by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

How do you . . . revitalize a historic site turned brownfield and tie it into the nearby CBD?

Summary: Located just south of the Richmond, Va., central business district, Rocketts Landing is steeped in the history of America. The 54-acre site dates back to 1607, when English settlers traveled upriver only days after founding the settlement of Jamestown. Captain Christopher Newport traveled the James River as far inland as he could, stopped only by the fall line near what would become Rocketts Landing. As a British-occupied territory during the Revolutionary War, a booming international seaport throughout the 19th century, and the principal shipyard of the Confederate navy, this parcel of land occupied great prominence in Richmond. Named for an Irish immigrant who operated a rope ferry across the James, Rocketts Landing eventually became an abandoned industrial brownfield after trains replaced ships as the primary method of continental transport. Today, both site and capital city are in the midst of a reawakening, thanks in good measure to the efforts of CMSS Architects.

Situated minutes from downtown, the new Rocketts Landing mixed-use development will incorporate 500,000 square feet of office space; 200,000 square feet of retail and entertainment; 2,000 residential units, a hotel, a marina, and a mile-long riverfront park to create a waterfront community that will resurrect the historic area and reconnect to residents of Richmond with the James River. Burrell Saunders, AIA, CEO of CMSS Architects, said that it was very important to use the site’s public open spaces to celebrate the history of Richmond and Henrico County. “The streets are designed in a manner to integrate with open park spaces, looking out over the river or up the river at the Richmond skyline,” he says.

Saunders believes that the development is an important aspect in the reintroduction of housing Richmond’s CBD. “There are some 70,000 jobs just a mile upriver in the city,” Saunders says. “This gives people a chance to live close to where they work and opens public access to the flat-water below the fall line so that it becomes a public space for the whole city.”

Overcoming obstacles
As an early measure of its success, the development already has received an Outstanding Private Sector Plan Award from the Virginia Chapter of the America Planning Association. CMMS Architects is the first recipient for this newly created award category. To bring the Rocketts Landing plan to fruition, significant municipal and environmental obstacles had to be overcome. New zoning categories were created in both Richmond and Henrico County, and a new procedure for phased brownfield remediation was developed in cooperation with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

To help launch the project, the site needed some serious remediation, but with such an expansive property it was too expensive to undo all of the damage at once. “This was a landmark decision for [the DEQ] because they agreed to negotiate an agreement that would allow us to develop the project in phases so the phases didn’t put the burden on having to deal with the total property up front,” explains Saunders. “We could do it as we built and moved along, so that allowed the development to happen and allowed us to be able to get financing for the property. It’s been touted by the DEQ as a real model for how to retool brownfields and bring them online as successful parts of the development of the cities.”

Enhancing the public realm
According to Saunders, the site at present consists of two adaptively reused warehouses: one that now holds condos with some office space and a second that will contain commercial space and is still undergoing construction. There also are two riverfront condominiums—one completed and the second scheduled for completion within three months—a loft-like condominium structure that’s under construction, and 41 town homes that will line a village green.

When completed in 2010, Rocketts Landing will offer Richmond residents access to its parks, walking trails, plazas, and open green spaces along the James, along with marinas, docks, and the riverfront park, one of the few areas in the city with deep-water access. In considering Rocketts Landing for the Outstanding Private Sector Plan Award, the jury was impressed by the deep cooperation between the City of Richmond and Henrico County and appreciated the development’s civic spirit in creating public access to the riverfront. “The emphasis on the public realm is demonstrated in the amazing public park along the James River in Henrico County,” praised the APA award jury.