RTD • Ballpark on south bank of James pitched

By Michael Martz
Originally Published: July 2, 2009 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch HERE

The area in blue is the proposed site on the southside in the Manchester area.

The owner of almost 18 acres of prime property on the south bank of the James River is pitching Manchester as the place to play ball in Richmond.

Reynolds Packaging Group has mentioned to city officials informally the possibility of a minor-league baseball stadium in South Richmond.  The stadium site would be part of a 17.5-acre property between the Manchester and 14th Street bridges, with a clear view of the river and downtown skyline.

“How good would a ballpark look there?” asked John T. “Trib” Sutton III, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis of Virginia, a real estate brokerage that is handling the sale of the property for Reynolds.

Margaret A. Bowen, vice president of human resources at Reynolds, said she pointed out the property and its potential as a stadium site to Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones and key aides David Hicks and Suzette P. Denslow while at an unrelated event last week overlooking the river and the property from the 24th floor of the SunTrust building in downtown Richmond. Bowen also mentioned her experience in Pittsburgh, where the Pirates’ major-league franchise opened PNC Park in 2001 with a view of the city skyline and Allegheny River.

The event, introducing then-prospective Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall to the local business community, occurred the day before the collapse of a proposal to build a stadium in Shockoe Bottom.

However, Richmond officials say they didn’t consider the casual conversation a pitch for a new stadium site and that they don’t have any formal proposal to consider.

“Unequivocally, we are not considering any proposal for a baseball stadium on that site,” Tammy D. Hawley, the mayor’s press secretary, said yesterday.

CB Richard Ellis is making its first pitch for potential buyers of the South Side property next week. The brokerage also is handling the sale of another Reynolds site, a key property on the downtown Canal Walk.

CB Richard Ellis representatives say they already have shown the 6-acre property on the north side of the James to 12 potential buyers and have scheduled private tours for an additional 10. Reynolds will ask for proposals from as many as 30 potential buyers later this month and could select a purchaser by Labor Day.

Reynolds currently packages and distributes Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil in a series of buildings that lie over part of the Kanawha Canal and abut the Haxall Canal, which extends up the river to Brown’s Island. The complex stands between the two sections of the Canal Walk that Richmond long has sought to develop as a tourist attraction.

“It’s central to completing that vision,” said Robert A. Dirom III, first vice president at CBRE.

Bowen is a member of the board of directors of Venture Richmond, a nonprofit organization that advocates riverfront development and operates a canal boat on a portion of the Kanawha that currently is open. She hopes the development of the property will allow people to walk the two historic canals without detouring around the industrial property, as they do now.

“The two canals will never physically meet — they never did before,” she said. “It creates a connected walkway.”

Reynolds Packaging, now a division of Rank Group, plans to close its operations on both sides of the river this year. The closings, currently envisioned in the quarter that began yesterday, will cost about 490 employees their jobs.

The company, through CBRE, has been talking to city officials and other interested economic development organizations about how to develop the properties in ways that are consistent with the new Downtown Master Plan, which for the first time encompasses the Manchester area of South Richmond.

Hawley said the city doesn’t generally comment on impending real estate transactions, but she acknowledged the importance of the master plan in considering potential redevelopment of the property on the north side of the river along the Canal Walk.

Charlie Diradour, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Reynolds always had been a good corporate citizen,” she said. “I would anticipate no less than some eye toward the [city's] best interests and best use of the space.”

Charlie Diradour, a Fan District businessman who advocates keeping baseball on North Boulevard, said yesterday that he wasn’t surprised that the South Richmond property, formerly owned by Alcoa Corp., is being mentioned for a stadium site.

“I have been informed all along the way that if the Bottom site didn’t work out, the Alcoa site would be the next target for a baseball stadium,” he said yesterday.

Diradour, who plans to announce a new Web site called Friends of Richmond Baseball at a press conference today in front of The Diamond, said the real issue is who would buy the property and who would pay to build a stadium there.

“The question always has been a question of money,” he said. “Who is going to build the stadium?”