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BizSense Beat: August 16, 2024

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BizSense Beat is a weekly collaboration between VPM News and Richmond BizSense that brings you the top business stories during NPR's Morning Edition on Fridays.

Here’s a recap of the top stories for the week of August 16, 2024:

EDA Oks lease, development agreements with Flying Squirrels for new Diamond District ballpark
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Jonathan Spiers

One of the final pieces needed for construction to start on Richmond’s Diamond District was put in place Wednesday, as the city’s Economic Development Authority approved development and lease agreements with the Richmond Flying Squirrels for the project’s anchor baseball stadium.

The EDA, which will own the new ballpark that will replace The Diamond, authorized the signing of its side of those agreements in a specially called meeting that was held virtually. The result of months of negotiations, the agreements set the terms of the ballclub’s lease for the stadium and the venue’s development by an entity tied to the Flying Squirrels’ parent company, Navigators Baseball.

Under the agreements, which the parties are expected to formally sign in coming weeks, the ballclub is to pay $3.2 million in annual rent to the EDA for each of the first 10 years of the 30-year lease. The rent will then drop to $1.34 million for the 11th year and rise 3% each year thereafter.

The overall rent payment over the 30-year lease would total $66 million, city officials have said.

15-home infill planned beside centuries-old Grove Ave. house
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Jonathan Spiers

A stretch of Grove Avenue in Richmond’s West End is becoming a hotspot for residential infill developments, as a prolific area homebuilder is planning 15 new homes a block away from two projects that would add nearly as many homes.

Center Creek Homes is proposing 14 townhomes and one detached home beside the centuries-old house at 3923 Grove Ave., a 0.8-acre lot beside the Malvern Manor apartments two blocks west of the Interstate 195 expressway.

The existing house, which reportedly dates to the late 1700s, would be retained with the development, according to plans filed with the city last week. The new detached house would be built beside it, and the townhomes would fill the backyard in two rows of seven units with a courtyard between them.

Walter Parks-led group takes on the ‘worst building on the block’ in Arts District
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Mike Platania

A vacant Arts District building is set to get new life thanks in part to one of the city’s busier architects, who’s once again donning his developer cap.

Walter Parks is leading a group that’s preparing to renovate 2-4 E. Broad St. into over a dozen apartments, plus commercial space. The three-story building faces the corner of Broad and Foushee streets and is currently unoccupied.

Parks, whose namesake architecture firm is based just down the block on Adams Street, said that for the 20 or so years he’s been in the neighborhood, 2-4 E. Broad St. has largely sat unused.

Norfolk BBQ joint BarQ opening Richmond spot in former Starlite space on Main St.
Reported by Richmond Bizsense’s Mike Platania

In the early 2000s, shortly after graduating from the University of Florida where he played defensive tackle on the Gators’ football team, Jayme Campbell found himself in Richmond. He’d had a job at Circuit City, but the then-Henrico-based electronics chain was collapsing, so he took a gig working in the Fan as a bouncer at Starlite Dining & Lounge at 2600 W. Main St.

Now, decades later, Campbell is preparing to open a restaurant of his own in the same building at the corner of Main and Robinson streets.

Campbell recently leased the space for a Richmond outpost of his barbecue concept, Bar-Q. Along with Starlite, the space was previously home to Brunch and most recently SB’s Main Street Love Shack.

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