Six blocks of 1890s brick and cast iron on West Main Street, in the largest intact Victorian neighbourhood in the country, immediately adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University.
The Portfolio
Every building, every available space, and the VCU campus next door. Toggle the layers on the right, switch to the aerial, and click any pin or parcel for details.
Provided for general guidance only and subject to change without notice. Posted signage and the terms of each lease govern. Main Street, AABC Uptown Richmond, LLC and High Street Property Management accept no liability for towing, vehicle damage or loss, or for the availability of any space.
Parcel outlines are the recorded boundaries from the City of Richmond assessor records. VCU land is shaded for orientation only and is not part of the property.
Why Here
Retail at grade, offices and studios above, from a single room to fifteen thousand square feet.
One, two and three bedrooms over the shops and around the corner, managed by The Richmond Loft Company.
Italianate, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival, most of it up before 1930 and never torn down.
A contiguous six block footprint under single ownership, with off street parking off the service alleys.
Who Is Here
Thirty businesses along West Main and South Harvie, some of them on this block for thirty years.
Now Leasing
Ground floor storefronts with the original glass, and upstairs suites reached by the old stair halls. Every space below is on West Main Street, walking distance from VCU's Monroe Park campus.
Live Here
Thirty apartments above the shops and around the corner on South Harvie, Plum and West Cary. High ceilings, tall windows and the odd original mantel, brought up to date with in unit laundry and off street parking. Every one of them a walk from VCU.
Get in Touch
Retail, office and residential are handled by different people. Here is who to call.
Owned by AABC Uptown Richmond, LLC · Commercial management by High Street Property Management
Location
West Main Street runs along the southern edge of VCU's Monroe Park campus. That is the whole pitch, and it is a good one.
West Main Street, 1118 to 1516
Richmond, Virginia 23220
Plus 6 and 8 South Harvie Street, 1 to 21 South Plum Street, and 1420 to 1430 West Cary Street.
Eighteen Ninety to Nineteen Thirty
Richmond ran the first successful electric streetcar system in the country in 1888. The lines pushed west, the middle class followed, and the Fan filled in behind them. West Main was the commercial spine of it.
Richmond's electric streetcars were the first to work anywhere in the country. Downtown clerks could suddenly live a mile from the office, and the farmland west of Belvidere stopped being farmland.
Italianate, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival, often all three on one facade. City engineer Wilfred Cutshaw laid out the radiating streets, the service alleys and the triangular parks on City Beautiful principles.
The Fan is the largest intact Victorian neighbourhood in the United States, and the oldest commercial buildings that kept their original storefronts are concentrated right here on West Main.
VCU has held 1314 West Main since 1993. Reynolds Gallery, the first contemporary gallery Richmond ever had, has hung shows at 1514 since 1997. Uptown Color has printed on this block since 1992.
Almost none of this was designed by an architect. Fan storefronts were put up by builders working from pattern books, which is why you get an Italianate cornice over a Romanesque arch next to a Colonial Revival doorway, all on one block, and why it holds together anyway.
The bones repeat. Load bearing brick, two or three storeys, a shop front at grade and living space above it. Cast iron columns holding the front open so the glass could be as wide as possible. A stair hall to one side reaching the upper floors, which is why so many of the office suites here are numbered off a single street door.