Rockett-ing Eastward

During Richmond's heyday as an old-America industrial city, not many would have willingly lived near Rocketts Landing unless they worked in one of the riverside factories there.

Then again, they didn't have $1-million riverfront penthouse condominiums at Rocketts back in those days.

Now, many years after the businesses that used to call Rocketts Landing home have closed up shop, one development team has breathed new life into the long abandoned acreage just east of Downtown Richmond.

Though virtually unused since the 1970s, the 45-acre, one-mile stretch of riverfront property is now bustling with a flurry of residential construction and big-time talk of future growth thanks to the grand plans of Virginia-based development team WVS Companies and former developer William Abeloff , who co-developed the first 260 Tobacco Row apartments and was founder and managing partner in Rocketts Landing LLC before selling it to WVS.

While it might just look like a new housing development being constructed in a once blighted section of town to some, WVS is actually building a new village - the Village of Rocketts Landing .

Construction is currently underway on a four-block section of the new development, which includes two modern condominium complexes and renovations on two existing warehouses, but the ultimate future of Rocketts Landing includes the creation of 20 city blocks of mixed-use development including lots of entertainment venues and a wide array of housing options.

Apparently, the idea of a new village in Richmond is pretty popular.

Though not expected to be finished until spring 2007, the Fall Line Condominium Building, which will have a total of 49 units ranging from $275,000 to $1 million-plus, is almost totally contracted out, according to Rocketts Landing sales director Marti A. Cooke . The same goes for most of the 60 units at the neighboring Sky Line building and a majority of the more economical units at the Cedar Works building, which will actually be a renovation of the old Cedar Works Ice Cream Freezer Plant.

"There was a kind of pent up demand when we first opened up," Cooke said. "Handling the overwhelming interest that we have been getting was a bit challenging but it has settled down to a steadier pace at this point."

Though the four blocks currently under construction will be completed next summer, WVS vice president Jason Vickers-Smith said the company plans to have four additional blocks completed every two years until the 20-block village is finished.

"In 10 years, the project should be completely done but when people move in next summer they will feel like it is a substantial project that is complete," he said. "Once completed, this is going to be urban and diverse. This is new urbanism but it is also old urbanism. This area used to be an old part of Richmond. All of the ports were along here and you had boats docking and goods coming into warehouses here and on the other side of the railroad tracks was where all of the blue collar workers in Richmond used to live.

"All of those neighborhoods have been knocked down over the years but this is really a part of urban Richmond, it just hasn't been in use for a good period of time. So we are putting it back [in to use] and it will no longer be industrial. It is a modern kind of use but we are trying to tie back to Shockoe and Church Hill and Chimborazo and Fulton. They are all big neighborhoods on our edges and we are trying to tie them all in together."

Established by Robert Rocketts in 1730 as an inland port and ferry stop, Rocketts Landing, as well as the East End as a whole, has definitely seen its share of industrial working life, which undoubtedly has something to do with Richmond's eternal Westward sprawl, but Vickers-Smith thinks that could all change with the new East Richmond development.

"When you say 'West End,' that means something in Richmond and Philadelphia and Washington and I think it was because of the rivers," he said. "The rivers were heavy work areas and people didn't want to live around machinery and factories and all of those kinds of things so there has been this tradition in Richmond of going west. But once all of the industry is gone like it is now I think it makes a lot of sense to look back East. The infrastructure is all here and it is so close to all of the amenities of Richmond, to me it makes a lot more sense to be here than to be 20 miles west of Downtown."

Rockett-ing Eastward

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