VCU Health eyes medical facility at former Pet Dairy site near Diamond District

VCU Health has indicated plans to establish a new medical center at the former Pet Dairy facility. (BizSense file)

A few months after buying the shuttered Pet Dairy facility near the Diamond, VCU Health is in the early stages of planning a new medical center on the site.

The health system recently filed notice that it intends to get state regulatory approval to establish a facility with imaging capabilities at the former longtime milk-processing plant at 1505 Robin Hood Road.

The proposed center would be called the Pauley Heart Center Pavilion and would feature a CT scanner and two MRI scanners, per a March 3 letter of intent sent by VCU Health to State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton.

Further details about the project, including size and cost, weren’t available. A VCU Health spokeswoman declined to comment in detail on the project.

“While we are in the preliminary stages of this process, we look forward to sharing more details as plans progress,” the spokeswoman said.

The former Pet Dairy facility as viewed from the interstate. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

The new pavilion would look to be part of the existing Pauley Heart Center, a cardiovascular health arm of VCU Health. It is headquartered at the VCU Medical Center Main Hospital in downtown Richmond, and has multiple outpatient centers in the region. Pauley Heart Center services range from heart transplants to cardiovascular disease prevention and cardiac imaging, and it also has a research program.

VCU Health submitted its letter of intent for the Robin Hood Road property to the VDH as a precursor to a full Certificate of Public Need (COPN) application for the project, which would require approval by the state health commissioner before the project could proceed. In Virginia, certain medical facilities and equipment require the state health commissioner’s approval before they can be established.

The health system acquired the former 6-acre assemblage at 1501-1507 Robin Hood Road for $9.5 million in October. The property is currently home to a dormant, 108,000-square-foot industrial building that was decommissioned by a subsidiary of now-defunct Dean Foods Co. in 2017.

VCU Health bought the property from Thalhimer Realty Partners, which is leading the initial mixed-use portion of the nearby Diamond District development.

The health system also owns a 1-acre site directly next door at 1500 Sherwood Ave. It bought that property more than a decade ago.

And the Robin Hood Road site is next to parts of VCU’s 42-acre, multi-site Athletic Village project that’s beginning to get underway.

The health system has other projects in the works elsewhere in the region. Earlier this year it bought a site in Chesterfield County, and is also looking to add beds to its downtown hospital facilities.

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