Tag Archives: Richmond

Garden nostalgia

Posted on 13 February 2026 | Leave a comment

I was getting ready for a party recently when I decided it would be a good idea to clean out a random cabinet in the kitchen. I found these old plant tags from the early years of gardening our current house and couldn’t throw them away without snapping a picture. Some of these plants are still thriving, some have spread themselves around the garden, and many have died.

The COVID years of my gardening hobby feel a bit manic to me at the moment. I remember going to plant nurseries when we first moved in like I NEEDED to fill a garden while I was still overwhelmed with the idea of mowing the yard. It is also sweet to remember purchasing and planting each of these. It’s all part of the process – planting, growing, harvest, renewal. I’m still in the phase of winter (and parenthood) where the thought of plants and gardens is exhausting to me, but this little memory moment is giving me a glimmer of hope for bluer skies, buzzing bees, and the delightful surprises of a garden brought back to life.

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Drawing for a house

Posted on 20 January 2026 | Leave a comment

I was going through some old planners this morning (trying to clear out as much clutter as possible these days) and I found this drawing for a house we used to live in. The house is pretty small so I wanted to add on a space the length of the back of the building to serve as a flex lounge/dining area with a wood stove.

The house has an unloved gravel area in the back that would definitely not be missed. The design would have been terrible for insulation with all that glass (on a north-facing side no less), but I still like the drawing and thought it would be fun to save and share.

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Pocket gardens and the forest seed bank

Posted on 29 October 2025 | Leave a comment

The other day I walked by this little island of English Ivy in the James River Parks System and dreamed about filling it with native plants.

Considering the size of the JRPS and the extent of the invasive species domain, these little slivers are exciting to me as a manageable place to start restoring the native undergrowth. I could easily dig up and replace this ivy in a weekend. It also feels strategic to start with these small protected areas deep in the forest – each established native plant will begin producing seeds and spores that will start to spread by the thousands.

These seeds and spores will build up in the forest seed bank so that any time the soil is disturbed (including when native plants are removed) the seeds will already be in the soil, ready for the chance to take over. It’s ultimately much cheaper than purchasing the seeds themselves and the sooner we get those plants in the ground the sooner they start to do that work.

The plants that I am envisioning for this space are: ferns (a variety of color, at least one semi-evergreen), wild hyacinth (early-season bloom) native heuchera/alumroot (mid-season bloom), and blue-stemmed goldenrod (late-season bloom).

I’ve already written some thoughts on this idea of rewilding the JRPS so I do have a grand vision for the area, but in general I am a piecemeal gardener. I usually prefer to work slowly, one section at at time, and whenever I see these little moments I can’t help but connect the dots and see the vision coming to life.

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Crowdsourced Rewilding in Richmond (and beyond)

Posted on 15 October 2025 | Leave a comment

Over the past couple of months I’ve rediscovered the loop walk around Belle Isle. I’ve been spending time in more secluded areas of the river lately and had forgotten how beautiful it is with sweeping views, changing topography, and people everywhere enjoying the water and trails. 

One morning in September, I also noticed something else: I hadn’t seen a single bumblebee on the entire walk. I started to look more closely and in two months I’ve only seen bumblebees two times, a total of four, all on bluestem goldenrod. Otherwise, the forests and fields of the island seem sort of oddly quiet.

Not only have I not seen many bumblebees, but I also haven’t other bees, wasps, butterflies, bugs, or birds like goldfinches, hummingbirds, and cardinals.

I think the reason I’m noticing this absence now is that I’ve been gardening for a decade or so and I love to see plants as a part of the whole ecosystem. Over the past six years especially my current garden has come alive in a way that gives me a lot of joy. I see more bumblebees on a single anise hyssop at the same time than I have on Belle Isle recently. For the past week, panicled aster (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum) has been in full bloom around my house and there are more bees and bumblebees than I could ever count. I see goldfinches eating coneflower seeds, hummingbirds on the cardinal flower, and monarchs on the milkweed.

And my garden is definitely not the only one. Richmond is full of gardeners who are planting native or “nearly native” plants and attracting all kinds of birds and the bees. Which got me thinking: What if we could somehow organize everyone to invest their energy into the JRPS?

I’ve been toying with this idea for a little while now and I see it working something like this:

  • Starting with Belle Isle, a list of 30 or so first-round parcels are identified. These should be small, edges, islands, and otherwise manageable, well-defined parcels. These kinds of spaces would be really easy to manage and would have a lot of nice visibility:
  • These plots are designated as full sun, part sun, part shade, and full shade with a list of plants that are approved to be planted in the area. They could also be designated for tall, medium, and short-growing plants depending on the location.
  • A call is put out into the community for interested gardeners to join the program
  • Selected participants are placed in an orientation and trained on the process of invasive species removal, which plants that are pre-approved for planting, and the general overview of the program
  • Approved gardeners then “claim” plots on the map and the first thing they would do is string a simple string and stick barrier around their plot with a sign that explains the program and the project – they would take a photo of this and post it to a google doc or app as a record of their project for someone to verify compliance and serve as a “before” photo for the plot
  • The gardeners would work at their own pace to fully remove the invasives and replace them with the native plants appropriate for the amount of sunlight and location of that plot. A photo would be uploaded for every day of work on the plot and for all subsequent maintenance visits.
  • Gardeners would be expected to maintain their plot for as long as they are in the program including weeding invasives and tending to the plot for other needs.
  • If they have capacity (looking at you, retired gardeners!), they could select multiple plots depending on availability
  • Gardeners would also be asked to provide seeds and seedlings to a community crowdsourced greenhouse. Gardeners who don’t have time to garden their own plot could opt to only participate in this donation program for their seeds and volunteer seedlings to be used by other gardeners around the project site
  • Once the initial phase is complete, a detailed GIS map of the landscape is drawn to divide the entire island into small, garden-sized parcels, maybe 400 sqft each
  • The plots would then be organized in order of priority
    • Areas around all entrances/exits to the island
    • Areas along high-traffic pathways
    • Areas along low-traffic pathways
    • Areas in the interior of the woods and fields of the island
  • These plots would be assigned to more trained volunteers as the program continued to grow. If possible, a landscape team could be hired to plan the overall layout of the island and select a smaller number of plants for each location to provide a little more guidance on the final product

I know this is a little far-fetched and that there are already organizations doing a lot of this work. But this does feel on some level possible. The local knowledge, technology, and tools are all available.

I also think the sooner we start the better. Plants are basically seed factories. Once we start to establish a wider diversity of plants they will start to continue the work for us in spreading throughout the area.

In a very non-scientific search, there are 129 plants listed as native to Virginia on the Prairie Moon Nursery website which seems like a good place to start. With some professional consultation, we could finalize a list of plants, divide them up by their planting guides, and start some test gardens around the island. With so many deer living in the JRPS, it will be important to prioritize aromatic, deer-resistant plants like Purple giant hyssop (Agastache scrophulariifolia) and Yellow giant hyssop (Agastache nepetoides). These will have a better chance of becoming established over time. I have gardened with Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) for years and love the way that it spreads, attracts bumblebees, and blooms successively throughout the summer, but it doesn’t appear to be native to this region. Another deer-resistant perennial that I would like to see is Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium). It is very hardy, spreads generously, and attracts wasps, bees, beetles, and other small flying insects.

