VCU now controls all 4 corners of Broad-Belvidere intersection after $4.6M Rite Aid buy

The Rite Aid at Broad and Belvidere has been open for over a decade. (Mike Platania photos)

VCU now has control over all four corners of a major gateway to its Monroe Park campus. 

An entity tied to the university’s Real Estate Foundation last month purchased the 1-acre assemblage at 510-520 W. Broad St., 304 N. Henry St. and 519 W. Marshall St. for $4.65 million, city records show. The property is anchored by the Rite Aid drug store at 520 W. Broad St., along with surface parking lots. 

The Rite Aid property was the last of the four corners of the intersection of Broad and Belvidere that VCU didn’t own. It paid nearly $6 million over two deals in 2015 and 2017 for the southeastern corner, where it is actively building a $253 million arts and innovation center. The other two corners are occupied by VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art and a 400-plus bed dormitory that it recently renovated. It has owned those two parcels since 2002 and the 1990s, respectively. 

The site is north of where VCU’s currently building a major arts center.

The seller of the Rite Aid parcels was an entity tied to New Jersey-based investment firm Arctrust. The sale closed Jan. 23, per city records. The property was most recently assessed by the city at $4.4 million. 

A VCU spokesperson said there are “no specific purposes identified by the university” for the property and that Rite Aid will continue to lease its building and parking lot.

Last year Rite Aid closed its Hull Street location in Manchester amid a bankruptcy battle that it’s since emerged from. The only other remaining Rite Aid location in the Richmond region is in Chester. 

This latest deal is the second VCU’s Real Estate Foundation has closed in as many months. In December, it bought an adjacent, two-story building at 508 W. Broad St. for $540,000. 

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