People & Places to Watch in 2021

Alley/Jones Hospitality

From Jason Alley’s first restaurant job at a beachside crab shack to Michele Jones’ Dairy Queen stint, these industry veterans and former owners of Pasture and Comfort have worn every hat in the restaurant world. In 2019, the team transitioned into roles as consultants, unveiling Alley/Jones Hospitality. “We’re coaches, in a way,” Jones says. “We love to help people.” After working with Ashland’s Canteen, the duo is advising a pan-African restaurant opening on Brookland Park Boulevard. —Eileen Mellon

Shannon Wright

The artist behind several children’s books, Shannon Wright’s talent is drawing attention: A graphic novel she illustrated was published in October (“Twins”), and she created the poster for this year’s Richmond Folk Festival. Next up, the 26-year-old is illustrating a book about Jackie Ormes, the first African American woman cartoonist. While the manga influence on Wright’s style is evident, that’s not her only inspiration. “A lot of my work is just inspired by things that I’ve gone through — people in my life, just like events and whatnot,” she says. “So I pull from that.” —Craig Belcher

RVA Black Farmer’s Market

Founded by musician and marketer Navi Johnson this August, the gathering of growers at The Way of the Lord Fellowship at 1700 Blair St. has expanded its vendors and added an event at the 17th Street  Market. Johnson is now considering a South Side location but hasn’t forgotten the challenge of her first market. “On that day, it was pouring down raining, but vendors still sold out ... and that’s when I knew I could still be a success, even despite all the crazy circumstances,” she says. —CB

Shockoe Bottom  

Years of deliberation, dating from the 1998 formation of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission and the 2004 Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, alongside efforts by Preservation Virginia and later Historic Richmond, spurred Mayor Levar Stoney in July to earmark $3.5 million in the city’s capital budget for a 9-acre Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park. Stoney and the Shockoe Alliance announced a five-year plan allocating more than $25 million to a project embracing the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site and the African American burial grounds, along with construction of an education center to memorialize the complete history of African Americans in Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom, a center of the domestic slave trade. —Harry Kollatz Jr.

Richmond Coliseum

In the nine months since City Council killed the $1.5 billion Navy Hill redevelopment project and its proposal to replace the shuttered Richmond Coliseum, a new plan has been quietly progressing to help guide the area’s redevelopment. The hope is that a draft of the Coliseum Small Area Plan, shaped through input from virtual community meetings and discussions among Richmond’s Planning and Development Review staff, engineering consultant AECOM and community stakeholders, will be ready by early 2021. If approved by the city’s planning commission and council, the plan would then be used to amend the Richmond 300 master plan, and the request for proposals process would begin anew. —Chad Anderson

Ronald Crutcher

In September, University of Richmond President Ronald Crutcher announced that he will step down in early 2022. The school’s first Black president, he took office in 2015 and remains optimistic, even during a pandemic. “Higher education can and will emerge from this difficult time stronger than before if we make some long overdue changes,” he says. “Our new remote reality has forced us to make better use of technology to effectively deliver content to students.” An accomplished cellist, Crutcher is working on his memoir and plans to return to UR as a faculty member following a yearlong sabbatical in Berlin. —CA

Read an expanded interview with Crutcher at richmondmag.com/crutcher.

Science Museum of Virginia  

Science Museum of Virginia Chief Wonder Officer Richard Conti is looking forward to creating a green ribbon along Broad Street during 2021-22. On two of the 33 acres now devoted to surface parking, the museum will landscape with native trees and plants to create meandering paths interspersed with public art. A three-story, 400-space parking deck now under construction will remove cars from the entrance circle. “This is one of the few plans that when I present [it], people clap,” Conti says. —HK

The Wild Bunch

This 15-member photography collective formed during this summer’s protests. Each photographer was documenting the scene before they connected, some through Instagram, some in person, and began to collaborate. “I didn’t feel comfortable going out ... by myself, but I became more comfortable because I had this group,” says photographer Keshia Eugene. Dubbed The Wild Bunch, the group recently presented “Our Streets,” a photography exhibition in Norfolk. They now share a workspace, meet biweekly and have plans for more exhibits. “We will continue to document the social, political and cultural life in Richmond and Virginia,” says Landon Shroder, a member of the collective and managing editor and partner at RVA Mag. “We have only just begun.” —Jessica Ronky Haddad

