Demo starts at blighted motel site planned for VUU expansion

Ronell Spellman with Cephas Next performs initial demo and site prep at the former Budget Inn of Richmond motel at Brook and Lombardy. (Jonathan Spiers photo)

A long-vacant eyesore across from Virginia Union University is beginning to make way for a planned redevelopment and expansion of VUU’s campus.

Initial site prep and demolition got underway in recent weeks at the former Budget Inn of Richmond motel at 2201 N. Lombardy St., across Lombardy’s intersection with Brook Road from the university in Richmond’s Northside.

The work signals the start of a mixed-use development that VUU has planned for the 1-acre site, which it purchased five years ago for nearly $3 million. Plans call for a multi-story, mixed-use building that would house businesses on the street level and educational programming above.

The motel site in 2019, when VUU bought the property. (BizSense file photo)

The project will effectively expand VUU’s footprint across Brook, which has been the eastern boundary for the 81-acre campus. Signs posted on fencing that surrounds the site describe it as the “Future home of VUU Gateway North.”

A demo permit for the project was issued by the city in early May. The permit lists Richmond-based Pyramid Construction Group as the demo contractor. Local firm Cephas Next is doing the site prep.

A sign for local contracting firm Emerge Construction Group is also posted on the site.

VUU announced the project in 2019 and worked with BCWH, now Quinn Evans Architects, on site plans and conceptual renderings that showed a four-story, primarily glass-sided building with signage reading “The Union.” The plans detailed rooms labeled “conference center,” “restaurant” and “guest rooms.”

A rendering of the mixed-use building planned for the Budget Inn site. (BizSense file)

VUU President Hakim Lucas has said the university had originally envisioned the building’s upper floors to house a 50- or 60-bed hospitality management program and the ground floor to consist of storefronts for small businesses. VUU is now planning to house the hospitality management program at its C.D. King Hall property at Lombardy and Leigh streets in Carver, where it is also planning a hotel.

The mixed-use building at Brook and Lombardy is still planned to house educational programming above the ground-floor storefronts, which Lucas has said are envisioned for minority-owned small businesses.

In an interview in December, Lucas said construction on the project would take 12 months, with completion expected in 2025. Requests to university officials for updates on the project were not fulfilled in time for this story.

The project adds to several initiatives to expand and enhance VUU’s campus. A restoration of the Industrial Hall building beside the interstate is ongoing, and earlier this year, the HBCU announced a 10-year master plan that calls for $500 million worth of investment in and around the campus.

VUU also has announced a $40 million project with Philadelphia-based Steinbridge Group to develop up to 200 apartments on university-owned land at Brook and Overbrook Road. The plan has received pushback from community members who want to preserve the old Richmond Community Hospital building, which is on the site and would apparently be razed.

Farther north along Lombardy from the motel site, Sugar Mill Construction is planning a six-story mixed-use building with apartments on the street’s north side just west of Chamberlayne Avenue, while a mystery developer is planning two five-story mixed-use buildings on both sides of Lombardy’s 2400 block.

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