Waukeshaw Development bringing 400 more apartments to Olde Towne Petersburg

Dave McCormack and Emily Sanfratella. (Courtesy Waukeshaw Development)

Dave McCormack continues to bet big on Petersburg.

His longtime firm, Waukeshaw Development, is working on a slate of new projects that’ll bring nearly 400 apartments and new commercial space to the city’s Olde Towne area. 

At 600 W. Wythe St. and 221 Bollingbrook St., Waukeshaw is planning conversion projects that’ll see the two warehouses turned into 295 and 82 apartments, respectively. 

The company also is renovating a long-vacant building at 416 Third St. into 10,000 square feet of commercial space that will face Trapezium Brewing Co., which Waukeshaw also owns and operates. 

Over at at 530 E. Washington St., just off Interstate 95, the firm is under contract to purchase the blighted former Travel Inn hotel, McCormack said. 

Waukeshaw is one of Petersburg’s most prolific developers with a portfolio that includes an ongoing riverfront harbor development, Trapezium and more. The company is led by McCormack and longtime Chief Operating Officer Emily Sanfratella, who joined the firm after she was a tenant at one of McCormack’s buildings and the two hit it off. 

McCormack got his start in Petersburg real estate in the early 2000s, thanks to an alt-country band. 

“I used to play in a band and we were getting kicked out of our practice spaces by the developers on Broad Street (in Richmond),” he said. “I came down here because it was so cheap. We had a warehouse that we practiced in down here. Back in those days, the warehouses down here were less than $1 per square foot.”

McCormack’s first big project in the city was the Mayton Transfer Lofts, a 223-unit phased development he sold to Capital Square in 2018 for $21 million.

To date McCormack and Waukeshaw have developed about 500 apartments in Petersburg and 1,500 throughout the state. Other than the Mayton sale, he’s held on to all of his Petersburg holdings.

Over the years he said the Petersburg market has had its ups and downs, but lately there’s been a jump that’s reflected in low apartment vacancy rates and a lack of historic buildings available for conversion. That momentum has prompted Waukeshaw to kick start the projects on the Wythe, Bollingbrook and Washington street properties, which the company has owned for years.  

“That’s the exciting part – all these disparate parts and pieces that we’ve worked on are all starting to coalesce into a bigger vision down here,” McCormack said. 

At 295 units, the Wythe Street redevelopment will be among Waukeshaw’s larger projects. (Mike Platania photos)

The largest of these newest projects is at the Wythe Street site, where Waukeshaw is planning to convert a 227,000-square-foot former luggage factory into 295 apartments. Waukeshaw bought the property for $3 million in 2021 and McCormack said the hope is to begin construction on the $45 million project early next year.

Work is already underway at the Bollingbrook property, where a four-story warehouse is being turned into 82 units in a $12 million project. Local architecture firm 3North designed the apartments, which McCormack said has been dubbed “Fringe” and he hopes will set a new high standard for apartments in Petersburg. 

“We’re going to re-skin that thing and do some really cool stuff to it. It’ll all look absolutely beautiful at the end,” he said. 

A rendering of the Bollingbrook Street development. (Courtesy 3North)

Waukeshaw bought that property about a year ago for $1 million. McCormack said completion in expected in the summer of 2025. 

At the Third Street site, Waukeshaw is converting a 170-year-old building into commercial space that’ll be divided into around five 2,000-square-foot suites set to be completed in the coming weeks. That project’s budget is $1.5 million. 

The building is located right across from Trapezium, the Fringe project and Demolition Coffee, a coffee shop McCormack started around 15 years but recently sold to Laura Boehmer and Ben Cronk of the nearby Buttermilk Bake Shop. He said he’s hoping that the proximity of the new commercial space to other established businesses will be a draw. 

“We’re going to be looking for five really high-quality, creative businesses – a bike shop, bread place, whatever,” he said. “(So) we can keep enhancing the multiuse nature of this neighborhood.”

Waukeshaw is financing each of the three developments with the help of historic tax credits. C&F Bank is the lender on the Wythe Street project, Virginia Credit Union is financing the Bollingbrook Street deal, and First Community Bank is the lender on Third Street.

Waukeshaw’s plans for the old Travel Inn at 530 E. Washington St. are less clear, but McCormack did confirm that the company has it under contract. The vacant, six-story building had been slated to go up for auction earlier this year before Waukeshaw swooped in. 

Waukeshaw’s also set to purchase a vacant, six-story hotel near Interstate 95.

Waukeshaw isn’t the only developer bullish on Petersburg. Local development firm Sycamore Street Properties is working on two hotel renovations in the city, one of which will be a mixed-use conversion.

Petersburg also is set to vote this fall on a casino proposal from Baltimore’s Cordish Cos., the same firm that once vied to build a casino near the Scott’s Addition area in Richmond. McCormack said the prospect of a major economic development project such as a casino has added to Petersburg’s momentum. 

“No one really knows what’s going to become of (the casino), but the excitement’s here,” he said. “I don’t see the casino necessarily touching what we’re doing, but I think psychologically, it’s a very big deal. It just creates a lot of conversation.”

McCormack said development in Petersburg is a lot different since his early days there, back when he said he had mentors call him an idiot for doing so and banks weren’t eager to finance his deals. But as the cost of living rises in Richmond, he said he thinks the comparatively affordable Petersburg will continue to gain traction. 

“Investing in Petersburg has not always been the most easy story to tell. It takes a long time to get this momentum,” McCormack said. “In Richmond, it did not happen overnight. … I think Petersburg is on a very similar trajectory and a lot of good things are happening right now.”

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