the site built ships during Civil War, Spanish American War and World War I.
I wish everyone who wants to turn some property planned for development into a park would explain to me exactly how much more they are willing to pay in property taxes to pay for the acquisition, construction and maintenance of all these wonderful new parks we’d end up with. Seriously, we can barely maintain the parks we have and people gotta live somewhere!
Fred, you make a point, but it is not like there is a shortage of housing in town. In fact, most of the new housing is not what would generally be considered affordable to the masses. So instead we build lofts and condos after lofts and condos and only succeed in moving a certain subset of Richmondites from one property to another.
Keep in mind that the VA Capital Trail is already planned to go through this site, and the recent riverfront plan envisions more continuous recreational space along the river. I think it’s useful not to think of this space as not just another potential park, but as a vital link in a broader riverfront. Ever ridden or jogged along the esplanade in Boston? It’s an amazing, extended park along the Charles River that is one of the city’s best features. There’s plenty of spots downtown for new office towers; we don’t need one here blocking off the river.
This is definitely going to be a sticky mess one way or the other. A lot stems back to the fact that the developer overpaid maasively for the land at the peak of the bubble and will need to find some way to recoup this loss. This guy has $5.25M tied up in the land and if the city wants the land, they’ll probably have to pay close to that amount to get him to give it up. I’m not real keen on that idea.
Screwing the guy out of it also doesn’t sound like a great idea. Nor does the idea of having skyscrapers go up in there so he can get a good return on his investment.
This is a sticky situation and I’m glad to see the developer being thoughtful and taking the time to listen to the community outrage. Hopefully the next proposal will be a thoughtful one that balances the developer’s need to make a living and the community’s desire to preserve an iconic view, while not signing Richmond taxpayers up to foot the bill for a bad investment.
If we’re just moving folks around, then how is it we’ve managed to add nearly 7,000 people to the city’s population from 2004-2010 (http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=county:51760&ifdim=country&tstart=1073624400000&tend=1278648000000&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false&icfg).
As to the shortage of housing, sure there may be vacant housing in some areas but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a shortage in other high demand areas. Housing isn’t one simple market. There’s rental and owner markets. There’s multifamily and single family markets. There are multiple sub-markets for different neighborhoods. You can’t just say “Oh look, there’s some vacant housing over there, must not be any housing shortage here”.
It doesn’t have to be a park. A developer could make money on a well-designed visitor’s center or museum, which could include shops (or shoppes, as seems to be more popular these days). Tourism is a big attraction here, so entry fees and tenancy would help with maintenance.
Fred…you have a great point, how many parks do we really need?
@ Human Badger…I agree with you to a point. We don’t really have a shortage of housing, but we need to attract more upper middle class to upper class people back to the city. You may be a native Richmonder and know this, but Richmond several decades ago had double the population it does now. Plus many of the residents of Richmond ‘city’ are on some form of public assistance.
When on when are people in control going to realize we need more working, employed, professionals etc. to return to the city. Look at our schools, we are unable to compete with any of the surrounding counties. If you live in the city and have children there are only about three elementary schools that are not title one. I don’t think there are any middle schools not labeled as title one and only one high school Thomas Jefferson. Richmond, used to be a grand city in it’s day, and it can be again if people would stop fighting gentrification and embrace it. Life is what it is, we live in the most wonderful country in the world. Therefore, anyone crying to me they don’t have the advantages of someone else (give me a break).
I was all for the developer building the condominiums at the end of Broad. How did we treat her…we said ‘NO WAY’. Therefore, the slumlord who owns most of the properties near the site ( also a church hill resident) is allowed to let them sit there run down. He has low assessments, and therefore, he is able to get away with leaving the houses barely at standard. If the developer had been allowed to build those condominiums, it would have forced the slumlords to pay higher assessments, and pushed them out eventually. I have lived in church hill for years, and have watched so many people try to fight progress. If you want the crime to leave, you have to be willing to take the gentrification + higher property taxes.
And yes, I do realize there will be some people pushed out of houses either owned by them personally or by a slumlord. However, it is life…there isn’t anyone reading my post that would not agree with me if he/she had a chance to make money on a deal of the magnitude of those condominiums. The ones who constantly write, “We don’t want poor people to feel pushed out” ( I agree we do not). However, life is not fair and we all know this by the time we are five years old and start kindergarten. For those of you who will try to contradict me and write I wouldn’t dare try to make money on the possible detriment of someone else ( save it). You are full of it and you know it. We are all-human and want to make as much money as possible. It is the American way…if you disagree with the American way of life leave or brain wash most of society to believe as you do.
