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Save This PageLawmakers want a 10-story office tower to go up on a long-vacant, state-owned lot on Broad Street, but it's not clear when it would be built.
House-Senate negotiators yesterday said private developers should offer proposals for the Richmond site by Sept. 1. Any deal apparently would have to clear the 2009 General Assembly.
The House-written provision could further slow efforts to build on the site on East Broad Street, between Eighth and Ninth streets -- just east of a hive of redevelopment that includes a new federal courthouse, hotel and performing arts center.
"A lot of people are interested in seeing the state fulfill its part in putting a better face on Broad Street," said Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan.
A building on the Broad Street lot could provide temporary space for the Virginia Supreme Court and General Assembly, respectively, during the proposed renovation or replacement of their quarters.
The project is part of a hard-fought, $1 billionplus package of bond-financed construction on which House and Senate conferees completed work yesterday.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said in a statement that the bond bill "will signal a record investment in Virginia's higher education institutions."
Negotiators from the Richmond area include Watkins, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, and Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights.
The bond measure -- unfinished business from the 2008 General Assembly -- will be considered by lawmakers at their one-day spring session next week.
Other Richmond projects in the bond bill include:
Development of the Broad Street lot, which is opposite the state library, has been a flashpoint between the House and Senate for years.
Most of the lot was cleared in 1993, when the state razed a strip of aging commercial buildings. In the past year, the Eighth Street Office Building, formerly the Murphy Hotel, came down.
The House is balking at improvements as costly and unnecessary. The Senate wants to erect a building to help ease a shortage of state-owned office space.
State planners envision more than 400,000 square feet of space in a $194.1 million complex that would wrap a new building around a renovated Ninth Street Office Building, which was previously the Hotel Richmond.
The latest wrinkle, contained in a language amendment to the bond bill, requires the Kaine administration to seek proposals for developing the site.
"I've always liked the [private] approach," Cox said.
The language suggests that the building, if erected, would be privately owned and that the state would be a tenant. Further, the building would include commercial space.
The state would retain ownership of the land, leasing it to the developer. Terms could include a provision under which the state eventually assumes ownership of the building.
Such negotiations, however, might affect separate talks over the purchase of the tax department headquarters, at Seventh and Main streets, and any lease agreements with the building's existing tenants.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com
