RICHMOND, Va. — Since Monday, the Henrico County Planning Department has been giving the public, businesses and county stakeholders the opportunity to provide input on how they would like to reimagine a 93-acre stretch of real estate known as the Best Products Development project.
Assistant Director of Planning Jane Moore said the original pitch was to have the development anchored by a brand-new arena. While those plans are still on the table, the county is also open to other ideas.
"We identify that there is a lot of opportunity for redevelopment on Brook Road as well as development within the Best Products site," Moore said.
To achieve this, the county is adopting what is known as an overlay district. This essentially allows developers to overlay their plans over existing zoning districts, giving them more flexibility in how those plans take shape.
"Basically that sets the platform for developers to come on and invest under an underlying zoning already approved," Moore said.
The county hopes this approach will lead to a more community-focused design rather than traditional retail spaces.
"The benefit we feel of the overlay is it really allows development to be more creative, flexible, because we are not focused on use, we’re really focused on character and form. So our goal actually is to have safer and more walkable streets, open space where people congregate, so building a real community versus just big boxes and other retail," Moore said.
The plan is to take the feedback gained from this week’s meeting to draw up preliminary designs of how the Best Products site and the Brook Road corridor could take shape over the next 15 to 20 years.
"That helps to create the vision for these areas," Moore said.
The county hopes to present the early drafts of those plans to the public by the end of the summer.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky | Facebook | Instagram | X | Threads | TikTok | YouTube
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. To learn more about how we use AI in our newsroom, click here.