Therefore, some of us will continue working so others can sit home and whine about how hard life is and unfair. No one ever promised me as a child life was fair, and I have learned it in many ways.
I am in favor of Echo Harbor…it would send more people up the hill. My recommendation to all of the people who try to control what someone else does with their ‘OWN’ property you should buy all the property for sale, and make all of it into parks. I am sure the owner of the land at the end of Broad will sell for the right price, and you can turn it into another park.
My memories of Echo Harbor were mostly of the initial proposal and I hadn’t really followed the subsequent ones. I took some time today just to refresh my memory on exactly what the last proposal was and was actually pretty surprised. Compared to some of the other crap we’ve seen developers try to foist on us recently, this development ended up in a half decent compromise and I’d say that I personally went from thoroughly opposed to cautiously optimistic.
Granted, this is the developer’s PR site so I’m still skeptical and I would hope a lot of due diligence would be done to make sure the claims are accurate and guardrails are set to protect our interests but there were some very strong positives for the overall community by the end of the iterations:
1. Compromise on the location of the buildings
2. Changes to heights to protect some of the site lines
3. Support for Chapel Island park
4. Public walkways along the river
5. Public boat docks
6. Within city (we’re not funding improvements to benefit Henrico residents)
It definitely is not the worst project we’ve seen lately. This developer ended up in a place that balanced creating something good for their customers with some public goods to offset their impacts on our neighborhood. That said, it could always be better. I hope the setbacks don’t spur the developer to become more hostile to the neighborhood. Their progress throughout the years on the design was a great start and hopefully this spirit continues into the next plan.
Interesting reading:
http://www.echoharbour.com/
(I could do without the affectation on the spelling of Harbor though…)
@15 – I agree with a lot of what you said but let’s be honest, this project was not going to lure any upper middle class families back to the city. These would have been small condos, not places to raise kids. There are also a bunch of similar projects already in the last few years that have attracted professionals back to the city and the schools haven’t benefited any from any of them.
That’s not to say that this project is bad. I just don’t think we should muddy the waters. Educational benefits are not cut and dry in this case and one could make the argument just as easily the other way (Echo = Church Hill less charming = less folks looking for single family homes move here = Richmond remains a place where young professionals live but then they move out = schools still suck). Let’s stick to the relevant arguments.
@Alex #17…I should have prefaced my posting with the positive changes to church hill in the past seventeen years.
I’ve lived on and off in church hill for seventeen years, and the area I currently live was very scary just ten years ago. However, it is now completely renovated. And I give many of the investments made in the bottom credit, plus as the young professionals grow older, they aspire to own a house.
Fortunately, for us there are still areas in church hill that are affordable (unlike the fan). The fan is beyond reach from single-family ownership unless you are part of the few who make over $100K a year.
However, I eventually want church hill to be better and more expensive than the fan. If any neighborhood in Richmond has the potential, it’s church hill. More people are discovering our neighborhood on an almost daily basis.
You may think I am a big dreamer, but in my opinion, church hill has the potential to be Richmond’s Georgetown or Beacon Hill. There are no private schools in church hill proper to know if I am for certain accurate. However, I feel we would have far more young people staying with children if we had a private school in the neighborhood. It would also possibly motivate the public schools to stop and take notice.
The people buying those condominiums at the end of Broad would have eventually graduated to single-family homes ( in hopes they would do their graduating here). I studied human behavior quite a bit in college + own quite a bit of rental property. The young, middle aged, single, and empty nesters who might buy those condominiums many times relay how wonderful it is living in church hill. Therefore, we have more people moving up here, and we will eventually be the Georgetown I dream we can be.
You wrote to stick to the relevant subject or “argument”…I do think my post was very long, but relevant. It just seems to me whenever south of Broad wants to approve something it is approved. There was and I hope still a chance for someone to invest as much money in the Chimbo area as the very contemporary building built at the corner of Franklin and 25th. streets. CAR was one of the organizations trying to prevent the development from going forward at the end of Broad. However, they approved the old warehouse being added too at the corner of 25th. and Franklin. It is a pretty contemporary style building, and so is Cedar and Broad.
I do hope you realize I am not trying to argue with anyone, and do enjoy living in church hill. However, sometimes it is very hard to stay up here knowning I have property in the fan, west end, Henrico, and church. There were two grand houses bought by me in church hill, and I would have bought more. But once I got a really good feel of CHA and CAR.. I decided to put more money elsewhere.
