Ground was finally broken on June 1 to officially start the conversion of Richmond’s former nursing home into 86 units of housing for low-income individuals who also receive on-site supportive services from Faith Community Baptist Church and other partners.

To be called Cool Lane Commons, the development located in Henrico County on the border with the city by Interstate 64, is the latest project of Virginia Supportive Housing, a nonprofit best known in Richmond for its single-room occupancy or SRO projects in the Carver neighborhood west of Downtown.

VSH plans to pour $23 million into the redeveloping the long vacant building at 1900 Cool Lane, according to Allison Bogdanovic, VSH executive director.

The development of the new apartments would be VSH’s largest in the Richmond area and is to include solar power, Ms. Bogdanovic said.

The building also will include offices and meeting spaces for Faith Community Baptist, led by Dr. Patricia Gould-Champ, and other service partners to offer programming for the residents and the nearby community, Ms. Bogdanovic said.

Ms. Bogdanovic stated that her agency cobbled together at least 14 different sources of public and private financing, including contributions from Richmond and Henrico’s federal Community Development Block Grants, to make the project work.

Arranging the financing apparently took longer than expected to pull together. Ms. Bogdanovic notified City Council a year ago that work would begin in the summer of 2021.

The ceremonial start took place 10 a.m. June 1 on the 5.3-acre property that faces Faith Community Baptist and sits just west of Armstrong High School and Fairfield Court.

Once the Seven Hills Health Care Center, the building for generations operated 169 beds to serve indigent elderly and disabled people needing specialty health care.

The center continued a Richmond tradition of providing such publicly funded care that dated back to at least 1850, but that tradition died 14 years ago after Medicare and Medicaid found the service well below standards and halted funding.

Seven Hills shut down in January 2008 after the 142 patients living in the building moved to other locations.

The city put the building up for sale in 2017, then teamed with the county to transfer it to VSH in 2019.