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What’s up with the Farmer’s Market in Shockoe?
Richmond is booming and reading updates like this from McCormack’s where there is such a negative and direct impact on operations, revenue and opportunity is concerning.
From the McCormack’s Irish Pub Facebook page:
This is an example of the failure of the city of Richmond.. Its sunny and 50 degrees at 11 am on a Monday in December and there are zero workers here on this block.. Haven’t been any for weeks actually. This site looks exactly the same as it has for 3 weeks. How the hell does the city expect our businesses to survive when they took 160 parking spaces from us in an area desperately needing parking and leave what looks like a bombed out crater for months with ZERO progress happening?
Reading this reminds me of an article posted from Richmond Bizsense where developers met with numerous and long permit delays from the city.
Mac’s not wrong…
Who ever the city planner is needs to be fired. You cant find a street running from the bottom to Roseneath Ave. and parallel from Cary to Leigh St. that doesnt have construction on it. Wait till we have no money in the coffers to finish the work because of in expected items that needed to be fixed.
Too bad they can’t coop the workers from the 1903 E. Marshall site. Those doods work 7 days a week. They worked Thanksgiving! That’s the difference in public/private I suppose. A lawyer on this board should chime in, but if it were me, I’d contact my insurance company and see if they can file for some loss-of-business remediation funds. Hell, pool all the businesses on that block and maybe the city will take notice. It’s totally unacceptable. I know the businesses on Broad are singing the blues about BRT, but I feel this distruption is a bigger hit. IMHO.
Whom should be contacted to provide answers for this? Between the “bus line” project and this, business owners & residents of Church Hill deserve an explanation or at least updates on progress. Or lack thereof. Who has ownership of this type of project?
Richmond City’s goal right now is to snarl traffic in the downtown area and make it as difficult as possible for businesses to stay in operation. They are meeting and exceeding that goal!
This really is ridiculous and frankly the businesses there should get lawyers and let the suing begin so that the City has a choice to either compensate these businesses for lost revenue or get their azz in gear!
Gustavo, I expect the current lack of action at the Farmers’ Market has nothing to do with the City’s permit issues – that was the problem for about a year or so and just one of the many ridiculous reasons why this project is several years behind schedule. Whatever the reasons for the current lack of activity, they can be traced directly to the incompetent management of Jeannie Welliver and the City’s Dept of Economic and Community Development. Maybe the fact that the bid was given to the same company that is currently redoing Monroe Park is the reason – they don’t have the workers to do both. Whatever the reasons, it is a continuation of years of neglect and disrespect by DECD for the Shockoe Bottom community.
This is a travesty, as usual, with the city. Quick to tear things down but slow, or never replace it with what they say. All you have to do is look at Broad Street.
you get what you vote for
Seems to me there is an alterior motive. Cause economic difficulty to the local businesses and they will close then there will be plenty of room for whatever the local government wants. Like maybe a new baseball stadium.
The delay is to allow construction contracts to expire, then quietly assign the most lucrative to the mayor’s supporters and family.
It is fairly easy to do when all the inspections by city officials can be delayed or cancelled, which stalls payouts to existing low-bid contractors. Beware doing business with the City…remember the flood wall that flooded Shokoe bottom?
How old is the farmers market that it never reached it full potential and what will it be turned into? And yes the neglect to finish a project is hurting the economic potential and the promise of return customers.
@3 I completely agree, it’s unacceptable. And the Pulse problems are a concern too, no parking and access all along Broad is horrible. @4 As to the Farmer’s Market, there was an article in something, maybe Style, a few months ago that it’s a project of Enrichmond Foundation but I don’t know who is administering the construction, prob. the city. I think the whole idea is a waste of money – no parking, a pedestrian area supposedly to benefit the businesses that are being ruined during construction. @4 you might start with the Enrichmond Foundation, I’d be curious to see what you find out.
This is from the Enrichmond Foundation’s website:”For over 25 years, Enrichmond—a non-profit organization—has supported the City of Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities through citizen involvement, education, and fundraising.
In addition to organizing and managing the 17th Street Market and its Farmers Market in Historic Shockoe Bottom and a variety of festivals, Enrichmond acts as an umbrella non-profit organization for over one hundred volunteer groups and special initiatives and ‘Friends of’ groups we call ‘Partners.’ Through our efforts, we help provide an increased level of accountability and transparency when and where private donations are made. “
I agree,and have been saying this for at least 20 years! How ever runs the city planning etc ..needs to be fired! I’m so embarrassed to live in a place that’s so far behind in the times,look at the so called rapid bus thing… Still np real progress, just mess.. and who in the hell thought of that idea of a rapid bus thing anyway?? We are better off w a rail system..waste of money..it’ll fail just like past ideas here.. so called downtown needs real shops,not empty ,uptiy businesses
@12 Alex…the last photo and article I read is that it will be an open air venue/pedestrian area. I took it to be along the lines of the outdoor mall’s in Charlottesville and Arlington. The dream of an indoor farmers market like in other cities has long been put to bed.
This city sucks at development and monies spent. Look at the ridiculous mosquito bog of a canal walk !! 100s Millions ninto that failure. A flood wall that kept the water in!!! And now this. Tearing apart an area with complete disregard to the businesses that are open during this mess!! In regular contracting world the project managers would be for d and companies sued. But when you are spending tax dollars I guess it doesn’t matter huh. Even if it’s private. Someone should be held accountable.
Richmond….it’s beginning to sound a lot like corrupt Atlanta….