The middle of the island contains an open prairie that could be restored in the same way as the forests and trails. It seems to have full and partial sun exposure which would create an opportunity for many sun-loving perennials and grasses. More deep-rooted grasses would also provide an amazing opportunity for carbon sequestration. It seems like switchgrass and big bluestem are valuable in this way, but I’m sure there is an argument for most native grasses.

If there is a concern with the JRPS looking too manicured, I would support limiting the list of plants and also planning large colonies of a single flowering plant along with native ferns and grasses rather than a high diversity of plants in a single plot. It could look more natural for the species to be grouped like they have spread over time.

I think this project would work well on a stand-alone website with a front end that promoted the program and receives donations and a member login portal where members can manage their plots, post photos, and record donations.

The program could be funded in part through sales of excess seeds and plants grown in the shared greenhouse. It might even be possible to apply for carbon credits if the restoration were successful and extensive to warrant that. Of course, there are also grants and billionaires.

Once the program is functional, it could be expanded to include the entire JRPS. I can imagine there are many gardeners who would prefer to work in their neighborhood parks for convenience and sense of personal ownership. Every year there could be an outdoor awards ceremony on the island, etc. To scale this, we could sell licenses to other municipalities who could buy into the program and use the training materials, website design, etc. to manage their own crowdsourced rewilding programs. Training materials would be adapted to the native plants of that area, but otherwise could be fairly interchangeable.

I’ve really enjoyed imagining a Belle Isle that is buzzing with life, an oasis in the middle of a manicured/ruined landscape, and a pocket of life to inspire more and more people to garden with nature in mind. I don’t know exactly how, but I do believe it should happen. There is no way any of us would regret it.

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A mini meadow for Maymont

Posted on 22 April 2025 | Leave a comment

During a recent visit to Maymont I noticed a small island of grass that I can’t stop thinking about. It feels like the perfect opportunity for a small meadow of perennials at the intersection of the more formal Maymont Mansion and more “natural” Robins Nature Center and Maymont Farm sections of the property.

The long, tear-drop shaped island of grass is in the middle of the photo below, but of course I already have ideas for the area along the creek as well.

Compared to the yucca project, this feels somewhat realistic. I would need to borrow black tarps to kill the grass, enlist some volunteers to clear the area a month or so later, install plants collected from my garden, and spread leaf mulch in between. It would be nice to put a small stick and twine “fence” along the edge while it’s getting established as well as a “Prairie in Progress” sign and some educational materials about the benefits of these types of gardens.

The cost of this could be essentially free. Here is a list of plants I can think of off the top of my head that I would be able to contribute:

  • Anise hyssop
  • Echinacea / coneflower
  • Mountain mint
  • Showy goldenrod
  • Milkweed (1 or more varieties depending on how they spread)
  • Coreopsis
  • Panicled aster
  • Rudbeckia / black-eyed Susan
  • Rattlesnake master
  • Spiderwort
  • Wild garlic
  • Aromatic aster
  • Bee balm
  • Foxglove beardtongue
  • Groundcovers including violet and wild strawberry

While doable, it would still require a lot of work obviously. I would need them to commit to watering for the first couple of months after install and provide ongoing support like cutting it all down to about a foot off the ground in the fall, weeding, and continuing to add more plants. Still too much for me right now, but a really fun thought.

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Art project idea: yucca in red

Posted on 10 April 2025 | Leave a comment

One Saturday in early January, in the middle of cleaning and entertaining my kids, I got an idea for an art project and sketched the notes below.

I’ve been really interested in the life and death of Nicholas West for a little over a year now and continue to feel a strong connection to his story.

The basic idea is…

  • A collection of pots thrown from red clay harvested in and around Noonday, TX where Nicholas was tortured and killed
  • The pots are different sizes with different biographical information about Nicholas like his birth and death years, text from obituaries, anything significant from his story
  • Each pot would have a drop or two of my own blood. I want to make people a little uncomfortable when they pick up the pot and read the description. I want to make his death more tangible and remind people that all soil has seen bloodshed of one kind or another. (On a more cosmic level, I also love the connection between the iron in our blood and the iron in the soil which was all stardust flung across the universe from dying supernovae.) I’ve noticed that men are pretty squeamish about the idea of the blood, and women I’ve told are much more supportive which makes me want to do it even more.
  • In the pot will be planted a Yucca filamentosa, native to the southeastern US (from Tyler to Richmond), very hardy, tropical, and structural. The yucca will grow to fit the size of the container that it is in, the yucca is resilient, and in the spring it has a bloom several feet above most other plants.
  • Yucca is also the first plant that I really noticed and developed a connection to. It is the first plant I remember finding and foraging and I’ve planted and potted at least five in the last two houses where we’ve lived. I was in a dark place in my life and my interest in plants, yucca specifically, was an encouragement that has continued to center me and excite me while also driving me a little crazy with more ideas than I’ll ever have time for.
  • While I still love the idea of Yucca, more recently I’ve considered Hesperaloe parviflora, also known as “red yucca” or “false yucca.” I noticed it in Texas at some point and planted it in my garden 3-4 years ago. I had a naturalist walk around with me and he commented that he liked seeing it growing in Richmond because he didn’t know that it could. I love the idea of a Texas transplant thriving in Richmond and the idea of it being a “false” yucca feels appropriate for the Southern culture of repression and how much of myself I held back from others for so long. Of course I love the red bloom, the color of blood and nectar for hummingbirds stopping for a moment on their impossible migration.
  • On the surface of the dirt in the pot I want to scatter bits of ironstone found at Bergfeld Park, the place where Nicholas was picked up, the last place he was free. On my most recent visit to Tyler I pocketed some pieces of the stone and brought them back to a potted yucca I have by our back porch. It has been special to me to have them there as a connection to home
  • I’d love to sell replicas of the different styles of pots and give a portion of the proceeds to local LGBT community organizations in the Tyler area.

It would take months or years to really do this as well as I would want to – I haven’t even fired a clay pot since high school. I’d need time to harvest the clay, prototype different styles, and learn how to make them consistently well, etc. So with all that considered in addition to the constraints of full-time employment/parenting life, I’ve accepted that I’m probably not going to attempt it, as much as I want to. It felt better to share the idea here and let it go rather than hold it too tightly.

4.22.25 – Since writing this post I’ve thought more about the possibility of partnering with an artist to make the pots that I could use to plant and we could market the project together. Even still I don’t think I have the time to do it well, but the partnership would be really rewarding and it’s much more realistic to lean on someone’s existing expertise rather than try and develop it myself. It also got me thinking outside the box even more. Maybe this idea should actually be an assignment for a class where everyone chooses an event that deserves more recognition and designs an installation to share the story. Maybe it should just be an online project that collects memories and details from his story. Or maybe this just needs to be a section of my own garden: a shrine to his life and a broader connection to my own story, my hometown, and the resilience, growth, and occasional moments of flourish.

