With its shopping sprawl, vast rural stretches and sleepy suburbs with no sidewalks, Chesterfield County will never be mistaken for the dense, urban areas of Richmond.
But county leaders are hoping that the 8-mile expanse known as Midlothian Village will be a close enough approximation.
This community, bordered by Route 288 and Lucks Lane, is the oldest settlement area of Chesterfield — and its most affluent. With its potential for different-sized dwellings, nearby shopping and dining, and proximity to bucolic Mid-Lothian Mines Park, county leaders are hoping it will attract the younger, millennial-age population away from Richmond to work and live here.
Millennials are one-third of the nation’s home buyers, and they will soon make up half of the U.S. workforce. As baby boomers age out of Chesterfield County’s large, suburban tract homes, it’s imperative for the county to attract millennials age 21-40, says Karen Aylward, assistant director of the county’s economic development department.
“They are the workforce, and more and more, companies are asking, ‘Where is our future workforce living?’ Then they look at those as places for location and expansion. So it’s important that we understand the challenge of attracting millennials because it impacts our ability to attract companies to make new investments and create jobs here.”
Midlothian Mines Park is popular with walkers, and geese, too.
In a recent electronic survey and visioning session, initiated by former Chesterfield Planning Commission Chairman Michael Jackson, 60% of Richmond-area millennial respondents said they preferred denser development and easy access to rapid transit, with shopping, restaurants, offices and homes close by.
“We wanted to know why millennials who live in Chesterfield live here, but also why millennials who work in Chesterfield don’t live here,” says Rebecca Stewart, 36, a water-quality analyst for the county. She chaired a committee of young professionals who administered the Millennial Visioning Project last summer at a networking event at Steam Bell Beer Works in Midlothian, as well as a listening session at the Richmond Volleyball Club’s Stonebridge facility in North Chesterfield.
Most of the survey’s participant group of 53 were ages 21-30, and their thoughts mirrored national trends: 53% owned pets, and 64% had no children. When asked if they were satisfied with the housing options in Chesterfield, 62% of those surveyed said either “No” or were undecided. More than two-thirds (67%) travel into the city of Richmond for recreation due to “the clustering of venues and the ability to move between them without a car.”
“The survey reinforced what we already knew from national data and regional studies,” says Andy Gillies, Chesterfield’s planning director. “And it all shows that some of our current zoning districts don’t fit very well with these newer trends.”
In its just-adopted comprehensive plan, Chesterfield officially reacts to this shift, largely eschewing the big tract-home subdivisions it has favored for decades, instead endorsing the creation of walkable and interconnected enclaves, with smaller and more affordable housing options, easy access to walking and biking trails, and less reliance on the automobile. Oh, yeah, and sidewalks.
“One of the aspects of Midlothian [Village] is to try and come up with inventive ways to create newer mixed-use developments,” Gillies says. More than 1,200 apartment units and townhouses are being planned in and around this stretch. “We’re trying to create more walkable, linkable communities — special mixed-use pods where you could walk or bike, where there would be a few restaurants and coffee shops. We need to help create places where people don’t have to get in their car and go to Richmond to get these things.” He quickly adds that this approach doesn’t fit for all of Chesterfield. “We have to pick our spots and do those spots in the right way.”
“The millennial generation is the biggest generation that America’s ever seen, so it’s a big part of our planning effort,” says Chesterfield Planning Manager Steven Haasch, who helped to draft the updated comprehensive development plan, the county’s roadmap for development.
“What we’re struggling with as a county is that our development pattern reflects a lot of the ’70s and ’80s style of planning and development,” he says. “Back then, we separated everything intentionally and didn’t combine uses. It makes the automobile the kind of de facto mode for transportation.”
Tyler Walter, 27, a senior zoning planner who works in the county but lives in Richmond’s Fan District, says that accessibility and affordability are big considerations. A member of the Millennial Visioning Project committee, Walter thinks housing options are a main impediment. “A lot of housing stock is out of the price range of young people. Living on a big lot down a windy spaghetti road just isn’t for me. But I can’t do it anyway, because I don’t have the money to put a down payment on a house.”
