Exclusive: Developers drop Shockoe ballpark project
Highwoods Properties
Developers had proposed a $363 million project in Shockoe Bottom that would include a baseball stadium residential and commercial areas.
A plan for baseball in Shockoe Bottom is dead.
Developers of the proposed Shockoe Center ballpark announced this afternoon that they're walking away from the project as well as a proposal for development along the Boulevard.
"We have carried these projects as far as our collaborative team can under the present circumstances," the development team led by Highwoods Properties said in a statement released to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The developers said their efforts aimed at revitalizing Shockoe Bottom and the Boulevard have been overshadowed by debate over the ballpark.
They also said the "good faith" but ultimately unsuccessful effort by a group of local investors to buy a baseball team had "fundamentally altered the way minor-league baseball will now return to Richmond.
"The city will need to negotiate directly with any new team owner on such issues as location, timing and financing of a new ballpark."
A statement from Mayor Dwight C. Jones is forthcoming, according to his press secretary, Tammy D. Hawley.
For more details on why the plan was dropped, see tomorrow's Times-Dispatch.
-- Will Jones
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Reader Reactions
THANK GOODNESS!!! Hopefully this is now one headache (of many) that we won’t have to worry about…for a while at least!!! Now, on to the next ignorant thing they’re planning!
a bunch of losers are running this town. how many times will we have to lose an opportunity before someone realizes we need to fire everyone and start over again. by the time we ever get rid of the incompetence and corruption, nobody will even be interested in bringing a team here…because we have shown we are incapable of adult decision making. for all of the people who fought so hard to shut down one of the only good ideas richmond had (baseball in the bottom), i hope you’re happy - you’ve managed to succeed in helping richmond continue to suck when some idiot actually wanted to take a chance on us to make us better. i’m over it.
The people have spoken.
Good! The developers finally recognized what many Richmond taxpayers have long known - Highwoods does not have the financial capacity to carry the project, and their revenue estimates were wildly exaggerated.
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