4.24.25 – While reading about “The Burying Grounds Memorial” at the University of Richmond I learned that Yucca, “is often found in the cemeteries of enslaved people, serving as living grave markers.” I have only just gone a few steps down this rabbit hole, but I’ve already found some interesting articles and anecdotes that support using it for the project. It seems the plant has long served to mark the memory of people who might have otherwise been forgotten, to bind their restless spirits after life, and to provide permanent protection to their physical remains.

  • “Fieldstones. Yucca plants. Seashells. The last object a loved one touched. For centuries, these items, cultivated from lives and landscapes, marked many graves at burial places for Black people in America.” National Grographic
  • “Some of the plots were marked with pieces of quartz or with yucca plants, which were used by many Southern Black families who could not afford stones.” ProPublica
  • “The phrase “pushing up yucca” has been coined to describe these graveyards, and there was a Gullah belief that spiny plants restricted the movement of the spirits of the dead.” Society of Ethnobiology
  • “Spiky clumps of yucca dot Odd Fellows cemetery as further reminders that this patch of woods was once a curated (if not manicured) space. Though widely found in cemeteries across the country, in African-American tradition specifically, yucca binds restless spirits to their graves. Easily transplanted and nearly ever-lasting, yucca was sometimes planted near the head of a grave in lieu of an expensive stone marker.” Black Wide-Awake
  • “Yucca is another plant that marks many early graves even today. It can live hundreds of years and represents eternity. In many African American communities it was also traditionally thought that yucca kept restless spirits in the grave.” City of Birmingham
  • “Due to their association with cemeteries, the yucca plant has also taken on an association with the supernatural, as a way to ward off evil spirits.” Lumpkin County Historical Society

3.31.26 – It would be very interesting to also shoot the clay several times (perhaps even the number of times Nicholas was shot if that is published information) when it is still wet and let it harden in whatever shape it takes with the bullets. The violence of guns is something we are too numb to in the US and we need to be forced to think more clearly about how terrible they really are.

If I make multiple pots in a series, the one with bullet holes could be separate from the one with the printed information and others.

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Vision for an urban valley in Richmond

Posted on 14 January 2025 | Leave a comment

The other day while I was walking through downtown Richmond I stumbled on a small space with huge potential. It’s basically just a concrete slab, but what makes it special is that it’s located right in the middle of a city block. The concrete is connected to one building that forms an “L” around it. The area is accessible by three different alleys which all meet at the base of a somewhat beautiful, mature tree.

With some love, this could be a place to congregate just like the La Colombe near Logan Circle in D.C. The benefits of using these interior spaces is that they are quieter than the city streets and they are often cooler in the summer months because the buildings provide shade. They are cozy spaces, the diffused light is relaxing, and there is something charming about the irregular shapes. I love the surprise and delight of waking down an alley, turning a corner, and finding something you wouldn’t have expected,

The approach that is most familiar to me (I actually worked and parked in the building to the left years ago) is below. I love the way the buildings frame the old window and steeple of Second Presbyterian.

After you turn to the right, you start to get a glimpse of the destination. The area also starts to become more charming: the alley transitions to cobblestone, instead of a parking garage you have old brick and stained glass, and the tree is visible as well.

Despite being completely forgotten and unloved these granite stones are beautiful and the whole section would clean up very nicely.

This is the view from the space that I’m interested in. I appreciate how much there is to look at even in this small space. It feels like the medieval section of a city: winding, ad hoc, dense, and built to the human scale. The tree would also provide shade in the summer and a beautiful accent.

Here are two views of the actual space.

I am so in love with this idea. I had a similar vision for a space in Tyler many years ago and still believe in the potential of this sort of retrofit to bring new life and charm to cities. Whatever zoning process that’s required should be fast-tracked. Whatever the building around this space becomes (it’s currently being renovated), this should be a cafe or similar commercial space, with bistro lights, live music, and otherwise completely transformed into a beautiful and charming refuge in the middle of downtown Richmond.

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Blessing for the seeds

Posted on 25 December 2024 | Leave a comment

Welcome to the world, little seed. We’ve been waiting for you.

Every rain, every flower, every bee, every beautiful dappled moment of summer were for you. Every leaf now dry and cracked on the ground was an engine of energy for your growth.

And now you’re here, ready with the fuel and protection you need to start the next chapter.

May you fly to the place where you were meant to land. May you dig down deep and find it within yourself to transform in the way that you know you know how.

May the deep, ancient memory guide you in the months to come. While most of us rest, you will be cracking, freezing, opening up the most sensitive parts of yourself to the world.

You will put down roots, once you have exhausted the fuel you were given, you will start to draw nutrients from the world and find your own sources of strength and sustenance.

May you grow, may you bloom with radiance, may you be visited by insects – your connections to the world beyond.

And when you have finished your work, may you produce seeds of your own, a part of yourself that will live on through the dark nights ahead.

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8.72 acres in East End Henrico for $180K

Posted on 5 December 2024 | Leave a comment

Yesterday morning I found myself dreaming about a plot of land for sale in East End Henrico County, just outside Richmond city limits. It’s 8.72 acres for $180K located very close to the center of the city and I think it would be an amazing chance to plant a pollinator meadow to restore the ecosystem and have it be managed as a park by Henrico County.

I’m imagining walking trails, giant woodland sculptures, and it might have some elevation that could be fun with a lookout tower at the top. The grounds at Glenstone would be a good inspiration. This plot of land looks like part of the East End Henrico landfill – I think the one that was shut down by Henrico County. I’m sure there are liabilities with owning a former landfill (environmental concerns, seepage, etc.), but I know it’s been done before and this could be a good chance to do it in the Richmond region.

I already emailed the Capital Region Land Conservancy, and I probably won’t go any further with the idea, but I wanted to at least post it here as a personal memory of the dream. At some point this is exactly the kind of restoration project I’d like to be a part of.

Some articles that I found along the way:

Update: I heard back from the Executive Director at CRLC and he told me that the information on Zillow was incorrect – there are actually only two acres for sale about seven miles west of the location – kind of bizarre. I still love the idea of course 🙂

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Bamboo along highways

Posted on 1 November 2024 | Leave a comment

I was driving next to a stretch of I-195 in Richmond when I realized we are missing out on a huge opportunity: planting bamboo forests along our highways. Specifically I want to see bamboo in these little strips of grass in between the road and the fence or barrier to the highway, on the left side of Grayland Ave. shown below.

The first reason I would want to plan bamboo in these spaces is to create a natural barrier between the highway and the surrounding areas and the second would be to create an effective carbon sink on degraded and underutilized land.

Anyone who has ever walked through a bamboo forest knows intuitively that they are extremely quiet, but the noise-reduction has actually been studied and found to be effective comparable to solid noise barriers. Bamboo barriers create themselves and repair themselves so they are incredibly cost effective compared to concrete noise barrier solutions (the Berlin Wall of highway design). Bamboo forests are beautiful, certainly as beautiful as whatever invasive species there is growing in the space currently. Bamboo also grows tall enough to block the sight of highways from most passersby.

