500 apartments approved for Virginia Center Commons’ JCPenney site
Courtesy of Poole & Poole Architecture)
Another piece in the puzzle of the planned redevelopment of Virginia Center Commons has been put into place, with hundreds of apartments replacing one of the former shopping mall’s anchor department stores.
Henrico supervisors have approved plans for as many as 500 apartments to be built on the site of the recently closed JCPenney store, which developers Rebkee Co. and Shamin Hotels added to their assemblage of properties there earlier this year.
The apartments would fill four buildings that would rise on the 7-acre parcel that currently houses the store building and parking lot. Sample elevations included with the plans show the new buildings would rise four stories.
Demolition signals start of Virginia Center Commons redevelopment
Images courtesy of Rebkee Co.)
With demolition underway and more property in hand, a public-private effort to transform Virginia Center Commons from a suburban indoor mall to an urban-style mixed-use village is beginning to come into view.
Developer Rebkee Co. started work in recent weeks to raze the former Macy’s store at the mall’s eastern end, where collaborator Shamin Hotels is planning a hotel that would anchor the new development a mix of residential and retail – alongside an indoor sports and convocation center for Henrico County.
Around the same time, Rebkee and Shamin purchased the mall’s J.C. Penney store, initially excluded from their plans but now part of the project. The roughly 7-acre property on the mall’s northern side sold Jan. 26 for $3 million. The transaction was first reported by the Times-Dispatch.