In Jackson Ward, a new Ronald McDonald House will offer respite and care to far more families

Under city code, the 50-unit building planned for an irregularly shaped lot in Jackson Ward is a lodginghouse. But to the families who will reside there while their sick children get treatment at nearby hospitals, the building will be nothing less than a home and a haven. 

“People associate us with just housing,” said Emily Rippy, director of marketing for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond. “But we do so much more.” 

Earlier this month, the Richmond City Council gave its blessing to the group to construct a spacious three-story building surrounded by a garden and play area on a vacant 1.6 acre lot at 505 West Leigh Street. When complete, the new Ronald McDonald House will be able to serve more than five times the number of families it can currently put up at its aging house in the Fan. 

For people like Nina Pearl, a Chesapeake resident who has been coming to Richmond since the beginning of the year to get treatment for her son, that will mean more flexibility. While she loves the Ronald McDonald House’s Fan house — “It’s a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood,” she said — the building’s nine bedrooms can’t always accommodate her family if she and her husband have to bring their other children to Richmond. Nor are all the rooms accessible for people with mobility or other issues. 

“There’s not always a room big enough for all of us,” said Pearl. 

All of that will change with the construction of the West Leigh building, which in addition to its 50 rooms will have a community meeting room, private rooms for counseling and family reflection, two kitchens, a play room and an outdoor play area. Four of the rooms will be suites designated for immunocompromised children and their families, and special bathrooms designed for people with disabilities will also be built. 

“We’re not just serving more families, we’re serving more families better,” said Rippy. 

In many ways, the expansion couldn’t be timed better: Demand for pediatric care is on the rise in Richmond, fueled particularly by the construction of the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU's 16-story, 72-bed Children’s Tower in the city’s downtown. That facility opened in 2023; just a year later, VCU announced it was planning to add more beds for neonatal intensive care and surgical uses. St. Mary’s too is expanding its neonatal intensive care unit and adding a critical care tower that will serve children and babies as well as adults.

Kate Marino, a spokesperson for the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU, said that last year VCU saw a 40% increase in acute pediatric care, a 25% increase in pediatric surgeries and a 20% increase in pediatric emergency room visits.

“This exponential growth translates to more families in need of medical hospitality,” she said. 

‘A beacon’

The first Ronald McDonald House opened in Philadelphia in 1974 with the goal of not only providing the families of sick children a free, comfortable place to stay during treatment, but also offering them free, home-cooked meals and other services like laundry. 

“What the Ronald McDonald House does is it allows families to breathe,” said Dr. Eric Freeman, a Richmond native who opened Old Dominion Pediatrics off Midlothian Turnpike in 2012 and also serves as an assistant professor at VCU School of Medicine. “It allows families to not worry about anything except focusing on the recovery of their child.” 

The Richmond house opened in 1980 using funds pledged by 26 owner-operators of McDonald’s outposts in the area. It was the 16th Ronald McDonald House in the world. 

Ever since, the Monument Avenue building has served families facing some of the toughest chapters in their lives. Many come from miles away and don’t have the resources to get a hotel for an indefinite time period.

Because every child and every diagnosis are different, every sojourn at the house is different. Some families stay for just a night, while others may be there for weeks or months on end depending on what kind of treatment is needed. On average, the stay in Richmond is eight nights, according to Chief Development Officer Anne Cabot Galeski. 

“It’s a big help,” said Pearl. “It’s helped us financially. We don’t have to pay for a hotel every time we come. They cook every day. We love that. The kids love going in the kitchen and getting snacks.” 

For many, the Ronald McDonald House offers rare moments of normalcy amid unpredictable times and a flood of new and sometimes changing information. It looks more like the home a child is used to than a hotel does, and it has space where kids can play and where adults can either find needed solitude or companionship with others who are undergoing similar experiences. 

“It just helps to know I’m not by myself with the struggle,” said Pearl. “It can get lonely having a special needs child.” 

Those services aren’t just a nice thing for patients and families to have. Marino of VCU said that “keeping families close helps improve patient experience, medical outcomes, and our ability to help patients from across Virginia, the U.S. and beyond.” 

Freeman put it simply: “The Ronald McDonald House is a beacon for the Children’s Hospital.” 

A transformational project for Leigh Street

As the years have passed, however, the Monument Avenue house has begun to show some strain. 

“It’s an old Fan house,” said Galeski — with all the quirks and frustrations that a circa-1913 structure brings. 

The organization has adapted however it can. If the house is full or a family has accessibility needs (only one room in the Monument home is handicap-accessible), the group will put people up in local hotels. It has also developed special residence rooms at both the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU and St. Mary’s that offer beds for 15 people and allow families to be under the same roof as a child who needs to stay in the hospital overnight. 

Galeski said Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond started thinking about building a new facility eight or nine years ago, especially as plans for the new Children’s Tower got underway. But with such a major endeavor, “this is a conversation that’s not been taken lightly,” she added. 

There were a few starts and stops. A new Ronald McDonald House was included in the failed Navy Hill plans, which would have redeveloped a block between 9th and 10th streets and Leigh and Clay streets for that use. 

Then, in late 2024, the group was able to buy the Leigh Street parcel from the VCU Real Estate Foundation, which had acquired it in 2015. Now a grassy, vacant expanse surrounded by a fence, the property was previously the site of the now-demolished Belvidere Medical Center. 

This March, the Ronald McDonald House launched a $40 million capital campaign for the project. With construction expected to start in fall 2026, more than half of that pot of money has already been raised, including a major $2 million donation from Rob and Jean Estes of Estes Express Lines.  

Because the Leigh Street site was zoned multifamily residential, the project also had to secure a conditional use permit from the city — a process involving Planning Commission review and a signoff from City Council. 

That approval was granted Sept. 8 in an ordinance that also limited any use of the new building as a lodginghouse to the Ronald McDonald House, a protection intended to keep less scrupulous operators from acquiring the facility down the road and running it as a business that could be disruptive to the surrounding Jackson Ward neighborhood. (The Richmond Ronald McDonald House is adamant that it has no intentions to walk away from the building it’s planning.) 

Jackson Ward has welcomed the new facility with open arms. In a letter to the City Council, Historic Jackson Ward Association President Janis Allen said the project would have “a profound and positive impact on our community.” 

“Beyond the immediate support for these families, we recognize that this project will also enhance the vitality of our historic neighborhood,” she said. “The addition of the Ronald McDonald House will bring new energy to West Leigh Street and serve as a symbol of compassion and community care, further strengthening the ties that bind us all.” 

For people like Pearl, the plans offer yet another sign of hope. 

The Ronald McDonald House is “a gift that keeps giving,” she said.  

Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org. VCU and Rob and Jean Estes are donors to The Richmonder, but did not influence or review this story.