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A New Place on Cary

Though it has been in the making for more than 15 years, the southeast corner of Meadow and West Cary streets now has a new look as well as a brand new future.

With a quick snip from a few pairs of scissors, The Lofts at Cary Place at 1915 W. Cary Street officially opened for tenants Thursday afternoon after a brief ribbon cutting ceremony.

Once a few blighted plots of weedy dirt, the corner now sports a modern mixed use development consisting of 10 residential lofts atop 10 ground level commercial condos, all of which have been sold.

With a base price of $155,000 per unit, the residential lofts were built in two sizes but both 1,000-plus square foot versions are deceptively large with 20-foot ceilings, two bedrooms and large balconies overlooking West Cary. The commercial units on the street level are still being built out but incoming tenants include an office for Cary Place's designer, Johannas Design Group , as well as a restaurant, a salon, an antique furniture dealer and a few graphic design firms. There will also be a real estate office for East West Partners , the developers behind Cary Place.

The Lofts at Cary Place is actually the first phase of new development on West Cary that has been created through a partnership between East West, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority , the city of Richmond and the West Cary Street Planning Committee , a group that is the catalyst for much of the new growth surging in the surrounding blocks.

"This is a project that has been in the works for literally 15 years," said Chris Corrada , vice president and project manager for East West Partners. "This is a true example of neighborhoods that can come together to make a positive change in their environment."

In addition to the 20 units facing West Cary, eight similar mixed use units - four residential and four commercial - will soon be built directly behind the existing Cary Place property but will face Meadow Street. Corrada said the additional Phase One construction should be completed on the third building in six months but added that all of the existing residential units were sold 10 months before the building was completed.

"This is such a high demand area and really all you have had were fan houses, which are quite expensive, and no smaller units that were more affordable," he said. "That is what these projects have provided. We kept the units smaller to keep the price points reasonable but we did everything we could to make them feel big and it seemed to work."

Phase Two of the Cary Place partnership project will begin later this year on the 1700 block of West Cary Street. The Townes at Cary Place is planned to be a gated community consisting of 28 townhouses priced in the low $400,000s.

Besides occupying and directly rejuvenating two prominent pieces of property that have stood in blight for several years, the new development has also spurred a series of strictly private redevelopment projects up and down West Cary Street, according to Ed Eck , CEO of private development group Eck Enterprises and chair of the West Cary Street Planning Committee.

"These developments, which were initiated by the city, have spawned additional developments by the private sector," Eck said. " Clachan Properties is developing the 1800 block of Parkwood Avenue, Wilton [Companies] is developing the two corners at Lombardy and Cary and our company, Eck Enterprises, is developing the 1800, the 1600, the 1400 and the 1300 blocks of West Cary."

Also up for redevelopment is the corner directly across from the new mixed use development. Currently, the northeast corner of West Cary and Meadow is home to a gas station and coin laundry and has been known over the years by many in the neighborhood to be an eyesore and a high crime area. Addressing the crowd at the ribbon cutting, Eck said the "area across the street" is the West Cary Street Planning Committee's next priority.

"I point it out because we feel that the area across the street needs improvement and we are working hard to improve that area," he said. "We feel that it is vitally important that we achieve our planned goals and I can tell you that the committee is not going to rest until the job is done."

For now, however, some neighborhood residents like Shirley Kenny are just happy to see a new building in the once desolate area.

"I think it is great, yes indeed," said Kenny, a resident of the 2100 block of West Cary. "The traffic is about the same, maybe a little bit more, but as far as the scenery is concerned, it is a great improvement. When people come from out of town and go through there, the scenery is much better. Now, I always hear people commenting on how wonderful it looks." Henry McWilliams , a 34-year resident of the neighborhood, also agreed that the new building is an improvement for the area but said he didn't think too much about the building's design.

"I definitely think it is an improvement but I don't like the design of it," he said. "I don't think that it is all that interesting as far as the design aspect of it goes, but it is definitely an improvement to what we had there before.

"I think this is going to be a big turnaround for the neighborhood."