Brown’s Island

Hoping to turn up the volume on Brown’s Island, site of events such as the Richmond Folk Festival, Venture Richmond’s Brown’s Island Improvement Plan includes a wide range of projects both practical (permanent restrooms) and aesthetic (new art installations). Fundraising, designs for at least one of the proposed projects and additional community engagement — an online survey was conducted over the summer — are planned for 2021. In addition to making Brown’s Island a better event venue, Venture Richmond Director of Riverfront and Downtown Placemaking Max Hepp-Buchanan says the goal is “to make Brown’s Island an attractive, welcoming and accessible public space year-round.” —CA

Valentina Peleggi and Lacey Huszcza

The Richmond Symphony moves into 2021 with new leadership. Lacey Huszcza began as executive director Dec. 1, joining new Music Director Valentina Peleggi, an award-winning Italian conductor who started working with the symphony earlier this year. Huszcza comes to Richmond from the Las Vegas Philharmonic, where she was recognized for digital innovation, patron development, music education and community engagement. In the announcement of her appointment, Huszcza says she looks forward to “building new ways to connect the arts to the community, bring people together and further enhance Richmond’s reputation as the cultural center of Virginia.” —JRH

New Virginia General Assembly Building

The 15-story office building at Ninth and Broad streets broke ground in 2017, and as of October, the steelwork was set for completion before 2021 begins. Most of the interior should be done by the end of 2021, with move-in the following year, providing state representatives and staff with expansive, modern office space in a 400,000-square-foot structure. The new building includes a preserved, circa-1912 facade, and the lower four floors include public spaces, meeting spaces, committee rooms and a cafeteria. —Tharon Giddens

Danny Robinson

Named chief creative officer for the Martin Agency in August, Robinson, the first Black person to hold that title at Martin, didn’t have the luxury of easing into his new role. “Clients have always needed their partners to be nimbler and quicker,” says Robinson, who’s been with the Richmond-based company since 2004. “The pandemic has just accelerated the need.” He notes that they’ve produced work remotely for over 90% of their clients, including DoorDash, Ritz, UPS and Oreo. “I’m lucky to be able to say we want to do more of what we’ve been doing, just faster.” Outside of work, Robinson is the board chair for FeedMore. —CA

Read an expanded interview with Robinson at richmondmag.com/robinson.

Robert Blue

In October, 15-year Dominion Energy veteran Robert Blue moved into a new role as the company’s president and CEO. Though still reporting to longtime leader Thomas Farrell — now the company’s executive chair — Blue has emerged as the heir apparent. A onetime staffer for former Gov. Mark Warner, Blue will have to steer Dominion through the new realities of a General Assembly controlled by Democrats and growing complaints about the utility’s political influence. This was a year of change for Dominion, which imploded its old downtown office tower, canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, sold its gas transmission and storage divisions, and completed an offshore wind turbine pilot project that sets the stage for a planned 2.6-gigawatt wind farm. —CA

U.S. Highway 1 Corridor

The 8.5-mile stretch of Jefferson Davis Highway just south of Richmond city limits is the target of an ambitious reimagining under a Chesterfield County revitalization effort. The Northern Jefferson Davis Special Area Plan, adopted by the county in 2018, includes designs to enhance gateway areas, improve pedestrian and cycling access, and embellish recreation points. Novel efforts in the works include constructing affordable housing on the site of the old Colbrook Motel, a historic spot that provided a safe place for African Americans as they traveled the Jim Crow South. The Better Housing Coalition envisions a 166-unit Colbrook Community on the site. —TG

Bon Secours Training Center

As the final year of the Washington Football Team’s Richmond training center agreement draws to a close, the venue is poised to become a go-to for outdoor socially distanced events. Now known as the Bon Secours Training Center, the event space hosted the area’s first “pod”-style concerts this fall, with a series put on by The Broadberry. Subject to local COVID infection trends, similar outdoor events could continue there in 2021, says Tim Miller, spokesman for ASM Global Richmond, the company managing the space. —Rodrigo Arriaza

Levar Stoney

Richmond’s mayor fended off a crowded field of challengers to secure a second term this November, winning the race outright. Heading into his next four years in office, Stoney’s priorities are likely to include a universal pre-K plan and a sprawling effort to memorialize Black history in Richmond with the Shockoe Area Memorial Park, alongside continued pandemic relief. “To get another four years to complete the work, as I’ve stated in the past, is the greatest honor of my life,” he said the day after the election. —RA

Hull Street Road at Highway 288

One of Chesterfield County’s most congested areas is getting an extensive makeover of its highways to ease congestion and reduce fender benders. Construction is set to begin in 2021 and includes lengthening and widening to two lanes the off-ramp from Highway 288 south onto Highway 360 west. Work also will begin on a park-and-ride lot off Highway 360 at Chital Drive, located at the Chesterfield Career and Technical Center. A Bailey Bridge Connector is set for construction beginning in 2022. —TG