I’ve been thinking about bamboo as a carbon sink ever since I saw it specifically referenced on the Project Drawdown Roadmap where they calculated that the addition of bamboo forests could result in 7.70–19.60 gigatons of carbon dioxide sequestered by 2050. In the graphic below it is in the top left-hand quadrant on the use of degraded lands for carbon land sinks. I will not restate the entire Drawdown summary on “Bamboo Production,” but the summary for me is that it is extremely inexpensive and effective at long-term carbon sequestration.

Bamboo is often passed over because of how aggressively it spreads, but there are many ways to prevented unwanted growth. There are often strips of grass along highways that are already separated by concrete or asphalt that would prevent spread underground. If not, fairly low-cost barriers can be installed – the cost of these barriers may be less over a few years than the cost to companies contracted to mow these completely unloved areas of grass. According to Project Drawdown, there are also native North American bamboo varieties and varieties that do not run or flower which makes their spread unlikely and easy to manage. Years ago, while vising Echo in Southwest Florida I learned about clumping bamboo and have been interested in how we could encourage its use more widely. More information about Echo’s work with bamboo in this video: Bamboo’s Many Uses (filmed at ECHO in Ft. Myers). The fears around its spread are also not based in the reality of the current climate situation – are we really afraid of a fast-growing, zero cost, regenerative carbon sink?

Bamboo along highways is just the start. There are countless strips and triangles of land in cities that could be filled with beautiful, noise-reducing, sight-blocking, carbon sequestering bamboo. In particular I would like to cut sections along the perimeter of parking lots to be planted with bamboo. Combining bamboo with impermeable surface parking would have the added benefit of reducing water runoff into the combined storm-sewage system in cities like Richmond. Of course, bamboo is always the best or only solution. Often prairie grasses and native plantings can facilitate ground water recharge and sequester incredible amounts of carbon in their root systems underground. In terms of highway design, I do think bamboo is the best option for their combined benefits to the neighborhood and the climate.

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Compost

Posted on 17 November 2021 | 3 comments

I think about compost all the time. From food scraps to humanure, we discard, bury, sterilize, and burn some of our most fertile resources. Decomposition of organic matter happens naturally, we just have to set simple public health boundaries for rats and transmissible diseases.

Growing up, my parents kept a couple of compost piles in the back yard and it was very normal for us to save food scraps in a plastic bin under the sink. I think the bin was actually a drawer from the freezer that we didn’t need for some reason. My interest in composting went to a new level during Thanksgiving break in the fall of 2008. I decided not to fly back to Texas and instead I visited my older brother at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, a community devoted “to caring for people and the Earth by learning and demonstrating a holistic, sustainable culture.” I had never been to such a place and I soaked it up. There was so much to see everywhere on the property. It felt like a place where every mundane aspect of life had been reimagined. Most important in the context I this post is that this was the first time I ever used a composting toilet. I will always remember my time at Earthaven as a formative, positive, eye-opening experience. Over the next couple of years I realized my role could be connecting with the culture and innovations at places like Earthaven and helping to translate them to the mainstream. In my mind, that involves making these practices beautiful and functional.

A year later, I started a composting program on my college campus. Digging up some of that pristine grass and installing the composting system at UR was one of my favorite days of college. It was my small attempt to make the place more interesting and feel connected to the soil.

It was a special project for me. I loved seeing friends carrying bags of compost from their apartments. Like many college programs, the compost system fell into disrepair and the boxes were removed a few years after I graduated.

My first year out of college, the brother who had lived at Earthaven moved in with me. He started a compost pile in the backyard and it was fun to get back into that routine. Of course, composting can sometimes be a little like a cast iron skillet: everyone has their own way to do it and sometimes they are hard to share. One time, I was doing something that my brother didn’t like and we got in one of the biggest fights of the year together. We’re passionate composters 🙂 My main issue was that I wanted composting to be a low-stress activity. Things break down. I don’t want to think too much about it. A few years later we moved into a different house and I felt the energy to get it going again. I bought a plastic tumbler, pictured below, because we had just a small garden in the front and patio out back. This is a picture of it in its current, discarded state.

This tumbler served me well for a couple of years. I like how easy it is to turn, how sturdy it is near the ground, and how it collects compost tea in the reservoir below. My main complaint is that it is difficult to get the compost out. It gets stuck in the corners, the opening is too small, and the compost can tend to get too wet even with the drain holes in the bottom. It was also not enough room for us. After it filled up I started supplementing with five-gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom and sides.

My current composting system is a little more ambitious. We have more outdoor space now so lots more room to experiment. A couple of months after moving in I noticed that one corner of the back yard had a steep slope. The soil had washed down the hill and left the area eroded and also created a gap under the sidewalk above. I had read about contour lines and thought that I could set up a fence sort of perpendicular to the slope to hold my leaves, collect rain water, slow erosion, and start to build up the soil. As a bonus, I had somewhere to put my leaves every year. At some point in the process I also learned about leaf mold (composted leaves) and it has been incredible to dig to the bottom of the pile and find loads of this soil amendment to spread around the garden.

During the summer of 2020 I planted a wildflower seed mix around the top edge of the leaf pile. I like the flowers and also wanted the roots to help with building up the soil. I also added two natural wood terraces on contour, the top for planting and the bottom for walking around and reaching everything.

Around that same time I made a connection: if I was piling all of my dry matter in one place, it made sense to do my kitchen scrap composting there as well. I started to prefer the five-gallon buckets to the store-bought tumbler and I moved them over to the leaf pile to try it out. Once the buckets filled up, I let them compost until I needed the room. For the next stage, I dug holes into the clay farther up the hill and put the compost there to finish. Whenever I have the motivation, I dig it out and save it or spread it around. The photo below is from the summer of 2020.

And this is from the most recent fall, 2021. This photo was taken after the first major raking effort in the back yard so the pile finally started to fill back up. I love the look of leaves.

At one point I spray painted the buckets a camo grey color to try and help them blend in. I think it helped, but the paint is also chipping which is not ideal and eventually I just dug the buckets into the ground so they could be more easily buried in the leaves.

I really do love having the leaves so accessible. Not having enough dry matter has always been an issue for my compost so this is a real significant win-win.

I also like that with the compost more connected with the soil there is room for volunteer plants to sprout. Here is a spaghetti squash that unfortunately did not survive, but added some nice greenery.

These tomatoes at the top of the hill are all volunteers from the compost. They were prolific, producing far more than the tomatoes I planted “on purpose.” I wrote about them already in a previous post.

Here is a more recent view of the leaf pile after raking all the leaves from the back yard, front yard, and street. It is more than it looks.

Here is the same pile after doing a little grape stomp to keep it from blowing away.

I’ve filled it this much at least once more since taking these last two photos and I think I have one last large batch to rake before my full leaf harvest is complete. It may look like just a leaf pile, but it is an entire universe of worms, millipedes, ants, fungus, and an occasional salamander. Birds love to pick through the leaves for food. Here is some compost I recently turned out to make room for the next batch.

