Yet another large apartment complex has opened in Shockoe Bottom — only this one is wired with ultra-high-speed Internet connections.
The Cedar Broad Apartments sit in the northern edge of apartment central for Richmond, not far from Tobacco Row and a slew of other apartment buildings in Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill.
Co-developer Phil Roper says he is not worried about filling the 204 units at Cedar Broad.
He said 16 units were leased in one week. "We have never leased anything half this fast."
He said the opening was timed right. "May to September is the best time," as Virginia Commonwealth University students look to get situated by the start of the new school year.
He and business partner George Emerson own and manage about 1,500 apartments in the Richmond area, including the American Tobacco Center, a 153-unit complex on North 20th Street.
About 160 units at Cedar Broad are leased and 80 are occupied in the four-story complex that wraps in an L-shape around a McDonald's at East Broad and Cedar streets.
The recently finished, $20 million project is a new development on what was once a parking lot — not a renovated historic building like most of the apartments in the area.
One- and two-bedroom units range from 540 square feet to 800 square feet and lease for $860 to $1,450 a month. They have granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
Water and electricity are billed separately from the rent.
DirecTV, telephone and Internet service are included and those amenities — plus an on-site gym and rooftop sundeck with water misters — set this complex apart.
The apartments are wired with fiber optics for the high-speed Internet service. Most apartment complexes offer cable modem systems and DSL, said Justin Miller, network operations manager for SkyWire, which installed the system at Cedar Broad.
The data transfer rate at Cedar Broad is 2,000 megabits per second, while most other forms of network mediums transfer at about 15 megabits — in other words, Cedar Broad is ultra-fast by comparison, Miller said.
"It's new, it's different, it's the upcoming thing," said Roper, when asked why he wanted fiber optics in the building.
Nine of the 204 units are wired directly with fiber optics — "for the Internet hogs," Roper said. The other units are connected to the fiber-optic network through copper wiring.
The direct fiber-optic users, for instance, could download a full movie within 30 seconds as opposed to minutes for those with copper wiring connections. But even those connected through copper wiring here have faster service than they could get almost anywhere else, Miller said.
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