Henrico’s Westwood area begins long-awaited shift toward mixed-use growth

“It creates walkability between these areas,” he said. “It gives a better feel, and it gives you more opportunity for development inside the parcels, instead of just having street-facing retail.”

A key challenge in Westwood is its underlying layout. Unlike older urban districts built on smaller blocks, the area is made up of large tracts that limit connectivity and make it harder to move between sites. As new projects come online, developers are beginning to introduce internal connections and smaller access points that help bridge those gaps.

That opens the door for more varied uses between buildings, including coffee shops, small parks, creative offices and other neighborhood-scale spaces.

The Middleburg site sits near other existing and planned developments, including The Alder and an approved Spy Rock project along Dabney Road, positioning it as a central piece in the district’s evolving layout.

As residential projects are completed, Magette said, the rest of the neighborhood tends to follow.

“Retail follows residential,” he said.

One of the largest emerging anchors in the corridor is the Kinsale campus redevelopment. The phased project includes the renovation of a 1960s-era office building that will become the company’s headquarters, bringing roughly 700 employees to the site. Surrounding acreage is planned for additional mixed-use development, including housing, hotel and retail.

Baskerville

The project represents one of the most significant transformations of an aging suburban office site in Henrico.

Kinsale’s holdings also extend to nearby parcels associated with the former Ukrop’s-owned land, where earlier concepts envisioned a large-scale, high-density mixed-use development with roughly 1,000 residential units.

“You’re starting to see more development activity,” said Joe Emerson, Henrico’s director of planning. “There’s a lot of area there to develop as growth moves west out of the city.”

Westwood hasn’t just been zoned for housing and retail. Henrico is also upgrading the physical systems needed to support that growth.

The county’s Economic Development Authority approved an incentive package for the Kinsale project that returns a portion of new tax revenue generated by the site back to the developer over time, capped at roughly $6 million. The anticipated tax revenue over that period was estimated at about $7 million.

Beneath the surface, Henrico has also been rebuilding core infrastructure. A new sewage pumping station and related utility upgrades — part of the county’s capital improvement program — are designed to expand capacity in the corridor and support an influx of new residents. The work is estimated to cost between $5 million and $15 million.

The Greater Richmond Transit Authority’s Pulse bus line runs along Broad Street through the area, and additional bike and pedestrian improvements are planned as the district develops.

Even with the wave of new investment, Henrico officials say the transition will take time. Many industrial users remain in place, and full build-out is likely a decade or more away.

“It always takes time to mature,” Emerson said. “It’s a large area and we don’t anticipate that all the current users would leave. But it’s beginning to gain momentum."