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General Assembly request holds up Boulevard development project

Jeremy M. Lazarus | 4/8/2017, 7:51 a.m.
The General Assembly wants more information before allowing the state’s liquor agency to borrow $104 million to develop a new …
Clockwise from top, Virginia ABC complex, Sports Backers Stadium, The Diamond and the Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center.

The General Assembly wants more information before allowing the state’s liquor agency to borrow $104 million to develop a new headquarters and warehouse in a new location.

And that decision has left on hold Richmond’s plans to choose a master developer to transform 60 acres on the Boulevard into offices, retail stores and apartments.

The Diamond baseball stadium also is part of the tract.

Richmond City Council President Chris A. Hilbert and Lee Downey, deputy chief administrative officer for economic and community development, separately have confirmed that the Boulevard project is going nowhere until the legislature decides the future of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control department property.

That’s a blow to the city, which has invested around $19 million to move facilities off the land and clean up the property for what it has envisioned as a major development that could generate essential and much needed new revenue.

The state ABC now occupies land at Robin Hood and Hermitage Roads, just east of the city’s property. Its warehouse is outdated and the department wants a modern facility.

Under a deal OK’d by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the ABC property was to become the site for a new stadium for the Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball team and Virginia Commonwealth University’s baseball team once the ABC relocates to new digs.

That would allow The Diamond to be cleared away and open up almost all of the city’s Boulevard property for development.

While the House of Delegates was supportive, the state Senate refused to go along with the plan given the huge cost, and in the end, the Senate prevailed.

In the final budget, the legislature provided $500,000 for planning and included language telling the ABC and the Department of General Services, which handles state construction projects, to return no later than Nov. 1 with a full plan to provide “options for a new ABC warehouse and administrative offices.”

According to the language, the proposal is to include “cost-effective and efficient solutions to meet ABC’s operational and business requirements.”

Such solutions could include state construction of a new facility, buying an existing facility or having a private party build a facility that the ABC would lease, avoiding the massive upfront cost, according to the language.

As part of creating the solutions, the legislature wants the ABC and the Department of General Services to see if surplus state property is available to use for the project, rather than buying private land.

To the City of Richmond’s dismay, the language also states the legislature wants to see one option in which the ABC operation stays put and either updates or builds a new complex on the site.

The city advertised for developers last year and hoped to begin sending out requests for proposals to firms that qualified this spring.

Now the city must wait until November.

Meanwhile, the Flying Squirrels, the San Francisco Giants’ Double A affiliate, continue playing at The Diamond, with the season opener on Thursday, April 6.