The804.com–Richmond VA Real Estate Blog

I got a nice comment from Don Harrison on my last post that I’ll republish here….

Thanks for the plug. Actually, when it comes to the arts in Central Virginia, having people on the fundraising and/or programming board who know what they are doing is the key to success.

The link below leads to an essay that recounts some recent successful performing arts and visual arts ventures. Check out how the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts fundraising campaign did with a mixture of arts AND business people on its board: http://styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=13682 

I have no doubt that many non-profits enjoy — as they should — corporate representatives on the board. But very few non-profits completely IGNORE people in the chosen field like VAPAF has. And now Mayor Wilder has.

And the problem with these Richmond all-corporate boards (as I understand it from friends intimately familiar with dealing with them): A lot of them rarely show up to the meetings, they are not versed in the field, they have no emotional (or artistic) interest in the project, some of them are very conservative and they end up doing what’s politically expedient or just going along with the crowd when decisions are made. Sounds great for a vibrant performing arts scene, doesn’t it?

You can imagine trying to schedule a meeting with this ragtag group of Fortune 500 CEOs (all blue bars in Outlook Plan a Meeting).  I giggle when I think of them coming to consensus over a hip-hop act (see second to last paragraph): Mike S: (puffing on a Philip Morris blunt) Petey Pablo is the shizzle, yo! Jim U: Don’t be a gump, son.  Crunk is so 2004, you feel me?  Board Chorus: Wu tang clan ain’t nothing to mess with…

Anyhow, I tried researching other “successful” arts centers to get an idea if CenterStage/Wilder are being out of line with a “corporate/non-arts” arts board.  Kennedy Center (no help here, this venue is unique in and of itself…I hear Condie is a decent violinist) and Lincoln Center (no titles to board member names)…I don’t know enough about the issue to figure out which midsize market (better comparison) arts centers are considered “best practices” in board governance.  If the board itself is comprised of good businessmen, then they ought to ask this very question. 

When you look at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts board of trustees  (cited in the Style article above), the trustees seem heavy on corporate types and wives of corporate types.  You start to see the artists in advisory and subcomittees (ie, Artistic Oversight, Art Acquisitions Sub-Committee, Museum Expansion, etc).  Perhaps, the next step of the CenterStage process is to develop a strong performing arts advisory board (with real checks and balances power).  The organizations housed in the future building would have to have a seat at this table: Richmond Ballet,  Richmond Boys Choir, Richmond Symphony, Theatre IV, the Virginia Opera, etc.  It’d also be nice to have some representation from the indie performing arts community not being housed.

As for SaveRichmond (kind of cool this website comes up first when you Google “CenterStage Richmond”), keep on ombudsing, man. 

Times Dispatch: Richmond breaks ground for long-awaited arts center
This is the now. This is the here. This is the possibility. This is the potential
Doug

So, have I swallowed the kool-aid after last night?  Look, it was nice to see the suits (some looking nervous) and hipsters w tats (apparently, beards are in, Weezer look out) walking hand-in-hand being led by a boisterous brass jazz band.  For one night every month, Broad St literally feels like Greenwich Village (ok, GV on a slow night with more vacants…ie, the Village in the good old days).  All the restaurants (27, Tarrant’s, Chez Foushee) were jam packed, the art galleries were humming (must have been a madhouse at Gallery 5), and the vibe in the air was good.  Christina Newton deserves sainthood (btw, support the Culture Vultures!).  You imagine if we could re-create this scene every night?! or even just every Friday and Saturday.  Could CenterStage with its pre/post-performance dinner crowd help make this vision happen?  Lots of folks are starting to flip:

As he walked, Shockoe Bottom restaurateur Mike Byrne (Richbrau) said he never would have imagined himself at the groundbreaking. He vigorously opposed the city’s meals tax increase approved in 2003 that launched the arts-center project.  He now supports the project because it’s smaller in scale and more control is ceded to the city. “Everything, to me, makes sense now,” he said.

Anyways, back to the kool-aid.  I’m soo ready (got my black Nikes on and everything), but that damn SaveRichmond just won’t let me take a sip.  Two back-to-back devastating critiques of the CenterStage project : You Might Still Have a Boondoggle… | The Sixth Street Marketplace of The Arts.  Must-reads.  Also, worthy of reading is Urban Richmond?: Groundbreaking Report & Discussion.  The author makes a great point about corporate boards being the norm for not for profit groups (just check out the boards of directors of any nfp in town.  You want bigwigs for their fundraising and overall influence):

***Update: So a friend who’s experienced in the non-profit world has told me that in non-profit governance, you actually want almost exclusive representation from corporate leaders. The theory is they’ll make sure that the program folks, who’re actually running the show, have someone with business sense to make sure their “hearts” don’t get ahead of their pocket-books. In other words, corporate types theoretically make sure that the money they and others are donating to the organization is well managed and spent wisely. The program folks, in this instance the arts community, should have oversight of the activities of the non-profit.

