The Streetcar Cafe at 10 E. Brookland Park Blvd. (Photo by Jonathan Spiers)
RICHMOND, Va. –“Is this the next Scott’s Addition?” one attendee asked another as a group of developers, architects and commercial real estate brokers crammed inside the Streetcar Café coffee shop along Brookland Park Boulevard, a long-neglected corridor that some are declaring Richmond’s next commercial hot spot.
The occasion was the latest Commercial Coffee get-together, a networking event put on by local engineering firm Timmons Group. The crowd of designers, developers and real estate professionals converged on the café last week to hear from owners Derek and Cybelle McDaniels, whose 1-year-old business has been viewed as a beacon for a sea change that appears to be swelling in the area.
“This corridor is rich with opportunity,” Streetcar Café’s Derek McDaniels told the group. “It was abandoned roughly 60 years ago, when ‘white flight’ occurred and then crime escalated and all the other things that impact small main streets. But what has been maintained here is a desire of folks to shop within their neighborhood.”
Adding to their options in the next several months will be locally based Black Hand Coffee, which is moving its roasting and wholesale distribution operation from its current location in Scott’s Addition, and a tattoo shop and sign painting studio by local artist Charles Berger, his first business venture.
And Jay Bayer and Adam Hall, the team behind acclaimed Jackson Ward restaurant Saison and the adjoining Saison Market, are actively eyeing Brookland Park for their next potential venture, details of which have yet to be announced.
“We have an interest in that part of town,” Bayer said. “We believe it’s a really forward-looking neighborhood – there are beautiful homes up there – and a really awesome opportunity in a part of town that we think is very underserved that we have interest in doing business in at some point.”
The interest adds to activity already underway in the corridor, where the City of Richmond’s economic and community development department – which for years has been pushing to revitalize the area through tax-abatement programs and other redevelopment incentives – has placed banners on street posts along the corridor that read: “Brookland Park Boulevard: Experience the transformation.”
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