Richmond officials break ground on 276-unit Diamond District apartment building
Work is officially underway on the first privately financed building in Richmond’s 67-acre Diamond District redevelopment project.
On Wednesday morning, city officials were on hand for a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of an apartment building named Dōma that will rise next to the new CarMax Park.
The $80 million building, expected to be completed in 2028, will feature 276 market-rate units, a rooftop gym and pool, 4,000 square feet of retail and a 453-space parking garage.
Standing under a tent at the construction site, government officials and developers involved in the Diamond District celebrated the occasion as a sign of progress being made toward revitalization, despite headwinds the project has faced.
“It'll be the kind of place that people want to live and work and spend time with, and that attracts more people to Richmond as they come to catch a ball game,” Mayor Danny Avula said, noting that Richmond was just ranked second on LinkedIn’s “Cities on the Rise” list.
Other aspects of the Diamond District project include a workforce housing site, an 115,000-square-foot office building with the Hirschler law firm as an anchor tenant, a park, a children’s play area and other green space.
Speakers at the ceremony credited both city staffers and private-sector developers at Thalhimer Realty Partners and other firms for keeping the project moving forward.
“This is not easy work. And it is not fast work. And anyone who told you it would be fast, they didn’t know what they were talking about,” said City Councilor Katherine Jordan (2nd District). “We are actually moving along at a steady, quick pace. When you think about all that this project has had to overcome, we have never lost the vision. We have continued. We have persevered.”
Ryan M. Kelly
The challenges facing the Diamond District project, which began under former Mayor Levar Stoney and former Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders, have included disputes and breakups between groups involved in the private-sector development team that won the project from the city and complex negotiations with Virginia Commonwealth University over the sale of Sports Backers Stadium.
More recently, the project has come under fire from Richmond Flying Squirrels owner Lou DiBella, who has had lawyers send the city a series of strongly worded letters alleging the project has drifted off track and demanding that the city treat the team’s business needs at CarMax Park more seriously.
Michael Phillips
But Richmond now has a long-promised replacement for The Diamond, and this week’s ceremony was meant to signal that more new things are still to come.
“There’s an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child,” said Sharon Ebert, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer for economic development. “And I would say that it takes a partnership to raise a village. And here we are today, about ready to really raise that village around you.”
Graham Moomaw
Ebert thanked Thalhimer’s Jason Guillot, who’s overseeing the private side of the Diamond District development.
“You never raised a voice. You never got angry. You never walked out and slammed doors or put your fists on the table,” Ebert said. “It was always: How do we make this work?”
Focusing on the details of the apartment building, Guillot explained that the name Dōma was “a play on the world domicile.” The apartments will have a wellness focus, he said, with “warm tones, hardwood floors, lush landscaping” and amenities like a sauna, cold plunge and a reflexology walk (a type of stone path meant to be walked on barefoot for health purposes).
“With Dōma, our goal was to create a retreat from the noise, the grind, the hubbub of Scott’s Addition, this urban environment.” he said.
About half the units in the building will be one-bedroom apartments, and about a third will be two bedrooms. The rest will be studios or a single bedroom plus a den.
Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org