Since the dawn of man and the paintbrush, the arts have always had rich patrons (would there be a Shakespeare without a Wriothesley).  These days the Medicis are the Ukrops of the world (damn, that’s my second Ukrops reference today).  Like UrbanRichmond, the board of directors thing doesn’t bother me (many are representatives of companies that have already committed serious dollars to the project.  For example, MeadWestvaco has pledged $1.5 million.  Of course, those folks need to be at the table)…

In the end, it’s the taxes and mismanagement issue that is the basis for SaveRichmond’s most powerful arguments.

Despite big flashy, multimedia headlines in today’s TD (What’s going up in downtown Richmond? | Downtown Development Slideshow | Downtown Developments), as Urban Richmond? nicely puts it, “there’s no new information here”…I guess you need to cycle these same stories every couple of months as reminders.

Today’s important downtown stories are actually courtesy of Style and “LesterCat”:

• Canvassing the Neighborhood; With Richmond CenterStage and a project to fill vacant buildings with art, First Fridays hits a new level Nice overview of Gallery 5’s “Vacant Spaces = Artful Places” project. Hope to personally work with Tom Robinson soon on this project. See you at First Walk!
• John Murden is the Arthur Sulzberger of Richmond alt media (blog community). His latest genius is Carver & Jackson Ward News (see announcement).  It’s already on my regular reading rotation.  Hopefully, he can work the same CHPN magic with these two emerging neighborhoods.

Broad Street’s facelift continues…URbanStudies: 8th and 9th St. Office Buildings and Times Dispatch: Demolition to be done with care updates the demolition project of The Eighth Street Office Building/ Murphy Hotel.  Apparently, crews will be working very carefully, as there are nearby historical registry churches.

Last weekend, I went on a hike sponsored by the Richmond Sierra Club. Ralph White, head of the James River Park system, was our guide as we traversed the North Bank trail (past Hollywood Cemetery, Texas Beach, Maymont, and the Byrd Park Pump House) and looped back via the southern Buttermilk trail after crossing the Nickel Bridge (Forest Hill, Reedy Creek, and, finally, Belle where my legs started barking). The weather was perfect, and I kept pinching myself throughout the hike that I wasn’t on some part of the Appalachian Trail. Nope, I was smack in the middle of downtown Richmond. Ralph, who is a living Richmond treasure, was an awesome guide, almost, like a proud father showing off his prodigy daughter. He would rattle off all kinds of cool anecdotes: For example, did you know Richmond and Juneau, Alaska are the only two state capitals in the United States that have bald eagles living within its city limits?  

Our guide also revealed a little known secret of James River wildlife.  If you’re a fan of Animal Planet, Richmond boasts what can best be described as the “Serengeti” of Virginia every April.  This is the time of year when various fish begin to spawn upstream.  At the Manchester Dam fish ladders, you will literally see hundreds of enterprising birds of various species divebombing for easy meals.  It is an incredible, visual display of raw nature (within walking distance of Bottom’s Up Pizza?!).  According to Ralph, the best views are from the platform where the Flood Wall Walk meets Manchester Dam (parking lot at 7th and Semmes or the lot at the south end of the Mayo Bridge opposite Railroad Museum at 14th and 1st).  

Anyways, there was a nice community vibe to our hike as our greenie group collected trash along the way. In addition, there were LOTS of different volunteer groups out (the Unitarians, Mountain Bikers, and JROCers) sprucing up the trails and painting. For the first time in a while, I felt real proud to be a Richmonder.  Please consider joining, donating, or volunteering with one of the many River booster clubs: see Volunteering.

For some nice maps of this glorious 6 mile hike, see James River Parks Home and Times Dispatch: Explore the James . Or better yet, pick-up a $2 printed guide (proceeds support the parks) at City Hall (4th Floor), the Tourist Visitor Center on 3rd St, or Blue Ridge Mountain Sports. 

If it clears up this weekend, go take a hike!  Oh yeah, drink Harp, listen to the Pogues, and watch hoops, too.

Earlier this week, I was cheering on folks to attend yesterday’s Venture Richmond’s Development meeting.  Full of good intentions, I planned on attending myself and giving a full report and commentary.  Then 80 degrees happened.  I ended up playing golf and ending the day with some bass fishing.  Zero regrets. Now, the NCAA tournament has started, and  VCU is doing a Mason.  Putting blogging on the back burner.

