Green City

share the ball said:
interesting debate here.

IMO the arena in Henrico works best because I trust the County's ability to fashion a financial plan that will succeed and the County taking the requisite steps to keep the facility up to date and in good working order

The City of Richmond has a long history of creating rosy financial feasibility plans that never come to fruition (6th street marketplace or whatever it was called , another is the district they created along broad street with street improvements and parking decks coupled that cratered and required city bailout and so on like the convention center

the city also has a reputation of not maintaining their facilities properly - sort of why Hampton and norfolk still have their arenas built at the same time as the Richmond Coliseum and ours fell apart 10-15 years ago from benign neglect

When Chill makes points about the existing restaurants and hotels that exist in the city , I think about the debate where to locate the new baseball stadium when discussion was being had about it being in the Shockhoe Bottom area near the downtown train station where plenty of restaurants and hotels existed but the Diamond location won out because the financial plan would not work without $4-5 million of annaul subsides from the dedicated revenue from new development adjacent to the Diamond (might be another failure coming because of the rosy projections of development)

I think you are both right that a SUCCESSFUL arena with lots of events (not sure that will be the case) will drive lots of restaurants wanting to be nearby but they have to have lots of events at the arena to succeed the more remote (isolated) the location is - Clearly a city location has an advantage there becasue of the proximity of VCUHS and the City workers to support the restaurant at times the arena doesn't have events

I looked at the scheduled events at the JPJ arena to get a sense about how often it is in use - and was really shocked that as far as concerts it looked like once or twice a month and then monster trucks and that ilk of event - will be interesting wherever built to see what will be scheduled

for 15 years the city has looked at a new arena project without a real plan that made financial sense to them - I am glad Henrico has stepped into the breach though it still maybe on life support

the amazing development I have witnessed in the last 10+ years is National Stadium in DC - I have been going to games there ever since it opened maybe 5 times a year - what has emerged in the one mile radius of there is AWESOME

I apologize in advance in that politics (view of City of Richmond and Henrico county leadership) will influence my view of this topic but 50+ years of history has numbed me

a topic that is not discussed is why won't VCU hold concerts in the STU - chance to make money to fund NIL or salaries

go rams
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And this is an arena in 23rd largest city in Virginia with an airport I wouldn't consider to be major.

Back in the day a lot of acts bypassed Richmond because the Coliseum was a crap facility. I think a top flight arena in this region would attract a lot of events.
 
share the ball said:
early on they had a few concerts but fights emerged after one and Trani said no more!!!!! life changes imo

you would think like Old Dominion does at Chartway Arena on campus VCU could emulate and make a little money
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The VCU homecoming concerts used to get pretty decent acts. I remember seeing John Legend at a HC concert the year he took off.
 
share the ball said:
early on they had a few concerts but fights emerged after one and Trani said no more!!!!! life changes imo

you would think like Old Dominion does at Chartway Arena on campus VCU could emulate and make a little money
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Sounds about right for Trani.

Maybe that's another Trani-era change that needs to be undone.
 
Mistachill said:
I think the opposite. The Sport and Entertainment Center is too far away to really compliment anything at the GreenCity site. It is almost four miles away. That's 4 times farther in distance than the Coliseum is from our main campus.

GreenCity is not desolate in terms of everyday life. But for an arena? GreenCity was a great concept because there was so much included in the design that you didn't need to rely on anything in the surrounding area to make it work. The development included housing, hotels, restaurants, and the arena among other things. Everything you mentioned is miles away.
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You should come up to the VCC area on a weekend. The amount of traffic and people in the area is noticeably different than it was a year ago. The hotel parking lots in the VCC area, Bass Pro area, Ashland are packed It takes all of about 5 minutes to get from Parham to VCC. The route 1 corridor is becoming prime commercial real estate. Parham to 301 is also primed for expansion. I feel they got it right, redeveloping northern Henrico.
 
CAAFan66 said:
You should come up to the VCC area on a weekend. The amount of traffic and people in the area is noticeably different than it was a year ago. The hotel parking lots in the VCC area, Bass Pro area, Ashland are packed It takes all of about 5 minutes to get from Parham to VCC. The route 1 corridor is becoming prime commercial real estate. Parham to 301 is also primed for expansion. I feel they got it right, redeveloping northern Henrico.
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Not to mention GRTC expanded bus service to the VCC area, which makes it even more accessible (and GRTC is still operating fare-free).
 
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