Former Highland Park bank building back on the market after community pharmacy plans fall through

The vacant former Bank of America at 1307 E. Brookland Park Blvd. is again up for grabs. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photos)

A Highland Park bank building is back on the market after plans to turn it into a community pharmacy fell through. 

The former Bank of America building at 1307 E. Brookland Park Blvd. was set to become the Six Points Health Hub at the hands of Southside-based nonprofit HandUp Community Resource Center.

HandUp was selected in an RFP back in 2021 to revive the dormant 3,500-square-foot property as a retail pharmacy, along with offering primary and preventive care. 

Now, those plans are no longer in the works and the building is up for sale, HandUp CEO Augusta Hite confirmed to BizSense last week.

Thalhimer brokers Amy Broderick and Katie Siegel are on the listing. The seller, Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, has owned the property since 2019, after it was donated by Bank of America. Included in the listing is both the building and a nearby 10-space parking lot. 

Hite told BizSense that plans fell through for the pharmacy when HandUp was unable to come to terms with the owners of some adjacent parcels  that HandUp would have needed to “see the project come to fruition.” 

“As we were going to do the buildout, we needed to acquire some property around the building, which is kind of normal,” Hite said. “A lot of times when you’re doing development projects, deals fall through based on the inability to acquire additional parcels that are needed to fulfill the entire vision of the project.” 

The bank was set to be a community pharmacy under nonprofit HandUp before plans fell through.

Maggie Walker Land Trust CEO Mae Worthey-Thomas said in an email last week that with the property unusable for HandUp, the land trust opted to put it on the market. 

“The nonprofit simply was unable to use the property so rather than continue to incur maintenance costs we opted to sell it. It needs extensive work so we haven’t had much interest,” Worthey-Thomas said. 

Worthey-Thomas said that some prospective buyers are currently doing due diligence to see if the building could be turned into a restaurant. 

Hite said that while HandUp offered several terms to the adjacent property owners, offering both a leasing and a purchasing deal, the two parties could not come to a consensus on pricing for the adjacent parcels. 

He told BizSense that it was around November or December of last year that HandUp officially decided it could not move forward with the project. Almost no money was invested into the project, he added. 

Hite declined to share the name of the property owners of the adjacent parcels. According to city of Richmond public records, all of the parcels adjacent to 1307 E. Brookland Park Blvd. are owned by an entity called “Saba Property LLC,” which is managed by Hamood Algaheim.

“I don’t want to give an unfair depiction, because it was a price they felt they needed,” Hite said. “They were open to conversations and things, but like I said, we just couldn’t come to terms.” 

Algaheim confirmed with BizSense on Saturday that the two parties could not come to a consensus on terms for the additional parcels. 

“We couldn’t come to an agreement, that’s all,” Algaheim said.

HandUp was the winning bidder in an RFP led by MWCLT’s Richmond Land Bank to guide the future of the vacant bank branch four years ago.

BofA had shuttered the branch back in 2017 and donated it to the land trust two years later. It was the first time the land trust had received a property through direct donation.

Seeing the building as an anchor for the neighborhood’s Six Points section, the land bank set out to accept bids for its redevelopment and gauge community ideas, which ranged from turning the property into a grocery store, a community center and a coffee shop before the pharmacy idea ultimately won out. 

While the Six Points Health Hub will not come to fruition at 1307 E. Brookland Park Blvd., HandUp has plans to keep the idea alive, Hite said. He said the nonprofit currently plans to implement the pharmacy concept elsewhere in the Highland Park neighborhood. 

Hite declined to share specifics on the location, noting that while some concept designs have been made, contracts have not yet been signed. 

“We’re still in the works now,” Hite said. “We’re around 95 percent done with that deal to bring the project to the same neighborhood; we’re in talks with another landowner who’s really motivated to have something done for the community.” 

A community pharmacy would add to HandUp’s operations, which include a food pantry off Midlothian Turnpike, housing programs and veterans assistance. 

The post Former Highland Park bank building back on the market after community pharmacy plans fall through appeared first on Richmond BizSense.