Regency breaks ground on new apartments, pivots away from food hall plans

A rendering of The Rise II apartment complex, which recently broke ground at Regency (BizSense file)

The yearslong transformation of Regency continues, with hundreds more apartments underway and a change in plans for what was supposed to be a new food hall at the ever-evolving Henrico mall.

Ground was broken in recent weeks on a new section of more than 300 apartments on a roughly 2-acre piece of what had been a parking lot between Starling Drive and The Rise at Regency, the first phase of apartments to be built at the mall.

Dubbed The Rise II, the new apartment building is expected to be largely similar to the first phase, which was completed in 2022 and consisted of 320 units, most of them one- and two-bedroom units as well as a few three-bedroom units.

The project is anticipated to be mostly complete by early 2027, when the first residents are expected to move in, said Mark Slusher of Thalhimer Realty Partners, which co-owns Regency with Rebkee Co.

Slusher declined to share the anticipated cost of the 314-unit Rise II project, though previous estimates were pegged at $76 million.

Purcell Construction is the project’s general contractor, and Poole & Poole Architecture was tapped to handle the design of the apartments.

Slusher said the second apartments phase has been two years in the making, and blamed elevated prices caused by the pandemic and interest rate increases for the delay. He said that as those issues have lessened more recently, the project has been able to move forward.

Like the original section of Rise, this second building is being financed in part by Virginia Housing. That support from the state’s housing authority requires 20 percent of the upcoming units be reserved for people who make less than 80 percent of the area median income.

Once Rise II is completed, there will be more than 630 apartments at Regency, which in recent years has moved away from a traditional retail focus to become a mixed-use development with activity-focused anchors like Performance Pickleball and trampoline park Surge. The property is zoned for up to 1,250 units.

Work got under way in recent weeks on The Rise II, a 314-unit apartment complex set to be built at Regency. (Jack Jacobs photo)

Inside the mall itself, Regency’s developers have pulled the plug on a food hall to replace the old food court, and instead will fill the 10,000-square-foot space with one or two large restaurant tenants.

Slusher said Regency moved away from the food hall idea because it no longer seemed viable, and noted how the food hall model generally has struggled locally. Hatch Local, the region’s first food hall, closed in Manchester in 2024 after just two years in business. And EAT Restaurant Partners abandoned its plans to open a food hall in Scott’s Addition.

“The food hall has been a bridge too far not only for us but around the city,” Slusher said. “We’re pivoting to any sort of restaurant use.”

The Regency food hall was envisioned as a way to modernize the mall’s traditional food court, the final operator of which moved out in April 2022 to make way for the project. In addition to a renovation of the space to tee up a food hall, the project also involved the creation of an outdoor plaza and new entrance for Regency.

In other Regency news, Twin Hickory Tavern, which took over the former Sloop John B space at the mall, was expected to open before the end of 2024. Virtual reality venue Pelagos VR recently opened in the storefront next door. And near the upcoming apartments, work has begun on a Chase Bank branch fronting Quioccasin Road.

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