He also thinks that the lack of rapid transit in the county keeps it from the growth it needs. “Chesterfield does have nice areas, but they are islands. Every GRTC line, when it gets to the county line, it stops. ... One of the reasons I’m not attracted to living in the county is that there is no sense of place. There’s a lot of tract suburban housing, very auto dependent, whereas in Richmond, where I live, I can ride my bike everywhere. I can take public transit to places and easily get to the train station, if I want.”
National data shows that millennials are waiting longer to have kids. The Chesterfield study points out that, for those who do plan to raise a family, the county has an upside. “It has some of the top schools in the state, and that’s important,” says Brad Strouse, who works in Chesterfield at East Coast Entertainment. “Having a garage, a place to park the car, and a backyard and good schools for your 3 1/2-year-old ... as you get older, that stuff’s important.
(From left) Brad Strouse and Nate Harris, members of the Millennial Visioning Project
Strouse, 33, a Millennial Visioning Project committee member who represented the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce’s Young Professionals group, says that the county needs to offer more choices. “The ability to work, play, eat, drink, have recreation, hear music ... that kind of community is what’s going to draw people across the river.”
More than 60% of survey participants say that bike lanes and sidewalks are more important than car lanes, which shows that these millennials want easy access to outdoor amenities. “There are some of the nicest outdoor areas in the region,” Walter says, “like Dodd Park, Pocahontas, Mid-Lothian Mines ... but if I didn’t have a car, I wouldn’t be able to go to any of them.”
“The ability to work, play, eat, drink, have recreation, hear music ... that kind of community is what’s going to draw people across the river.” —Brad Strouse, Millennial Visioning Project committee member
“You’ve got to keep in mind where they are at their point in life,” says Haasch of the millennial generation. “It’s just like any other generation before them. When they exit college and are single, they want the urban environment and a lot of activities, but as they get in their 30s, which they’re starting to do now, they start contemplating family and the choices that the previous generations … had to make, which was, ‘Do I find a place in the suburbs or remain in a more urban lifestyle area?’ ”
Haasch says that Midlothian Village is already drawing younger married couples “because of the quality of the community there. It’s a place that has a variety of cool, local things to do, not just a bunch of chain shopping places. We want to strengthen that and to add more housing there to make it even more attractive to a variety of different lifestyles.”
The millennial-focused approach is also being tested in other areas, like Westchester Commons in Midlothian, with its new condos, restaurants and theaters; the Jane apartment project on Moore’s Lake off Jefferson Davis Highway; and Stonebridge, the revamped site of Cloverleaf Mall. “The next real opportunity for Chesterfield is the intersection of Powhite and 288, the CenterPointe area,” says Karen Aylward. Developers hope to build a “downtown area” there, but there needs to be more dense residential development. “We need the multifamily homes there to build the demographics and the income to support restaurants and the entertainment venues and all that,” Aylward says.
Nate Harris, 34, helped to roll out the millennial survey as part of the Chesterfield Chamber’s Young Professionals. He works in the county at Spectra venue management, programming the Virginia State University Multi-Purpose Center, but he and his wife live in Richmond. “I’ve lived in larger cities than Richmond, like Boston and Philadelphia, and have watched how their outskirt communities worked to attract younger people while still having those suburban comforts,” Harris says. “It can happen. The county has a lot to offer, from rural to suburban to denser spots. It just needs to find a way to connect it all, while offering easy access to the city.”
“Chesterfield County needs to accept that it’s never going to be Richmond,” Tyler Walter says. “It’s never going to be the focal point of the region — it just won’t be. For it to grow, there needs to be more cooperation between the localities, and that would make this a more comfortable place for everyone in the region.”
Chesterfield’s millennial survey held some good news for the whole region. About 89% of respondents said that they would rather own a home than to rent, and more than half said that they plan to reside in the area longer than 11 years.
“They’re interested in the smaller housing,” Andy Gillies says. “They want the 1,000- to 2,000-square-foot home. But they still want those homes to accommodate pets and children. It’s something to know when planning for the future.”