Composting is definitely a lifestyle. It can be messy and it usually involves interacting with rotting material at some point in the process. It’s also just so much easier and quicker to throw everything away. Even though I like my system, food scraps can pile up quickly. This is an aesthetic and time-consuming aspect of composting that can sometimes be a turn-off.

At this point in the process, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve become the “difficult composter” I wanted to avoid. In making this system that works so well for me I have also made it difficult for other people to participate. I want to work on the user experience so that anyone could take out the compost bucket and know what to do. In the spring I also want to plant some native honeysuckle around the fencing. I personally don’t mind the appearance, but I’ve received some negative feedback. Like I said, I want people to leave with a positive impression of compost and I want composting to be beautiful as well as functional so I’m happy to make the change. If friends and family associate rotting food with the sweet smell of honeysuckle then I will feel like I have done my job.

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Garlic

Posted on 31 October 2021 | Leave a comment

Last year, my younger sister came and stayed with us to help watch our toddler while daycare was closed. She also gardened a lot. At one point while she was here she planted garlic, just the regular kind from the store. It came up quickly and grew all winter long until I pulled it out looking like this:

After harvesting it, I dried it in the basement over the summer. I am not sure this is the right way to do it, but I finally brought it up today to take a look.

I’m pleased to say it all looks and smells like garlic! I appreciate how magical growing food still feels.

I’ll probably plant half of this in the next few days, roast the garlic scapes in spring, hopefully harvest the rest when it’s ready, then do it all over again. It makes me think about whenever it was that garlic was first spreading as a food. One person harvesting a head of garlic and planting it all that fall. Then, with several heads of garlic the next year, sharing a clove with close friends and family so they could start a crop of their own.

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Back to the office

Posted on 21 October 2021 | Leave a comment

I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in over a year: I washed the ceramic bowl that I keep in my office for lunch. I used the hand soap in the bathroom and I dried it with paper towels from the dispenser while florescent lights buzzed overhead. It felt familiar, bizarre, and kind of depressing at the same time.

I’ve been coming into the office one day a week for over a month, but I am only just now settling into it. The clothes, the routine, the drive, the lunch, the snacks. I have a list of things to buy that, in addition to dish soap, include Band-Aids and a new phone charging cord for the car and my desk. I already have a few other items that I brought with me from my last job including a mug, water glasses, a bottle, Dayquil, fingernail clippers, a razor (for emergencies), and two slightly-embarrassing, inspirational books I bought during a particularly difficult time.

But this bowl has really got me thinking. As soon as I started washing it I had a really vivid flashback to a meal over four years ago. It involved “forbidden rice” I had purchased at Tan A Supermarket in Richmond. It looked beautiful, but it tasted disgusting. Had it been artificially dyed to look black? Did I mess up the seasoning? I remembered it so vividly almost like the object had woken up to tell me it was also still traumatized by that lunch as well.

The significance of this bowl goes one level further. I bought it during what was basically my first real/hard job. Several months in, I realized that I would be spending a significant portion of my life at this place including long days, some late nights, and weekends. I decided to make my life there as comfortable as possible. I would drive to the nearby Walmart on my lunch break or after work and just walk the isles looking for things to make me happy or more effective at work. I decided I was tired of eating lunch with disposable products so I purchased this ceramic bowl, two water glasses, a fork and two spoons. I also bought a Brita filter and the dish drying pad we still use at home today. I was basically just trying to take care of myself and my needs while being true to my values. This ceramic bowl, compared to the stack of paper plates I’d been using, was a good improvement.

At this point in time, I’m gradually remembering what it is like to go in to the office regularly. The work for me is exactly the same, but the location, environment and my appearance all have to change. Even though I can’t stand the buzzing lights and the theater of it all, I am also remembering how nice it is to have a psychological work/home disconnection. I’m settling in to this familiar, but new (and probably also temporary) normal.

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First the location, then the vendor

Posted on 28 September 2021 | Leave a comment

The City of Richmond might soon have a casino. Unlike other localities in Virginia, Richmond took more time for input and competition. I generally think it was a good-faith effort, but one aspect of the process seems flawed in retrospect. Six proposals were submitted by different vendors for casinos and entertainment venues connected to different sections of the city. For example, one piece of property was near a fairly dense urban node, another on a forest/wetland in a suburban area south of the river, and a third on a brownfield near I-95.

To me, the vote between the different proposals was more a vote on land use than a real good faith comparison of the different vendor proposals. This to me seems like bad land use policy. We shouldn’t find a use (casino!) and try and plug it in somewhere. We should look at our land as a limited resource connected to infrastructure and communities and decide what it’s highest use with minimal negative impact could be. Then, developers can maximize that pre-determined potential. That should have been the first step of the process: vote on the parcel of land. Regarding the final decision, I’m pleased that it ended up being on the brownfield near I-95, but I don’t care about the vendor at all.

The real problem with this process is that it discouraged competition. It should have been realized ahead of time that neighborhoods might oppose the idea of a casino. We could have guessed that it would end up where it did. But all the other vendors lost their opportunity to have a fair chance, and we lost our opportunity to possibly have the best final outcome, because we were voting on land use and the casino was an afterthought.

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Surveying our postponed lives

Posted on 12 May 2021 | Leave a comment

Last year, I had a lunch on the calendar with an old coworker set for March 12. We hadn’t seen each other since my son was born and we had lots of work gossip and life updates to share. Of course, as the date arrived, the COVID threat grew and we decided it would be safer to postpone. We pushed it back to April 30, then August 13, then again to January 13 (the worst date out of all of these), and May 12, then finally over a year later to May 26, 2021. With vaccinations and revised CDC guidelines in tow, it looks like our lunch is finally going to happen. We are not close friends or family, not in either’s inner quarantine bubble. I think we both acknowledged this and while we were looking forward to catching up we also didn’t take the rescheduling personally.

Of course, we could have cancelled, but I don’t think either of us wanted to give up on the lunch. We just wanted to be safe. Also, it was nice to have something normal on the calendar even if we knew it might have to be moved.

Many people have talked about how COVID gave them a new understanding of their closest network, who matters most in a time of crisis. I also think COVID has given us a new appreciation for the influence of a broad network of weaker ties on quality of life. There are loads of people I admire, but don’t know particularly well, who I have missed this year. I even miss strangers. The friends laughing at a table nearby, the interesting clothes people wear, the small acts of kindness on the street.

There have been far more serious casualties of COVID-19 than a lunch date or a wedding. Important communal sacraments and traditions have been postponed, some opportunities to grieve or celebrate feel lost forever. The entire experience of the pandemic will be a part of us, regardless of how we experienced it. I don’t want to forget the small things that keep a city and community moving forward during non-COVID life which has plenty of disappointment and excitement on it’s own.

One example that I have been daydreaming about lately is being in a full, buzzing coffee shop again. Since the first fall when I moved to Richmond almost 14 years ago, coffee shops have been my home away from home and I have missed them dearly. I miss real mugs, real plates, and silverware. I miss the caffeine-induced brainstorm. I miss the community board with events and vendors. And of course, I miss the eavesdropping and people watching. You just can’t fit this into a take-out container.

