The Richmond retail market has maintained strong fundamentals as the city’s diverse economic base and solid residential growth continue to fuel a historically low vacancy rate.
Demand is very strong from a variety of uses, ranging from soft goods and restaurants to entertainment and personal services such as med spas and boutique fitness. The coffee segment, long dominated by Starbucks Coffee, has seen a number of new competitors enter the market. Dunkin’ has been on a strong growth cycle, and more recently Dutch Bros Coffee, Scooters Coffee, Foxtail Coffee and PJs Coffee have been actively looking for sites. 7 Brew has been particularly active, opening two new stores and filling their pipeline with additional sites.
However, the real story in Richmond is the number of mixed-use projects that are in the planning stages or have broken ground, with virtually all of them anchored by a grocery store.
In Chesterfield County, the first phase of development for Springline at District 60 is near completion. Located at the intersection of Midlothian Turnpike and Chippenham Parkway, work was recently completed on a new 150,000-square-foot office building anchored by Timmons Group, while the 298-unit apartment building, The James at Springline, is nearing completion. The area has been anxiously awaiting the groundbreaking of a 12-story hotel and an announcement of a grocery store, which will serve to anchor this redevelopment project with massive support from Chesterfield County.
Another star property of Richmond’s mixed-use boom is The Aire at Westchester, a 2,200-unit master-planned development located in the Midlothian area of Chesterfield County along the expanding Route 288 corridor. Situated across from the established retail hub at Westchester Commons, HHHunt has broken ground on the first phase of residential development, which will consist of approximately 440 townhouses and condominiums. Future phases consist of up to 200,000 square feet of commercial space, including a 70,000-square-foot grocery store and an estimated 80-room hotel.
Located in the heart of the most robust residential growth area in the entire Richmond MSA — the intersection of Hull Street and Otterdale Road — Nunnally Village has begun its initial design and planning for a large mixed-use project. This campus will feature up to 1,000 residential units of various product types and potentially 250,000 square feet of retail space, anchored by a large-format grocer, as well as a 24-acre, $260 million hospital to be developed by HCA Healthcare.
Courthouse Landing has been under construction for a year delivering sites to Sheetz, Panera Bread, Panda Express, Virginia Credit, First Bank, Starbucks and Five Guys in that time. The next phase of this mixed-use development will feature 300 apartments and 180 townhouses, and a Towne Place Suites hotel, with more retail and medical office planned.
Lastly, Greenberg Gibbons is redeveloping the Genworth Headquarters campus into a massive missed-use project. Located on one of the best parcels in the entire market at the intersection of West Broad Street and I-64 in western Henrico County, the site will feature 150,000 square feet of grocery-anchored retail space, 1,000 apartments, 194 townhouses, two hotels and a fully renovated, 131,000-square-foot, Class A corporate headquarters office building. Site work is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2025, and the first phase will deliver in 2027.
Grocery continues to be a key driver of activity in the market. Kroger is relocating a Mechanicsville store where it will build a new $40 million, 132,000-square-foot Marketplace store and fuel center to replace the existing 58,000-square-foot store. Kroger is looking at other sites in the market as well.
Whole Foods Market has broken ground on its second store in the region at the upcoming Midlothian Depot project, and Publix is active in the market, looking at additional locations.
Sporting goods is another active category. Academy Sports + Outdoors has entered the market, opening its second Richmond area store and looking at additional locations. The biggest announcement in this category for the Richmond market is the lease from Dick’s Sporting Goods’ House of Sport concept, backfilling the long-vacant Nordstrom box at Short Pump Town Center.
Preleasing is underway for the massive redevelopment centered around the new baseball stadium, now named CarMax Park. Known as the Diamond District, the project encompasses more than 67 acres in 15 new city blocks, and at full build-out will include 288,000 square feet of commercial space, a 180-room hotel, 2,478 apartments and a new central park and green mews. The long-awaited new stadium within the city of Richmond is set to open in April 2026 and will further strengthen Arthur Ashe Boulevard and the Scott’s Addition submarket as a hub of entertainment.
The Richmond market, with its significant pipeline of mixed-use developments, will change the region’s commercial landscape. As transformative projects like the Diamond District, the Genworth Headquarters and Nunnally Village come on line over the next several years, Richmond’s retail market fundamentals, already strong, are positioned to attract a mix of national brands and emerging concepts.
— By David Crawford, First Vice President, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of Southeast Real Estate Business.