A rendering shows the 14 townhomes and new detached home planned beside the existing 1½-story house, pictured at lower right. (City documents)
A stretch of Grove Avenue in Richmond’s West End is becoming a hotspot for residential infill developments, as a prolific area homebuilder is planning 15 new homes a block away from two projects that would add nearly as many homes.
Center Creek Homes is proposing 14 townhomes and one detached home beside the centuries-old house at 3923 Grove Ave., a 0.8-acre lot beside the Malvern Manor apartments two blocks west of the Interstate 195 expressway.
The existing house dates to the late 1700s. (BizSense photo)
The existing house, which reportedly dates to the late 1700s, would be retained with the development, according to plans filed with the city last week. The new detached house would be built beside it, and the townhomes would fill the backyard in two rows of seven units with a courtyard between them.
The homes would be accessed via two roads off Grove that would extend to but not connect with Sterling and Lafayette streets to the rear of the site. Ground-level garages would provide parking for the townhomes, while the new detached home would have one surface space. Five additional surface spaces would be included near the existing house.
All of the new homes would be three stories and feature varying facades, according to the plans. The homes would feature “modern and open” floorplans ranging from two to four bedrooms and 2½ to 3½ bathrooms. The homes also would include porches and balconies, and landscaping and tree plantings would provide visual buffers for the homes.
A site plan shows the detached homes fronting Grove and the townhomes in seven-unit rows behind them.
Total square-footages for the homes are not specified on the plans. The three-story units would be built on lots ranging from about 600 to 1,000 square feet in size.
Center Creek is seeking a special-use permit from the city to allow the townhomes on the site, which is zoned to allow detached homes but not attached homes. The new detached home could be built “by right,” according to the application submitted for Center Creek by local consulting firm Baker Development Resources.
The new homes would all be three stories in height. The existing home would be retained with the development.
The project was presented to neighbors in a meeting in recent weeks. CEO Dan Magder, who leads Center Creek with COO and architect Greg Shron, declined to discuss the project while the city is reviewing their SUP application but provided a statement with Shron in an email.
“We’ve been focused over the past several months on incorporating feedback we’ve received from City planners, neighbors and local advocacy groups into our design, and plan to continue working with all stakeholders on a successful project that will bring more housing options to the Near West End,” their statement said.
“Our goal at Center Creek Homes is to design high-quality infill houses in a thoughtful manner that fit into the specific fabric of their particular neighborhood.”
A view of the townhomes as they would appear from within the courtyard.
Backed by Magder’s Center Creek Capital Group, a real estate-focused private equity firm based in D.C., Center Creek Homes launched in Richmond in 2018 and has since amassed a wide-ranging portfolio of one-off infill homes and cluster developments.
The company’s current projects include eight townhomes in the works on Cary Street in the Fan, and a rare infill on Arthur Ashe Boulevard involving two homes across from the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
It’s working on the Grove Avenue project with C2 The Creative Collaborative, a consulting firm based in Beaufort, South Carolina.
An LLC tied to Center Creek Homes purchased the Grove property in May from a trustee for previous owner John Thomas Jr. Property records show it paid $1.8 million for the property, which the city has assessed at $1.06 million.
The city property record lists the 1½-story house as having been built in 1775. An R-Home Magazine article from 2012 goes into more of the property’s history.
A Google Maps aerial view included in the plans shows the existing house and undeveloped site behind it.
The property is across Grove a block west from the site of another infill development that’s currently underway: the six-unit, three-story Grove at Hamilton townhomes that Vertical Builders is constructing at Grove and Hamilton Street.
Behind that site, local developers Jeremy Connell and Julie and Paul Weissend recently filed plans for an eight-home infill at 3801-03 Hanover Ave. The three-story townhomes would similarly fill the backyards of two existing houses there.
The area is surrounded by established single-family neighborhoods and includes Malvern Manor, several offices and churches and the Mount Vernon Condominiums that line I-195. It’s also across the expressway from the highly visible construction for Flournoy Development Group’s six-story apartment building at Grove and Thompson Street.
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