Sometime this summer or fall, whenever they are ready to reopen, I imagine myself in Sub Rosa with a cappuccino at the bar around 10:30 a.m. on a disastrously busy weekend morning. With myself, the Times, and who knows what former friend, neighbor, or coworker that might walk by. Croissant flakes and dirty dishes are everywhere along with the smell of chocolate, polenta, and smoke. I’m grateful we all united over COVID by staying away, but I can’t wait to see everyone and catch up on the other side.

Update: My lunch date was actually pushed back three more days because his wife was scheduled to get the COVID vaccine during our lunch window. It felt like a fitting end to the saga.

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A new trail to the Pump House

Posted on 23 April 2021 | Leave a comment

There is a construction site near the Nickle Bridge toll station that I’ve been running by for the past month or so. My first fear was that they were building a new road access to enter the trail parking lot right after the toll booths, but I realized that would cause traffic issues. While searching for another IFB, I recently came across the plans for the project and I was pleasantly surprised. The city is installing a new Pump House Park Trail that will connect the sidewalk of the Nickle Bridge to the North Bank trail entrance and the Pump House beyond. The project which includes “500-foot long and eight-foot wide multiuse asphalt trail with an ADA-compliant portion, requisite storm water management elements including a rain garden, and other landscaping and site furnishing elements” was awarded to Jeffery Stack Inc. in Jersey, VA for $186,380. I was surprised there were only four bidders, but contractors are very busy right now.

The plans designed by the Timmons Group, attached below, look simple and thoughtful. I appreciate the use of native plants in the rain garden. I’d like to know more about the policy or program that required the use of natives. Pollinators are going to love the wax myrtles, sweetspires, dogwoods, tulip tree, bee balm and more. I would have liked to see fruit-bearing shrubs included in the designs like serviceberry, blackberry, and blueberry. I like the graceful curve of the trail, and the way that the project prioritizes foot traffic at the juncture of so many beautiful outdoor spaces: Byrd Park, Maymont, the Nickle Bridge/Southside/Buttermilk Trail, the North Bank trail, and of course the Pump House. I especially hope the Pump House, with more foot traffic, visibility, and awareness, continues to become the destination that folks have been saying it could be for years. Designs and files attached below.

approved_drawings_ifb_200012159Download
ifb_pump_house_park_trailDownload

These documents and more are publicly listed at the following link: https://mvendor.cgieva.com/Vendor/public/VBODetails.jsp?DOC_CD=IFB&DEPT_CD=LAA1&BID_INTRNL_NO=161494&BID_NO=IFB+20012159&BID_VERS_NO=1.

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New Museums for Atlanta and Charleston

Posted on 21 July 2014 | Leave a comment

In the past year I’ve heard dozens of arguments in Richmond against museums: they’re not profitable, no one cares about history, they’re too expensive. In the past few months, Atlanta and Charleston have told a different story.

The Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta opened a few weeks ago on June 23, 2014. The goal: tell the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s relationship to Atlanta and legacy in the American Civil Rights Movement within the context of global human rights battles being fought today. Here’s a remarkable article on the center from the Bitter Southerner.

The International African American Museum in Charleston, set to open in 2017, will tell a complex cross-continental story of forced migration from Africa to Charleston and the American South. Mayor Riley announced last week that the museum will connect to Gadsden’s Wharf, the actual location where slave ships arrived in Charleston. Although the museum is still years away from it’s projected opening date, it already has a snazzy website promoting the museum and region:

IAAM Website

ArtNet News reports, “The 42,000-square-foot museum will feature interactive exhibits that describe the black experience in America. The displays will be designed by Ralph Appelbaum, who is responsible for the exhibits at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the new Visitor Reception Center at the United States Capitol.”

Reading about these new institutions reminds me of the life lesson: make choices or they will be made for you. Richmond has a venerable place at the table in terms of historical significance. After all, it was Richmond, not Charleston or Atlanta that was chosen to lead the CSA. It was Richmond that industrialized while the Charleston elite held on to their agricultural society.

And it is Richmond that has spent the last 150 years wondering why.

Vocal residents and politicians in Richmond seem to think that history alone won’t be enough of an attraction for the city. Really, we make excuses to avoid telling the story we were born to tell. And while Richmond thinks, argues, and tosses plans on the shelf, other southern cities are making sense of their story and inviting the nation to drive down I-95 for a visit, passing straight through Shockoe Bottom on their way.

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Another National Slavery Museum Design for RVA

Posted on 10 June 2014 | 2 comments

Somehow I’m the last to know that there is a third (or fourth?) design for a slavery museum in Shockoe Bottom. And, might I add, it’s my favorite:

PA-533_24

It looks like the design was completed by a partnership between the former BAM firm and SMBW then, I assume, it followed Chris Fultz to it’s current home on his website, fultzarchitects.com. The homepage of that site got me planning my next cross-country road trip … until I realized that this Slavery Museum design also won an AIARVA honor award in 2010. A little older than I thought. Then I found an article on this design, “Bridging the Gaps,” published in Richmond Magazine on October 19, 2009. The author of that article writes,

“All Eyes on Shockoe, Again
The city of Richmond seems poised to embrace a national museum with a culturally significant subject and create the kind of international profile the region has been so desperate to achieve.”

Of course, five years later, we know that all eyes are on Shockoe again, again. This article was a good reminder of the many hours spent designing plans that were never completed.

I found a more recent Richmond Times-Dispatch article on this design published January 30, 2013. I’m not entirely sure how this design was still newsworthy after four years in existence, but I assume it was either gradually developed or gradually revealed to the public, or both. This article appears to be a followup with more details on the plan. According to the Times-Dispatch:

“The Richmond Slave Trail Commission…released its vision to develop a $100 million to $150 million heritage site in Shockoe Bottom, including a slavery museum, an African-American genealogical center and a glass-enclosed Lumpkin’s Jail archeological site.”

In the past year this design seems to have been generally forgotten and replaced by another less-ambitions (albeit beautiful) design for a slavery commemoration in Shockoe Bottom.

So what happened to the 2009 design? The question was recently posed in a comment on the Style Weekly article “Getting Wilder.” Thomas writes,

“The building Wilder wants for the museum doesn’t even look big enough to house a “National” slavery museum. If you want a grand one on a national scale, start from scratch. What happened to that National Slavery Museum proposal by Fultz Architects? That was the best one. We should have jumped on that one…”

I tend to agree. It’s no surprise that I’d rather Richmond move forward with something exceptional than settle for something acceptable. Besides, there are examples of projects of that scale in this country that were funded by a combination of state, local, and private funds. I continue to believe that good ideas of far-reaching significance energize donors more than anything else.

The story of this design should cause us all to take a step back. After reading through each article I found myself wondering,

How can one city generate so many incredible, unfinished designs?

On the one hand, this is just a factor of the architecture industry. An astounding number of designs are submitted every year that are never realized. But it still seems to point to a deeper issue of governance that prevents us from connecting the plans to reality. Every so often I stumble upon another great idea for Richmond that somehow never found funding or political momentum. And now we have this “economic development plan” for Shockoe Bottom that seems to be moving in the same direction. So what can we do next time to prevent the same results?