The city’s economic development programs are a dumpster fire. Sometimes you get bad deals like the training camp and Stone’s (nice brewery but a horrible deal for the City and competing restauranteurs). Sometimes you get stupid deals like the new train shed which was built without any plan for its usage but with a new annual maintenance tab for the city. Sometimes you get ineptness like the never-ending saga of the baseball park. And sometimes you get unfinished projects like the Farmer’s Market. What you never seem to get are successfully executed programs.
Next up? Get ready for a redevelopment debacle around the Coliseum. The mayor pushes aside proven business people who can actually execute a plan and says the City will manage it. If you think it will end well, you must think you are receiving tremendous value for property taxes 1/3 higher than Henrico.
This is a city that cannot keep a lid on crime, cannot keep the roads paved better than a third world country, and cannot keep vermin and mold out of the schools. Why would anyone think they could be build something new and do it competently? We keep asking the City to run when it can’t even roll over, never mind crawl. And our Councilwoman? Doing zero to hold anyone accountable.
The Farmer’s Market project has been a long time coming and a lost opportunity. I liked the original proposal which was to build a replica of the brick multi-story indoor market building from the 1850s. It was to be a market on the first floor and businesses on the upper. It had courts for walking and relaxing along with proposed statues.
@18 Kanzensakura… consider the demographics when comparing.
This is what happens when small time churpers bite off more than they can chew.
Thank you for the information
I think it’s the 2nd oldest in America
I love the city of Richmond.so much history. Its needs lots of help. Lets stop complaining and figure out a way you help.
we all could help.
I think you have too many people at City Hall who needs to be replaced, who push personal agendas over the needs of the community as a whole. And projects end up not being thought out, while they line their pockets with the money needed for them while they watch one another’s back. Need someone from the outside to come in and evaluate the city to clean house! Too many Indians and not enough chiefs, running the place, as they say.
It can’t be a problem with permits since it is the city doing this. It can’t be a problem with staff since they can send out 3 trucks full of workers to replace one brick in a sidewalk and then sit in their trucks for 2 hours afterward (I saw this happen in front of our house a few months back). We had plenty of good days to work, as mentioned.
And the city couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about the problem of retailers, or how the city looks to tourists. They never have.
Ah, for all here who’re placing blame on the city administration, our new mayor has just touted his first year by claiming he’s fixed everything at city hall. Got to look for another culprit.
When I was a child, the market booths were full of farmers and fresh foods. Growing up in the east end, the market and the fish market stores is where we got our food. We didn’t have a grocery store nearby.
@24 Agreed. Let’s start by no longer electing dilettantes and political climbers to office with no experience managing anything close to a major city, and get serious about putting qualified people in place. Unfortunately, that means three more years of suffering under the current dilettante and political climber before real change is possible.
And the poor people working the Farmer’s Market are suffering too because of the incompetence of the city.
“Richmond is booming…” perhaps for awhile longer. There’s already a noticeable trend nationwide of people leaving cities. There seem to be multiple reasons but one biggie is high taxes and low services.
Like Richmond which uses your tax dollars to fund art projects but not provide its nearly 250,000 people with a second dump.
Like Richmond which is using your tax dollars to fund bus stop shelters along Main and Broad (while putting businesses OUT of business) while cities throughout the country are doing away with their bus stop benches and shelters: Anaheim, Cincinnati, Detroit to name a few.
Richmond, why are we always behind the curve?
@31 lanny… I am not sure the method to their madness in other cities who have removed bus shelters. I think they are needed especially in bad weather and carrying things with you. Just maintain the older smaller ones. The monstrosities they are building now along Broad is going to create traffic problems and wonder why they scrapped the center median rail system proposed a few years back?
Guess what you get when you vote for the losers who have.been running the city since 1980.
Went to look at a roofing job down there… Absolutely no access — walked by many businesses— thought I was in a third world country
Jamaal Mayes I thought the structures that are being torn down where new like recent 10 or 15 years
Government can’t win the perception game with some people. When it subcontracts work out to the private sector and the work finishes on time then private industry gets the credit. If the project takes far longer to complete then government takes nearly the full blame and the private subcontractor performing the work takes nearly none. I’m certainly not saying the government is blameless in this instance. But it would be nice if the Richmond Times Dispatch did the dirty work of unbiased investigative journalism on these issues rather than just lazily having hacks editorialize based on assumptions and partisan bias.
As for Richmond being a high tax jurisdiction? I’m familiar with other cities like Portland, Milwaukee and Columbus were a 300k house would have property taxes in the 7000-10000 per year range. In Richmond such a house would be about 3600.
Richmond is not a high tax jurisdiction compared to New England where I grew up. It is a high tax jurisdiction compared to Henrico and Chesterfield.
Given your example of a $300,000 house, your tax would be:
Richmond: $3,600
Henrico: $2,610 (27.5% lower)
Chesterfield: $2,880 (20% lower)
Car taxes are also slightly higher than the counties. Meals taxes are higher than Henrico’s and Chesterfield doesn’t even have one, I don’t think.
We’re not a high tax jurisdiction in a national sense. In a local sense? We most certainly are. Some of it is due to all the non-taxable property in the City. Some of it is due to a greater concentration of folks in need. Some of it is due to historic tax abatements that have helped turn Church Hill around. But at the end of the day we pay more in taxes for lower quality services than our nearest competitors. That’s not a good thing.
I think we should all go to McCormick’s and have a beer right now.