From Desolation to Civilization Along the banks of the James River, just east of downtown Richmond, Va., a true renaissance is underway thanks to the vision of Forest City Developers. The company purchased River Lofts at Tobacco Row, a parcel of 13 buildings, in an area that was previously an abandoned industrial site. The properties were inventoried, some deemed unsalvageable and torn down or sold, and the rest scheduled for conversions into loft apartments. The first project, conversion of the American Cigar Co. building into 171 rental loft spaces, was completed in 2000. It was so successful that many units were pre-leased at above-market rates. The second project, conversion of the Consolidated-Carolina Building, is now near completion.
The Consolidated-Carolina Building dates back to the 1800s. When Jeff Henneman of Henneman & Associates signed onto the project as the design architect, his firm already had a solid background in loft conversions and a real affinity for the challenges associated with this type of work. “These buildings are like snowflakes in that each one is unique,” says Henneman whose firm worked on both projects. “Some may have been added on to over the years. The end result is very unorthodox but adds to their beauty.” The finished units will combine rough, unfinished brick and exposed metalwork space with warmer materials such as wood.
Like most people who work on loft projects, Henneman says that the units’ individuality and quality, combined with their retro look, seems to have special appeal to the Generation X market. “Loft living provides a sought-after alternative to suburban rental units,” he says. Tobacco Row has proved so successful, in fact, that a high-end supermarket and a drugstore have moved in to service the growing community, and Bookbinders has opened a restaurant here, its first outside of the Philadelphia region.
A Team Effort Traverse the Blackstone River from Pawtucket, R.I., northward to the Massachusetts line and you’ll see why it was once termed the “hardest-working river in America.” The birthplace of the American industrial revolution, the riverscape is dotted with old mills, most of them former textile manufacturing plants. The workers’ villages that sprang up around these mills have become bedroom communities for Providence and Boston commuters. The area will soon be home to another Forest City adaptive reuse project.