I found the best answer to my question in the original Richmond Magazine article from 2009. Christy Coleman, the president of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, states that the planning process for a museum of this scale should not begin with a building design. The article continues:

A fledgling museum should begin with a mission statement and a plan of whether it will be a “collecting” institution — one that houses a vast collection of artifacts for display and research — or a “storytelling” institution that strives to communicate knowledge and an experience to its visitors.

“All of these things start coming up that will have an incredible impact on the long-term operations,” [Coleman] says.

We ought to extend this wisdom to any large-scale project brought forward for the benefit of the people of Richmond: start with your mission statement. What is the essential purpose of the development and how will it serve the needs of the city?

As we have seen, there are many architects and firms in the area that are more than willing to turn a good idea into sparkling designs. They might even do it at a discounted rate if they are particularly inspired by the proposal and assured that this time there is a likelihood that the project will actually happen. This city has incredible potential, regional powerhouse corporations, and visionary leaders. Together I truly believe we can make something great.

But first, we need a good idea.

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Perspective

Posted on 2 April 2014 | 1 comment

As I flew out of Richmond last week, I got a rare glimpse of the city at dusk:

River city

I just stared at that settlement on the banks of the James River and wondered what the next 400 years might bring. In the city of Richmond, there is the past, the present and the future. That makes us fortunate and it makes us complicated.

To move forward, we will have to make some sense of ourselves and our story.

In the past few months I’ve travelled all over the country: from Philadelphia to Dallas, to San Francisco. With each trip I’ve found new perspective on this current phase of the development of the city of Richmond. I’ve also found some clarity for myself and settled into four areas of focus for my writing:

1. Current events in context: If I ever write about current events, it will be to analyze and contextualize the story. I spent three years studying the debates in Richmond regarding the construction of the Richmond Petersburg Turnpike. That work left me particularly interested in economic development strategies and plans for improving the American city.

2. Drawings for the future: Like many of us, I’m constantly imagining new uses for old spaces and I’ve decided I’m finally going to get these on paper. I’m actually planning to draw them out. It will probably be pretty ugly at first, but I’m hoping to read a little on technique and improve over time.

3. The psychology of the city: I’ve been noticing for years that the city of Richmond has a certain personality. This personality comes out in furious debates as well as mundane daily life. Since college I’ve also entered the world of cognitive psychology, therapy, management, and organizational behavior. I’ve read books, met with academics, and watched every video I find. Insight from these fields will be my lens for understanding what’s going on in this crazy place.

4. The history of the history: There are so many stories being told about Richmond. I want to take those stories and study them to understand the different ways that we describe ourselves. I’m obsessed with historiography and excited to dive back into that field for a series of posts about the different ways we talk about our past. This is connected to the psychological perspective as well: how we talk about Richmond says a lot about how we think of ourselves.

I want a future for this city that is unique and authentic. I want Richmond to develop a maturity as a place that takes all of it’s qualities and integrates them into a coherent whole. As with personal development, this will require a lot of work. In a way, collective therapy. And all because we believe there is a best possible future for this city and that future must include a coherent, honest, and accepting understanding of the past and present.

As always, more to come.

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Baseball at the Heart

Posted on 20 February 2014 | 16 comments

The mayor’s proposal for Shockoe Bottom is a bit of a chameleon. When it was first revealed, it seemed like it was clearly a ballpark plan: baseball balloons, Nutzy, Parney Parnell cracking jokes. But as the plan progressed, this central goal became secondary to a host of other justifications for the development.

The phrase, “not just a ballpark plan,” has become popular in this current debate at the same time supporters of the mayor’s plan have proudly placed signs proclaiming, “I support Shockoe Ballpark,” in front yards and businesses. Clearly, we are confused. Like many, I’ve studied the proposal for Shockoe Bottom and attempted to make sense of all the arguments. As always with these sorts of plans, it is necessary to distinguish the certain from the projected.

Beyond all the letters of intent, the promises, and the economic projections, there is a baseball stadium. This stadium project will likely cost around $167M including interest over the next 30 years. We will hopefully finish paying off the debt around 2046. I will be almost 60 years old. These are the certainties of the mayor’s proposal. All other elements of the plan are subsidiary to the ballpark.

Below I have compiled four common arguments (other than baseball) and reasons why they are not substantive or central to the Shockoe plan:

#1. This plan will improve schools in Richmond

Schools argument

This is a photo of a billboard paid for by the LovingRVA ad campaign. It’s simple, it’s clear, it’s exciting. How could any of us say no to a promise like “More $$$ for schools?” It pulls at our heart strings and connects the plan to something we love.

Then I realized: this is not a schools plan. Not a single dollar of this plan is allocated for school maintenance, construction, or modernization. There isn’t a contract that says that our government is obligated to increase school funding a certain amount each year. We also don’t have any idea how much added tax revenue this plan will generate so there can be no sure promise made for future increases.

And yet, we are being promised that this plan is for our schools and our children.

After digging around, I realized the connection from this plan to schools is pretty weak. The most I could find was a quote from Mayor Jones in the RT-D:

“I think that as we continue to negotiate with City Council people and get them on board, that there’s probably going to be some designated streams that go to some various places that people feel very strongly about….”

Wow. Either Jones was badly misrepresented or the mayor did a terrible job convincing me that that this plan will have any meaningful connection to things I “feel very strongly about.” This schools argument  is like playing “seven degrees of the Mayor’s economic development plan.” Where will all the money end up? We have no idea. But I promise there’s definitely a chance you could get a slice.

And I’m particularly annoyed because I do have a soft spot for schools. The need in RPS is incredible. There are countless reports and articles on the financial need and the deteriorating infrastructure of our school system. Our mayor is promising us more money will be sent to schools, but he isn’t saying how much. All we know is if we build the stadium in Shockoe and if it’s surrounded by lucrative businesses and if we can attract huge amounts of private investment on the Boulevard, then we will have more money that might be allocated to schools.

To me, that seems like a lot of “ifs.” If you care about schools, ask the mayor to sign on the dotted line. Anything less is empty promises.

#2. This plan will provide access to good, affordable food

grocery

I’ve heard this argument regularly enough that it deserves to be included in this list. I haven’t seen it on a billboard, but this is the argument that seems to tug at the “food justice” movement in Richmond and the desire for residents to have access to healthy, affordable food.

As a resident of the East End, I think it would be great to have a new grocery store. I think it will provide access to good food for a wide economic spectrum of people. Residents nearby will be able to walk to get their food rather than drive around the corner to Farm Fresh. Many riding public transit will be able to get off 10 minutes earlier than they would for the Kroger on Broad St. I wouldn’t have to drive out to the Martin’s at White Oak for fresh vegetables. Sounds great to me.

I just keep returning to the fact that the grocery store is not a central element of this plan. Honestly, this grocery store has more to do with economic development and the mayor’s revenue bonds financing scheme. I think we would have built anything there if it promised to bring in a certain amount of revenue each year. Also, do we have to build a baseball stadium to have a grocery store? More on that later.