Stacy Shaw/The Byrd Theatre

Amid the pandemic shutdown and renovations, Stacy Shaw began as the Byrd Theatre Foundation’s first-ever executive director this summer. The Byrd continues with virtual events, paid marquee announcements, movie parties and planned holiday screenings of “Elf” featuring limited seating. Renovations include an upgrade to the HVAC system that will include pathogen-killing ultraviolet light, continued replacement of the Byrd’s notoriously uncomfortable seats and a remodel of the women’s bathroom. “What we’ve avoided is opening and closing while we continue to make improvements,” Shaw says. —HK

Monument Avenue

Debate about Monument Avenue’s Confederate statues exploded this summer in the wake of protests against police brutality and institutional racism, which jump-started their removal in July. The Robert E. Lee monument remains alone amid legal wrangling. The public reclamation of the statue and Lee Circle, rechristened by activists as Marcus-David Peters Circle, was named by a New York Times Magazine panel as the most influential work of American protest art since World War II. What’s to become of the monuments themselves, and the avenue, remains to be determined. —HK

The Fall Line

Runners, walkers and cyclists can look forward to a paved 43-mile trail connecting Ashland to Petersburg. Though an expected completion date hasn’t been set, the state has committed $5.7 million to the project, and localities along the Fall Line route are seeking additional funding. The multiuse path will connect to the Virginia Capital Trail in Richmond and Petersburg’s Appomattox River Trail while bridging existing and upcoming trails and parks across the region. —RA

Gerald Smith

After taking the reins of the city’s police department in July, Gerald Smith has been the public face of a department under fire from demonstrators who argue that the police response at protests centered around racial and social justice has been overly hostile. Smith has voiced support for changes, including a local civilian review board and recruiting mental health professionals to respond to emergencies, but he has opposed demands to decrease police funding and ban the use of nonlethal weapons such as rubber bullets and tear gas. —RA

Brookland Park Corridor

In recent years, this area in North Side has been transformed by a blended collective of people and businesses, and eye-catching murals. From Ms. Bee’s Juice Bar to Ninja Kombucha — a taproom dedicated to the fermented beverage — to ice cream shop Ruby Scoops, there’s a renewed excitement in the neighborhood. Other new additions: Richmond Art Garage, Brookland Park Market, the forthcoming Northside Gourmet Market and The Smoky Mug, a two-in-one coffee-barbecue venture led by North Side residents. —EM

Dironna Moore Clarke

As head of the city’s new Office of Equitable Transit and Mobility, Dironna Moore Clarke is committed to making Richmond’s roads safer and more convenient, regardless of how you prefer to get around. Operating under the city’s Department of Public Works, Clarke aims to examine “operational changes that would put an equitable lens on the transit system,” and she will work to implement the city’s transit-oriented Richmond 300 goals, collaborating with agencies such as GRTC to make public transportation more accessible. —RA

Common House  

Marking the second location of the Charlottesville-based social club, Common House Richmond debuted at 305 W. Broad St. in mid-October, offering a playground for adults seeking a business-meets-pleasure environment. With varying membership rates, the multilevel gathering place features a wine cellar, a podcast recording studio, coworking spaces, a rooftop area and a saltwater pool. Look for Birdie’s, an oyster bar and cafe open to the public, to debut in 2021. —EM

Ukrop’s Market Hall   

From the beloved White House rolls to joy-sparking rainbow cookies and uber-popular fried chicken, Ukrop’s products are Richmond institutions, gracing dinner tables for decades. The company will introduce Ukrop’s Market Hall, expected to open in December, a dine-in, carryout and catering venture stocked with their prepared foods, at Patterson Avenue and Horsepen Road. “We think of Ukrop’s Market Hall as the next chapter,” says Scott Aronson, company president. “This location will also provide a venue for us to introduce new and innovative foods.” —EM

Heidi Wiedrich

Country singer-songwriter Heidi Wiedrich dreamed of appearing on “American Idol” while watching clips on YouTube. This year, the 19-year-old auditioned for the long-running television program. She performed an original song and was asked to perform again for multiple rounds of judges in a Zoom version of a “callback.” Although she wasn’t picked for the show, that hasn’t stopped her. She’s still posting performances to her Instagram and YouTube accounts. “I’m not really here for the fame but to connect with people,” Wiedrich says. “I am a pretty shy person most of the time, but when it comes to music and singing, I say exactly how I feel.” —Anika Mittu

