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A Facelift

City Council unanimously approved an $80 million facelift for the Broad Street corridor downtown at its regular meeting Monday night.

The ordinance created the Broad Street Community Development Authority , which will sell the $80 million in bonds to private investors to finance the redevelopment, freeing the city from debt obligations in the process. The project is aimed at the area enclosed by Leigh and Franklin streets on the north and south and Fourth and Seventh streets to the west and east.

Included in the plans are a $400,000 demolition of the foundering Sixth Street Marketplace , $49.4 million in parking deck construction and renovation, and $14.9 million in infrastructure, utility and landscape improvements.

The bonds will spawn an immediate investment of $140 million into the area, according to John Woodward , the city director of economic development. The petition reported city revenues of $480,000 in tax benefits in 2003 growing to $3.5 million in 2009, and net cost savings of $285,000 in 2004 that will climb past $1 million in 2009.

The petition states that the bond will be paid back through parking fees and assessments on property within the boundaries of the project. The assessments, which will be fixed for 30 years, charge property owners 35 cents per square foot on the first floors and 29 cents per square foot above. Hotel properties will be charged $2.50 per room per night.

Although the city will not be involved in the bond, it will contribute indirectly through property owned in the corridor. The city leases property at 600 E. Broad St. and will have to add the assessment to its rent payments. The parameters also include the Richmond Coliseum, Richmond Convention Center, Richmond Marriott and the Virginia Performing Arts Center .

City administrators and citizens expressed concern for Jackson Ward , the nearby residential neighborhood aching from decades of residential blight and commercial flight. City Manager Calvin Jamison said the CDA's project should coincide with enhancements to Jackson Ward.

"This will significantly change the face of Richmond," he said. "We need to present this in parallel – development of the CDA with development of Jackson Ward." Councilman Sa'ad El-Amin originally said he would abstain from voting since development hasn't fared well for the community.

"History nor people have been very kind to Jackson Ward," El-Amin said. "I-95 divided it and planted the seed of decimation. History is a harbinger of a future I am not comfortable with."

But he later voted in favor of the plan in hopes of a new dawn north of Broad Street. "Can Jackson Ward stand another catastrophe of capital improvement around it but not in it?" El-Amin said. "I support the concept, but I am suspicious of history."

During public comment former Councilwoman L. Shirley Harvey said the project would drive out the current residents by driving up real estate prices and rental rates. "They're replacing the people in this city," she said.

Officials from Jackson Ward chose not to participate in the development planning. "If Jackson Ward wants to be saved then stand up and act like you want to be saved," said Councilman W.R. "Bill" Johnson . "We cannot move forward with our feet on the brakes. Let's get on with it."

The CDA was the brainchild of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and James Ukrop , who are downtown real estate owners. In September council members authorized funding a $275,000 feasibility study to evaluate the association's creation.

With the CDA's approval the council appointed five members to the board of directors – developers Gary Beller of Illinois and Ronald Stallings of Richmond, James Watkins of Richmond Renaissance , Loren Bradford Armstrong , president and CEO of the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation , and James Procaccianti , president and CEO of The Procaccianti Group near Providence, R.I.

Beller is a master developer with ECI Investment Advisors Inc. of Chicago. He is working with the RRHA to convert the Miller & Rhodes Building across Broad Street from the Marriott into a hotel with at least 216 rooms and 42,000 square feet of commercial space.

The RRHA is also working with the Procaccianti Group, the owners of the Marriott as of July 12 that bailed the hotel out of bankruptcy, on $12 million to $13 million of renovations that will expand by at least 209 rooms. Other projects on the downtown horizon include a new performing arts complex and a new federal courthouse. The Greater Richmond Convention Center Authority near the hotel cluster eyes an opening early next year.

The CDA plans to acquire the parking decks at the intersections of Seventh and Marshall streets, Fifth and Marshall streets, and Sixth and Franklin streets. Blueprints are complete for construction of two new decks at Fifth and Broad streets and Sixth and Grace streets. The CDA will control more than 3,200 parking spaces.

Pedestrian and vehicular traffic will resume on Sixth Street with the razing of the marketplace.