#3. This plan will memorialize and interpret Richmond history

museum 2

The third claim is that this plan has been created in order for Richmond to restore the history of slavery to its rightful place. On the cover of the Venture Richmond “Downtown’s Transformation 2014” document (an unfortunate title), there is a presumptuous photo of the proposed slavery heritage site, an element of the Mayor’s proposed revitalization plan. On the second page of the document there is a photo of the ballpark. For some reason, Venture Richmond chose to promote the heritage site.

Here’s the problem: the slavery heritage site is not funded. We honestly don’t know when or if it will ever be built. To further complicate things, Richmond City Council and the state legislature of Virginia have recently committed funds to the construction of a slavery museum. Is the heritage site enough to fit the specifications of these funds? We don’t know. There are designs for a full museum, but they haven’t been adopted by the city or promoted publicly to my knowledge. If all funds go toward the museum, how will we pay to memorialize the Lumpkin’s Jail site?

Many of us are in favor of building something to commemorate the history of slavery in Richmond. The Washington Post even wrote an editorial in support of a slavery museum back in December. It’s certainly the most historically, culturally, and socially important element of the mayor’s plan, but it’s not the main attraction. This “heritage site” has been tacked onto the ballpark plan to satisfy those of us who care about history, culture, and memory.

It’s a beautiful design and I would like to see it in Shockoe Bottom. But I have to wonder: why do we need to spend $52,250,000 for a baseball stadium so that we can memorialize the history of slavery in our city?

I’m also very concerned with the process by which this heritage site/museum has been developed. When municipalities plan and construct museums or heritage sites, they typically spend years developing a network of scholars, institutions, community members, foundations, and government agencies in order to strategize the future success of the enterprise. If done well, this process results in a site that is ready to receive public school tour groups (where will the busses park?), host educational events (who will coordinate?), conduct relevant research, and curate exhibits to keep the material relevant and interesting for visitors. This sort of strategic planning results in a place that is vibrant and well-loved by locals and out-of-town visitors for generations to come.

If the mayor’s plan were truly a plan devoted to the history of Shockoe Bottom, there would already be a consortium of interested individuals from all over the nation and the world developing potential directions for the space and the building. Right now all I see is a pretty picture.

#4. This plan will stimulate the economy in Richmond

city

The argument for economic development is the lynchpin of this entire plan. Many believe that the “baseball stadium + hotel + grocery store + heritage site + apartments + future development on the Boulevard” plan holds the greatest possible economic benefit for years to come.

I have to respectfully disagree. If maximum economic output were the ultimate goal of this plan, Richmond wouldn’t have a baseball stadium at all. Minor league franchises are mostly money losers. They are highly subsidized franchises with all salaries paid for by their parent major league team and stadiums funded by localities. So it’s counterintuitive to include a ballpark in an economic development plan. Unless by “economic development” you mean “we need to find a way to pay for this darn baseball stadium.”

Also, not only are minor league stadiums expensive on the front end, they usually require renovations 20-25 years after they are built. It’s fitting that our local leaders travelled to Durham in January. A few weeks before the Richmond delegation made their trek, The Hearld Sun reported that the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, opened in 1995, the model for our ballpark scheme, is now planning a $20M renovation. Nineteen years after it first opened.

If it weren’t for the ballpark, Shockoe Bottom wouldn’t even be on the mayor’s radar. This flood plain is surrounded by the many hills of Richmond that don’t require a $20M investment in infrastructure for development to start tomorrow. There are cranes up in Richmond right now already investing in the future of this city. The only reason we’re talking about Shockoe Bottom is because we have this baseball team and we need to find a place to put them that can generate enough money to pay of the enormous sum it will cost to construct a brand new stadium. But if economic development were the goal, we would be saving our future tax dollars for general use rather than for servicing the debt on a baseball stadium for the next 30 years.

So why are we calling this an development plan? The argument is this: the ballpark should go in Shockoe Bottom because it’s best in Shockoe Bottom because it will allow us to 0pen the area to private development so that the lease on the ballpark will be paid for. This is a cyclical argument: we have to spend money so that we can make money to pay off the money that we spent. Also, the word for that is not “free.” The only legitimate argument for economic development is on the Boulevard, everyone agrees on that. But why has there been so little planning done for this site? How sure can we be sure of its success?

You may be asking, “What about all the data that proves the stadium is a good idea for Shockoe Bottom?” Here we have to make a critical distinction between data-driven projects and data-justified projects. Throughout the planning process, our leaders have selectively chosen data that supports their goal: constructing a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom. We can be certain this was not an externally vetted process. All the evidence we have seen is simply a case that our leaders have developed to debate and defend their plan. That’s not my idea of leadership.

Regarding this plan for Shockoe Bottom, we can only be sure of the expenditures. The revenue is all projected based on letters of intent and market analysis.

Again, expenditures = contracts. Revenue = projections.

The report put together by Davenport & Co. LLC includes a comparison between developing the Boulevard and Shockoe Bottom. According to this report, putting the ballpark in Shockoe Bottom is a responsible option. But in the low estimate for revenue generated in Shockoe bottom, the debt service (at $4,062,976) is greater than total revenue ($3,874,778) which leaves a projected deficit of $188,198 annually. And everyone has been telling me this ballpark is “free.” Am I reading that wrong? If this project were truly concerned with economic development, it would not include the city of Richmond diverting tax revenue toward paying off the debt service for the next 30 years.

Our leader is convinced the ballpark is our ticket to success when it is actually the ball and chain we will drag, year by year, into our own reluctant future.

***

My final question is, why isn’t Mayor Jones talking about the ballpark?

Perhaps it’s because an estimated 70% of the people that go to the Squirrels games live in Henrico and Chesterfield. Does it matter? I think so. Why should we divert $4.8M in tax dollars each year for the next 30 years to pay for an entertainment facility that primarily exists for county residents? Or why didn’t we wait for a more unilateral deal? In 2003, the counties were planning to pay two thirds of an $18,500,000 ballpark renovation. That proposal was sidelined by a local official that decided he wanted to build a new ballpark in Shockoe Bottom. The deal was scrapped, Nothing has happened ever since. Now we’re planning to pay 100% by going out on our own.

Mayor Jones seems to only talk only about economic development. Many other leaders in Richmond are excited about the heritage site. Most of my friends are excited about the benefits for local schools. All the while we’re skating around the most controversial elements of the plan: the cost of the ballpark, the lack of public support for the ballpark, and the location of the ballpark.

I’ll leave the last word to Andrew Zimbalist:

“Cities spend millions of dollars to support a variety of cultural activities that are not expected to have positive economic effects, such as subsidizing a local symphony or maintaining a public park. Sports teams can have a powerful cultural or social impact on a community. If that effect is valued by the local residents, then they may well decide that some public dollars are appropriate. However, if the public or its political representatives are trying to make the case that a team or a facility by itself will be an important development tool, then the electorate should think twice before opening its collective wallet.”

Richmond, if we want a new baseball stadium, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about how much we might be willing to invest in a new stadium. Let’s talk about where we would want it to be built. Let’s not allow ourselves to be convinced into needing a stadium for a host of unrelated reasons.

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