Valerie Cassel Oliver

In May, Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, debuts the exhibition “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse,” which uses Southern hip-hop as a window into years of music, art and expression. Expect to see personal effects of influential Southern musicians, works from artists living from the 1940s until now, and other cool stuff that’s she’s not ready to talk about yet. Oliver says the project is part of the museum’s efforts to become “a place where people want to be, and a place where people will see themselves reflected, no matter what their cultural or ethnic background.” —CB

Virginia Center Commons

Look for a transformation of the Virginia Center Commons mall as Henrico County begins work to demolish part of the waning shopping center to build a new 200,000-plus-square-foot, $50 million indoor sports and convocation center. The new facility will feature 24 volleyball courts, 12 basketball courts, event space and a convocation center that will host high school graduations and seat up to 4,500 people. Construction is expected to be complete by August 2022. The Rebkee Co. and Shamin Hotels are also investing in the site. Plans are still in development, but expect to see a new six-story hotel along with green space, multifamily housing, shops and cafes. —JRH

Eric English

Henrico County’s first Black police chief, Eric English joined the force in September and brings with him a policing career that includes 28 years with the Richmond Police Department. Taking over the role amid heightened national scrutiny around police interactions with people of color, English says he’ll strive to bolster community involvement and transparency as the department reevaluates its protocols. “We have to understand that we have to be accountable,” he says, “and [police departments] around this country have to be accountable for their personnel.” —RA

Virginia Museum of History & Culture

Jamie Bosket, president and CEO of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, and the museum’s board and staff turned crisis into opportunity in October when they decided to begin a $30 million transformation of the buildings and grounds earlier than planned due to the pandemic leading to fewer visitors. The project is expected to be complete in spring 2022. “It’s a silver lining if there ever was one, but it wasn’t happenstance,” Bosket says. “We had to do some very creative things to be here. But I’m proud that we are.” —HK

VCU Health Adult Outpatient Pavilion

Work is winding down on the VCU Health Adult Outpatient Pavilion, which is set to open downtown in December 2021. The $383.9 million project will be home to outpatient clinics, including many offered through the Massey Cancer Center; women’s health services; and VCU Dental Care. A bonus: It will help ease parking woes with its 472,000-square-foot parking deck. Work continues across the street on a new inpatient hospital for the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, set for a 2023 opening. —TG

Eric Edwards and B. Frank Gupton

The Richmond-based Phlow Corp. in May earned a $354 million, four-year federal contract to bring some crucial pharmaceutical production back to the United States. “We expect this work to have a major impact on the short-term and long-term access to essential medications,” says B. Frank Gupton, a co-founder of Phlow with Eric Edwards. Gupton is also CEO of Medicines for All Institute (a strategic partner with Phlow) and chair of Chemical and Life Science Engineering at VCU, where he holds the Floyd D. Gottwald Jr. Chair in pharmaceutical engineering. —TG

Ma Cong

When he’s choreographing a dance, Ma Cong, 42, can be inspired by a painting, a place, even a story told by a friend. But normally, says the incoming associate director of Richmond Ballet, he lets the music move him. His “Ershter Vals” has been a signature piece for the Richmond Ballet since 2009, and now Cong will work alongside founding artistic director Stoner Winslett to shape the company’s future as its new associate artistic director. “The art must move forward,” the Chinese-born teacher and former dancer says of producing ballet in the age of COVID-19. “Art is like food for people’s souls and without that food, we’re all going to starve.” —Don Harrison

The Hill Standard  

Anchored by the area’s second Veil Brewing location — which has its own Airbnb — The Hill Standard, 4920 Forest Hill Ave., is one of Richmond’s most anticipated projects. Pepe’s restaurant, Stella’s Grocery and Blanchard’s Coffee will all call the space home, along with a sweet addition: Charm School ice cream. Introducing a soft-serve-focused shop with a walk-up window, co-owner Meryl Hillerson says, “We’re the cherry on top of The Hill sundae.” —EM

The Jackson Ward Collective  

In late summer, Rasheeda Creighton of 3Fifty Group; Kelli Lemon, owner of Urban Hang Suite; and Melody Short, co-owner of Richmond Night Market, launched The Jackson Ward Collective, a social enterprise of more than 150 Black business owners and members. Lemon says the name pays homage to the birthplace of Black capitalism that was once called “Black Wall Street.” The organization provides members with access to a network of resources. “Black entrepreneurs are struggling in a lot of different ways. ... Our whole vision is to help [them] learn, grow and, most importantly, own,” Lemon says. —EM