Richmond advances plans for City Center redevelopment

Mayor Danny Avula wants the Richmond Coliseum torn down this year to make way for a transformation of a roughly 10-acre area downtown.

Development plans for that area, the City Center Innovation District, include a new GRTC transit hub, housing and retail spaces.

“I’ve lived here for 26 years,” Avula says, “and this part of the city has never been activated.”
Richmond officials say the city lost out on roughly 200 events worth $257 million at the Greater Richmond Convention Center since the 7.36-acre Coliseum site was shuttered in 2019 because, they argue, the city needs more hotel rooms within a 10-minute walk. Richmond Economic Development Authority Director Angie Rodgers presented the Richmond Region Tourism estimate to City Council earlier this year as part of a renewed push to make the City Center plans a reality, after they were adopted in 2022.

“We have been looking at City Center as a corridor to Broad [Street],” Rodgers told a city council committee in February. “Part of the problem we’re trying to solve is how do we get people to move between these two very active bookends.”

For Avula, City Council’s decision in February to extend an EDA deadline for the Coliseum project and allow it to be redeveloped in parts was “probably the most tangible manifestation” of support for his vision of City Center as “a destination in and of itself, a neighborhood that has high-density residential and has lots of other reasons for people to come and be downtown.”

Proposals for the Coliseum’s demolition were expected to be announced by the Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority in May.

Next door, a permanent GRTC bus transfer hub is planned at 500 N. 10th St. that could feature residential and commercial uses in two towers. Following the transfer of the property from the city to the EDA, a request for proposals is expected to be issued this summer, and a developer could be selected by the end of the year.

“There’s still perceptions that parking is really difficult down here” at City Center, Avula says, “so part of this next year is activating the space in temporary ways like having pop-up activities or gatherings to get people in the rhythm of coming downtown and realizing downtown is cool, downtown is safe, [and] there are great reasons to be downtown.”