If a very contemporary design could be built south of Broad, why is this design wrong in other parts of church hill? The owner of Broad St. property was not technically in the Chimbo old and historic district + why does CAR not enforce the same rules for all property owners. There have been several houses in Chimbo’s district with vinyl siding installed. I have called CAR several times to report such activities (nothing was ever done). There was a new house even built on the 3400 of E. Marshall St. with vinyl siding. I agreed to allow a person build a house there, but not allow vinyl siding.
Sorry, I am off the subject of Echo Harbor… 🙂
I’m all for having a park, museum, etc…It would be pretty awesome to be able to safely walk between Main Street and Rocketts.
My only point was that if it ends up being another Rocketts type development, it would be nice if there was some type of retail space there, such as a grocery store.
Let George Ross lose money. It’s not like he doesn’t have money or is struggling. He made a risk, it didn’t pay out, oh well… We have tons of vacant sites and whole sections of this city that NEED to be rebuilt! I suggest start there, Lord George and his band of blind followers.
This location would be great for more riverfront restaurants and some shops which we don’t have on the river. Maybe a low-rise hotel… but nothing large enough to block Libby Hill’s view. Anything built has to be built above the flood plain and below the height of Libby Hill and that can be accomplished. I’ve hated Lord George’s greed ever since he proposed this project presented as a napkin sketch.
@20 – As much as I wish these developers would go to hell and stop threatening the fabric of our communities, that’s not likely to happen. What’s more likely is that they get their buddies in city hall some money and ram through a design that completely screws us if we try to shut them out. So our best bet is likely to be to try to find an acceptable middle ground.
@18 – If you’ve noticed my rants on the thread about Broad and 21st recently, you’ll know I’m no fan of CAR. Even those of us on Broad have to deal with some nasty CAR approved stuff. Both the one I’ve been venting about recently and the modern warehouse you reference are both Johannas projects and he’s on CAR so it seems he gets a lot more leeway. Everyone else gets held to a higher standard. Yes it’s probably a conflict of interest and yes it stinks. My guess is if the person looking to build some condos at the end of Broad had paid him to play, they’d be in business. Richmond will never grow into what you (and I) both would love to see as long as we have these inconsistently applied policies and a city that provides no leadership and has no coherent strategy. Pile on to that a massive stock of houses that slowly rot while deadbeat landlords do nothing, another massive supply of houses that are tied up in the schemes by French, etc. and mix in some toxic housing projects around the perimeter and it’s a pipedream that we’ll ever get this area to its full potential. That said, we can always hope.
@19 – restaurants are probably unrealistic given the price of the land under them. Not too many restaurants could afford the rent that would come a place built on $1M / acre land. Same goes for grocery stores. Not say I wouldn’t love to see them but I’m just being realistic.
If you think of it as a single restaurant or store maybe that is unrealistic. If it’s a commingled living/retail space it might be more realistic. When I moved here from Raleigh, they had just built a fairly nice apartment complex on top of a Harris Teeter North of the city.
Church Hill or any neighborhood in Richmond wouldn’t even exist if developers hadn’t invested in these areas. The historic houses in Church Hill we’re primarily built as investment and rental property back then. And make no mistake the people who built them or the manner in which they were built aren’t as noble an undertaking as people love to think. These were for profit ventures built with primarily Slave Labor and the owners were Slave Masters.
@23 – if any of my comments were among the ones you interpreted as saying “developers has a right to recoup his investments”, I apologize for not being clear. I definitely don’t believe this and am as free market as they come. It’s pretty obvious he made a poor investment (as did many Americans who bought at the peak) and should bear the risks of this. If he made a bundle, he wouldn’t be expected to share the rewards, so I don’t believe we are at all obligated to share his losses. That’s capitalism.
However, I was saying it’s important to keep in mind that he will likely try to recoup his investment. I don’t expect him to just shrug off this kind of loss. Given how favorable the city can be to selected developers (often at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer), this sort of thing bears watching to be sure we don’t get screwed. These situations are how we get sweetheart buy-outs at inflated valuations, projects with all kinds of negative externalities borne by the taxpayers, etc.
Not saying it’s his right to recoup, just warning that it’s only reasonable to expect that he will be working to try to do so (as IS his right). I don’t think he’s looking for something that only gives him back pennies on the dollar, at least until he realizes that there are no avenues open that offer better.