RICHMOND, Va. — Perhaps you’ve seen it during your busy commute.
A small army of landscapers is giving orders to a battalion of crepe myrtles marching in neat lines, backed by a spidery sea of fierce liriope and fronted by a brave Carissa holly and optimistic landscape roses.
Thousands of plants. Tons of topsoil blended with compost and topped with steaming mulch.
It’s all part of the Interstate 95/I-64 Fifth Street Connector gateway project by VDOT. Also well underway is a total makeover of the Nine Mile Road ramps to I-64, with big firs and plenty of other flora.
Still to come are the Belvidere and Broad Street ramps, all to be beautified as part of an approximately $1.5 million greening of some of the ugliest arteries in the state.
For generations, Richmond’s curb appeal has been the pits.
Folks driving through the state capital see (and smell) the sewage treatment plant, tobacco factories, rundown buildings that have been vacant for decades, low industrial structures, fuel tanks, one of the largest housing projects in the East, weedy lots, trash-strewn shoulders, rusty fences, and a sea of parking decks. (And man, remember when that nasty Belvidere toll plaza squatted on I‑95 downtown?)
I’ve been fussing about this for much of my career as a reporter and columnist. Cities with a fraction of Richmond’s charm and beauty have far more inviting gateways.
We don’t even have a real “Welcome to Richmond” sign to speak of—an oversight that will hopefully soon be rectified.
This blessed green relief, I’m told, comes by order of a ranking state official who agreed that the state capital should better reflect our fair state.
Thank you!
And, wow—it looks like the I‑95 bridge project just north of downtown is almost done!
Now, if we can just get private owners—and particularly the city—to take more pride in their roadside properties, we might look like we actually love our town.
