Varina church planning 300-acre ‘City of Possibility’ mixed-use development

An aerial rendering of the proposed City of Possibility development around The Saint Paul’s Baptist Church on Creighton Road. (County documents)

A church in eastern Henrico is looking to use its considerable land holdings to create a massive new community with about 1,000 homes.

The Saint Paul’s Baptist Church is proposing an extensive mixed-use development on over 320 acres it owns on the south side of Creighton Road between Cedar Fork Road and Interstate 295.

Called “City of Possibility,” the project would include over 600 apartments, 120 townhomes and detached rowhomes, nearly 50 cottages and over 150 houses.

It also would include commercial development, including office and retail space, recreational facilities, a gas station, community center, event hall, urban farm, and memory-care and assisted- and independent-living facilities.

The community would be anchored by the existing church campus and a new amphitheater behind it, to be called “Possibility Park,” with the apartment buildings forming a semicircle around it.

The amphitheater park would be partially surrounded by apartment buildings forming a semicircle.

Senior Pastor Lance Watson presented the plans Tuesday at a meeting in the church sanctuary. Watson said the project has been over 20 years in the making and is scheduled to go before the Henrico County Planning Commission in August, after originally being scheduled for this month’s meeting.

The church is seeking a rezoning to allow for the development, which would rise on land currently zoned for residential, agriculture or conservation use. It is working with design firm Clark Nexsen and is vetting master developers for the project, Watson said.

While Saint Paul’s is driving and would anchor the development, Watson said City of Possibility would be open to all.

“The community’s going to be open to everybody, to live there, to work there, to be a part of the activities that are going on,” Watson told the roughly 100 attendees at Tuesday’s meeting.

“When we talk about community, regardless of what adjectives we might use, we’re talking about the entire community, and not just the membership of Saint Paul’s,” Watson said. “Although it’s a Saint Paul’s project, we don’t anticipate being a Saint Paul’s exclusive community.”

Watson presented conceptual renderings that showed six-story apartment buildings and other multistory office and mixed-use buildings. He said the project would be developed in phases over an anticipated 10-year build-out.

A site plan shows the layout for City of Possibility, which would span 321 acres.

On the residential side, the church is proposing 287 one-bedroom apartments and 352 two-bedroom units over ground-floor retail, with the apartments filling three to four stories over structured parking. Watson said greenspace and courtyards would be on the structure parking.

Also planned are 61 two- to three-story townhomes, 64 detached rowhouses, 48 cottages and 155 two-story houses with garages. The single-family neighborhoods would be located farthest away from the church and amphitheater, some along roads that would provide connections to nearby roads and subdivisions.

The development would follow a pattern book that’s included with Saint Paul’s rezoning application. Watson said that a traffic study has yet to be conducted but that traffic signals and road improvements are planned along Creighton.

The project consists of five parcels that Saint Paul’s has amassed since the church was built in 2003. The church campus at 4247 Creighton totals 46 acres, and the other parcels were acquired in 2007 in three purchases totaling over $2.5 million, county property records show.

The church at 4247 Creighton Road. (Image courtesy Saint Paul’s Baptist)

One of the parcels includes an 1850s-era farmhouse that Watson said could be used with the planned urban farm. Other amenities could include community gardens, walking trails and a food truck park.

Several attendees at the meeting voiced concerns about the project’s potential impact on traffic and the environment. Clark Nexsen’s Molly Bertsch, who is managing the project, said such impacts would be addressed and mitigated through the permitting process that would follow zoning approval. Much of the property is planned to remain green space or be left undeveloped.

In an interview Wednesday, Watson said the proposal is the latest iteration in a planning effort that goes back two decades.

“When the land became available, we talked about it and decided that we would purchase it with the idea of doing community-based, church-based development from the perspective of a local congregation,” Watson said.

“Our theology is bent toward developing wholesome and positive community. Much of the work that we do is directed toward helping people across the spectrum, with a special emphasis on those who have been left out and looked over,” he said. “This is making incarnate the faith that we have that is invisible, through the development of the community.”

Senior Pastor Lance Watson presents the plans alongside representatives from Clark Nexsen. (Jonathan Spiers photo)

Noting other developments underway or in the works in and around the Creighton and Laburnum Avenue corridors, Watson said the goal of City of Possibility is to provide spaces for people to live, support marginalized communities, encourage young adults to become entrepreneurs and to provide places for them to do that.

“I think it is going to be an enhancement for eastern Henrico, which has been neglected for quite a while in favor of western Henrico,” Watson said. “I’m excited to see the development that’s going on there, and I’m excited to be a part of it and to have an opportunity to hopefully influence some of it through the City of Possibility.”

The project is one of several church-driven developments in metro Richmond. Across town, Village of Faith Ministries is planning to redevelop its property at 11000 Hull Street Road with nearly 200 apartments and 40 townhomes. In the city, Great Hope Baptist Church is looking to fill its parking lots off Venable Street with 19 townhomes and convert its building to 19 apartments.

Closer to Saint Paul’s, TerraForge Communities has started work on a 92-home subdivision across Harvie Road from Harvie Elementary School.

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