RRHA moving downtown by the end of 2022
Jeremy M. Lazarus | 7/14/2022, 6 p.m.
The city’s housing authority is making plans to shift its headquarters from Gilpin Court to Downtown, the Free Press has been told.
Described as a rebranding move, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority plans to lease two floors in the city-owned Theater Row Building, 730 E. Broad St.
RRHA has long been based at 901 Chamberlayne Parkway in the front yard of Gilpin Court, the city’s oldest public housing community. But officials have indicated a recent review found the building outdated and in need of substantial renovation.
The authority’s board has approved the new location, and the plans are moving along to make the shift by the end of the year after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave its approval to the proposal earlier this month, the Free Press was told.
With plans afoot to replace Gilpin with a mixed-income community and to reconnect the area to Jackson Ward, RRHA believes that its best address is no longer in the 80-year-old community.
The new location would move RRHA closer to Richmond’s political center at City Hall where city planners and the city’s administration also are based, reinstating emphasis on the authority’s development side and its long-term goal of eventually ending its role as a landlord.
