Boarded-up stretch of Manchester to be razed for 5-story apartment building

The two buildings on the site would be razed to make way for the new development. (Mike Platania photo)

Two dilapidated buildings along Manchester’s main drag could soon make way for a new-construction apartment project that would rise five stories. 

Walter Parks, Richard Smith and Malcome Sargent have filed plans for a 112-unit building at 1501-1511 Hull St. 

Parks, Smith and Sargent all have backgrounds in the real estate industry: Parks leads his namesake architecture firm; Smith runs demolition and construction business RJ Smith Cos.; and Sargent is president of Lakeside-based general contractor SRC Construction. 

The trio are also behind a separate five-story, 60-unit apartment building that’s in the works on the next block at 1401-1407 Hull St.

The project site for this latest proposal includes a grassy area at the corner of Hull and East 15th streets as well as a pair of boarded-up buildings that Parks said weren’t worth trying to renovate. 

“We do a lot of historic tax credit work and generally like to rehab old buildings,” Parks said. “But with these, there really wasn’t enough fabric left to make it worthwhile.”

A drawing of the planned building. (City documents)

An entity tied to Smith has owned the roughly 0.6-acre since 2015 when it bought the property for $50,000, city records show.

The 112 units would stand above a 67-space parking deck and a 2,200-square-foot ground-floor commercial space.

The apartments are planned to be income-based units, as Parks said they’re planning to pursue low-income housing tax credits to help finance the development. While the 1401 Hull St. apartments needed a special-use permit to be built, Parks said they can build the 1501 Hull development by-right. 

Parks’ firm is project’s designer and Brockenbrough is the engineer. Parks said they’re planning to begin demolition in spring 2025. 

Parks said he and his group are hoping to help reignite more redevelopment activity in that stretch of Manchester after some momentum was lost due to the legal troubles of Michael Hild, a local businessman who became a major landlord in the neighborhood.

Hild and his wife rehabbed a handful of buildings along Hull Street between Cowardin Avenue and Commerce Road in the late 2010s, only to let the buildings fall into dormancy due to the collapse of Hild’s company Live Well Financial and his subsequent criminal charges. Many of those buildings, including those that once housed Dogtown Brewing Co. and The Butterbean cafe, are now in court-ordered receivership and likely headed for a sale. 

“Hull Street has kind of been ignored a little bit,” Parks said. “I think, when (the Hild legal saga) happened, that took the wind out of the sails of Hull Street for a little while. But we’re trying to put that wind back.”

Across the river in the Arts District, Parks is also part of a group that’s renovating a 17,000-square-foot building at 2-4 E. Broad St. into 14 apartments. 

The post Boarded-up stretch of Manchester to be razed for 5-story apartment building appeared first on Richmond BizSense.