Photo courtesy Richmond Flying Squirrels
The city of Richmond wants baseball to stay on Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
Decades after the Richmond Braves first petitioned the city for a new stadium, the Richmond City Council has approved conveyance of 61 acres known as the Diamond District to the Economic Development Authority, a crucial step in developing the site into a new neighborhood and a $110 million ballpark for the Flying Squirrels.
The plan, proposed last year by RVA Diamond Partners, was approved on May 8 through the Diamond District Development Agreement.
“Richmond has always been a great town for baseball, and I’m excited for the next chapter,” says City Councilwoman Katherine Jordan. “I’m clearly not alone. It passed the council unanimously, without even a single person speaking against it.”
The stadium will be funded by bonds and repaid with a portion of revenues from the impacted area. The bonds will not count against the city’s debt capacity, and Richmond will not be obliged to repay the stadium debt in the event of revenue shortfall. The adjacent Sports Backers Stadium is likewise slated for replacement, to the tune of $25 million in revenue bonds.
Besides the new sports stadiums, the Diamond District features a neighborhood with housing, retail and green space. “The vision is to create an urban neighborhood along Arthur Ashe Boulevard,” says Maritza Pechin, deputy director for the Office of Equitable Development and project manager for the Diamond District. “This could be a whole new neighborhood where thousands of people live.”
For Pechin and the City Council, it is imperative to develop a new neighborhood that is open to as many people as possible, which translates to making building units affordable to households making 30%, 60% and 110% of the area median income in Richmond, estimated to be $54,795 by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2021.
“We want this to be an equitable development,” Pechin says. “That means having opportunities for people at various levels of the income spectrum to live, to work and to play.”
Photo by Justin Vaughan
Also planned for the Diamond District is an 11-acre park eyed for a vacant lot behind the Science Museum of Virginia to be fronted by buildings, featuring bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. The area is slated to add 137,000 square feet of retail space, with 5,100 parking spaces and a 150-room hotel. City Council estimates that the Diamond District will net over $1 billion in revenue by 2068, when the bonds are repaid.
Approval for the baseball stadium comes at a crucial time for the future of the Richmond Flying Squirrels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Major League Baseball took control of formerly independent Minor League Baseball and, over the 2020 offseason, updated facility standards, which rendered The Diamond, built in 1985, obsolete. For instance, The Diamond does not have clubhouses for both teams that exceed 1,000 square feet, nor are there separate spaces for female staffers.
The MLB requirements are supposed to be enacted by 2025, but the new Diamond District ballpark is slated to open in 2026. So, is the future of the Richmond Flying Squirrels in jeopardy?
Jordan says that the success of the Squirrels and the tangibility of the recently approved plan will keep the team in town. “Meetings have been occurring between the developers, the city and the Squirrels, and I imagine the MLB is pleased to see progress,” she says. “While there have been delays, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the MLB pulls a team that can sell out The Diamond on a weeknight.”
Last year, the Squirrels, a Double-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, led the Eastern League in attendance with an average of 6,000 fans per night, good for 15th among all minor league teams and best in Double-A. The new ballpark will seat 10,000, which is about 500 more than The Diamond currently offers, with advertising banners covering the highest seats.
Earlier this year, the city of Richmond requested a deferment past the 2025 deadline. MiLB, now under the MLB umbrella, did not approve the deferral, requesting evidence of funding commitments and a plan and timeline for construction of the ballpark. Lou Dibella, the Flying Squirrels president and managing partner, had warned that the 2025 deadline was serious, and that involuntary relocation was a possibility. After the Diamond District Development Agreement was approved, though, he sounds optimistic.
“City Council approval of the development agreement for the Diamond District is a big step in the continued revitalization of Richmond, one that the Squirrels are happy to be a part of,” DiBella said in a statement. “We look forward to continued momentum with respect to the design and construction of our long-awaited home.”
