Developer closes out year with $6M in deals in Scott’s Addition, Willow Lawn area

The former industrial site is just a block north of the Otis apartments in Scott’s Addition. (Google Earth)

It’s a busy end to 2024 for an out-of-town developer that spent nearly $6 million for sites in and around Scott’s Addition in recent weeks. 

Last week, Breakwater Cos. bought 1701 Roseneath Road for $4.7 million. The 1.2-acre site spans half a city block and is where Breakwater is planning a five-story mixed-use building.

The Roseneath purchase was preceded by a nearly $1 million deal that Breakwater closed in late November for 4627 W. Broad St., a small building that’s part of the Commonwealth Building assemblage that the developer is planning to raze to make way for a six-story mixed-use building.

Breakwater paid $725,000 for 4627 W. Broad St., which the city most recently assessed at $495,000. Property records list the seller as Kingsly LLC, an entity tied to Byron Chafin of Kingsly Properties.

Principal Andrew Rubin said Breakwater will be ground-leasing the rest of the Commonwealth property, which is separately owned.

The seller in the 1701 Roseneath deal was Richmond Machinery & Equipment, a firm that had been in Scott’s Addition going back decades. It now operates in Goochland.

The Roseneath property was initially targeted for redevelopment by local firm Blackwood Development in 2022, but those plans fell through. Breakwater stepped in earlier this year and closed on the parcel last week. The city most recently assessed the real estate at $2.9 million. 

Rubin said Breakwater is at least a year away from breaking ground on the Roseneath development, which is set to include 168 apartments over around 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. 

A rendering of Breakwater’s planned Broad Street development. (Courtesy Breakwater Cos.)

The Broad Street development will be a similar scale, with 171 apartments and another 5,000 square feet of commercial space across six floors. Work on that site is expected to begin in the next six months, Rubin said. 

“I’m pretty excited about the design. I love the project. I’ve been working on it for years now, and I think that it’ll be really a great addition to that transformation that’s going on in that section of West Broad,” Rubin said, referencing the phased Kinsale Center development that’s underway at the corner of Broad and Staples Mill Road. 

“If I could draft off of (Kinsale Center’s) great work, that’d be great,” he said. 

Chesapeake-based RBA Architects is designing the Broad Street development, and local firm 510 Architects is designing the Roseneath project. Rubin said he has yet to select a general contractor for either development.

Divaris Real Estate’s Read Goode worked the Roseneath deal, and Matt Hamilton of CBRE worked the Broad Street sale. 

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