In terms of the Venture Richmond Forum, thank God for other people (but not the Times Dispatch.  Not even one freakin article! (maybe, they’re working on a super-long Sunday feature))…Hopefully, Style’ll have a writeup next week:

KUDOS to JSI over at Richmond City Watch for this person has written a most detailed summary of events:

I attended the Venture Richmond Development meeting tonight and heard lots of great news. Hopefully most if not all of it is true. I tried to take notes as fast as I could but there was A LOT of information and they went very fast. Here’s what I got:

- MeadWestVaCo & Parking Garage to be delivered in 2009
- The new cathedral walk under the “spaghetti works” will be completed this July and have something like 100 blue lights illuminating the highway pillars. Houston supposedly has something similar.
- Federal Court House - Summer 2008
- M&R - No updates on which Hilton brand but they did mention 240 hotel rooms / 100 condos
- State Capital renovation will be complete in May 2007
- VCU school of nursing opens this week
- Medical Sciences building to be built on Broad (I believe where the old nursing school was) will be finished in December 2008 at a whopping $525 sq/ft. Most expensive in VCU history. Supposedly research space is very expensive to build.
- Critical Care building - Summer 2008
- VCU Monroe Park Campus
- The new Engineering building (between Main & Cary on Belvidere) will be complete December 2007
- The new student housing / parking garage (between Cary & Canal on Belvidere) will be complete August 2008. On the corner of Cary & Belvidere will be a full service Chili’s and Starbuck’s.
- Belting building - December 2007
- Biotech 8 - 76,000 sq/ft being built on 5th street will be green and have an additional 300 parking spaces. Only 2 more locations left to build on in the Bio-park (not sure if that’s the right name).
- CenterStage breaks ground in June 2007
- Capital trailway construction will start in Richmond this summer. They said the Canal Walk will be extended under the train trestle and they will put some type of canopy so any debris falling from the trains will be caught. Seems kind of cheap to me. I don’t know why they can’t make the canal similar to what’s already been built.
- Emrick Flats - first units close next month
- (not sure of spelling) Ecko Flats are the name for the conversion at Brook & I95. It will be 8 apartments targeted for students. I know somebody has mentioned this development before.
- The developers that own the vacant Lucky Strike factory are close (within a week) of “wooing” a Henrico company to relocating.
- Ironhouse Condos at 1333 W. Broad will be 56 condo units with 2 retail units. August 2007
- Ironhouse Aparatments right next door. August 2007
- Eagle Mill Condos on Marshall will have 30 units and be complete August 2007
- Cutter’s Ridge units are renting for $2400 - $2550
- Lucky Strike Apartments - Move in will begin September 2007 and finish in January 2008
- Rockett’s Landing - 20% of project is under construction - 3 buildings/250 units, 41 townhouse’s and 50,000 sq/ft of retail. Breaking ground on another building this spring.
- Southern Railway Deli opens March 20th
- Bistro 104 opened in the old location of Zuppa last week
- The National - SUMMER 2007
- ROTJ - Blackfinn (I’ve personally seen construction moving along quickly) & Blanc Blue (no sign of construction thus far) are scheduled to open June 1, 2007.
- Toad’s Place is booking bands for June 2007. No details on who will officially “open” the joint. Supposedly a Toad’s Mascot will begin wandering around Richmond in May to distribute flyers and generate awareness.
- I didn’t catch the name but a construction or architecture firm plans to build a two story building at the corner of Hull & Commerce in Manchester across from the McDonald’s. This was the first time the public has heard this news. Supposedly, the morning crowd was not given this information.
- Driving to Easy Street to grab a few drinks I noticed a packed HOME TEAM GRILL which I guess has just opened on Main Street in the Trolley Condos project.

Overall, it was a great meeting and I’m sure I missed some things but I tried to write down as much information as possible. If you have any questions feel free to ask, I’ll try to answer.

Buttermilk and Molasses waxes “curmudgeonly” with his NINE REACTIONS TO DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT. However, there is a soft spot in his heart for the indie businesses…

Call me odd, but I still delight in wandering city streets and popping into offbeat art galleries, music stores and cafes. And so I get excited when I discover that Plant Zero Cafe might be coming under new ownership soon, or that Tarrant’s Restaurant is thriving, or I see a new Ed Trask mural on the side of a Manchester warehouse. I hope the city, and its development team, have room for the world of small, independent business in its master planning.

Amen, brother!  I too will take two Chop Sueys over five Barnes and Nobles any day.