The site left after the implosion of One James River Plaza, as seen last year. Dominion Energy had planned to build a “clean energy park” there.
A full city block in downtown Richmond may be developed after all, as Dominion Energy has changed course yet again for the vacant lot it owns next to its headquarters.
The company confirmed this week it has scrapped its plans to build a “clean energy park” at 701 E. Cary St., and instead plans to list the 2-acre site for sale.
“We are no longer developing the project and in the coming weeks will launch a process to sell the property,” a Dominion spokesman said in an email.
A sale of the property would mark yet another turn for the parcel that was leveled and left dormant after the May 2020 implosion of Dominion’s 21-story One James River Plaza office building.
A rendering of the two towers that were planned. The one to the left, 600 Canal, has since been built but 700 Canal on the right has been scrapped.
Dominion initially planned to build a 17-story, 900,000-square-foot office tower called 700 Canal Place on the site. It was to have been a slightly smaller sister building to the company’s 600 Canal Place headquarters next door. But those plans were called off last year in light of changing work-from-home trends and a decrease in Dominion’s downtown employee headcount after the sale of its natural gas business to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Then, last October, the company announced plans for the park, which would feature 28 electric vehicle charging stations powered by solar panel canopies and wind turbines, and green space for public use.
Dominion went as far as enlisting Whiting-Turner as the project’s general contractor and Baskervill as its architect and in late May had filed for a special-use permit application for the park. A public hearing for the permit had been scheduled for the City Council’s June 26 meeting.
A conceptual mock-up of the planned park, which was to have a layout in the shape of the “D” Dominion logo.
The company said this week its decision to forgo the park project and sell the real estate was a “question of capital allocation.”
“We’re redeploying this capital into customer-facing resiliency and clean energy infrastructure programs aimed at fulfilling our core mission of safely delivering reliable and affordable energy to millions of homes and businesses in the states we serve,” the company said.
Dominion did not say whether it plans to list the property itself or hire an outside brokerage.
The company said it’s too soon to say whether Dominion would be involved in any future development of the site. However, its possible involvement as a tenant of any future building on the property is unlikely. The company previously said it has ample office space between its remaining local hubs at 600 Canal, three office buildings at 120 Tredegar St. along the river and a sizable complex in Innsbrook.
The Cary Street parcel was most recently assessed by the city at $10 million. It’s zoned B-4 Central Business District.
According to the special-use permit application for the park, future use of the land is designated in the city’s Richmond 300 Master Plan as “Downtown Mixed-Use.”
The company has other real estate deals in play in the city. It’s under contract to sell its 20-story office tower at 705 E. Main St. to a local developer for an apartment conversion. It’s also in the process of selling its five-acre compound on Greyland Avenue in the Fan.
