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Residents of Garden City neighborhood get more clarity on Henrico project’s impact

Lyndon German | 2/25/2021, 6 p.m.
A Henrico County official told residents of the Garden City neighborhood that the county isn’t planning on buying them out …

A Henrico County official told residents of the Garden City neighborhood that the county isn’t planning on buying them out of their homes for the proposed $2.3 billion GreenCity arena and mixed-used development.

Steven J. Yob, deputy county manager for community operations, confirmed Monday night during a conference call with the Garden City Neighborhood Civic Association that the county is looking to acquire some property as it extends Magellan Parkway as the access point into the 250-acre development planned on the site of the former Best Products headquarters north of Parham Road and Interstate 95.

“We’re not talking about buying an entire piece of property,” Mr. Yob told the residents. “We’re talking about buying a sliver of space or road frontage.”

About 50 homes in the Garden City neighborhood are located along Scott Road, which runs around the planned site. Many of the residents, largely retirees on fixed incomes, have voiced concern that homes closest to the project would be taken and that other longtime homeowners would be forced out with resulting higher property taxes.

Mr. Yob said the county hasn’t identified which pieces of property would be needed to complete the project because it is still in the preliminary stages. A number of traffic studies by the county, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the GreenCity developers would have to be concluded, he said.

Scott Road has been used to access the property, but Mr. Yob said that won’t be the case once Magellan Parkway is finished.

“Magellan Parkway has been a project the county has identified for a number of years,” Mr. Yob said. “The road we would build would be the main entrance into GreenCity. Scott Road will remain to allow access to the neighborhood, but I can’t see it being used in this project.”

The conference call with county officials was arranged by William “Bill” Forrester Jr., president of the civic association, and Frank J. Thornton, the Fairfield District representative on the Henrico County Board of Supervisors, to seek clarity and details about the project and to quell fears of Garden City residents.

Cari M. Tretina, chief of staff to County Manager John Vithoulkas, said the county has always worked with residents to improve their properties rather than outright acquire them, especially residents like those in Garden City who have lived in the county for generations.

“For families who built their home or had that property for decades and decades, it’s really important we honor that,” Ms. Tretina said.

The massive GreenCity project is to include a 17,000-seat arena for concerts and sporting events, 2,400 housing units, two hotels, about 2 million square feet of office space and 280,000 square feet of retail space.

Ms. Tretina and Mr. Yob stressed that the GreenCity project is neither finalized nor imminent. The county is years and months away from putting shovels in the ground, they said.

“We’ve truly just started a lot of the pub- lic processes,” Ms. Tretina said. “When Mr. Thornton talks about transparency, we’re at the forefront of all those public processes.”

Part of that public process is having conference calls like these, the county officials told residents. The county already has held several virtual town halls for the public. Mr. Thornton told residents the county will continue to be transparent as the process continues.

After the conference call concluded, Mr. Forrester said many of the residents’ questions were answered.

“We don’t know all the information yet, but they listened to what we’re trying to say,” Mr. Forrester said. He said he will continue to monitor the progress of the development to inform and protect his neighbors.

“I think they were transparent with the information that they did have. I think they answered a lot of questions,” Mr. Forrester said after the meeting concluded. “We don’t know all the information yet but they listened to what we’re trying to say.”

Mr. Forrester said Monday night was a good start but he’ll continue to monitor the progress of the development in order to inform and protect his neighbors.