The "6th Street Marketplace" in Richmond, Virginia was one of those "redevelopment" bright ideas that comes along every so often. Thalhimer's and Miller & Rhoads department stores straddled 6th Street and were still vital retail centers when the suggestion was made in the 1980's by a redevelopment organization known as "Richmond Renaissance," and with the concurrence of City officials, to close off the whole street and create a sort of "mall," and an elevated "marketplace" (with various storefronts therein) built across Broad Street. Rouse Development was put in charge of the project.
Rouse had brought forth the very successful revival of Faneuil Hall in Boston and the "Inner Harbor" development in Baltimore, Maryland. Richmond City officials at the time had delusions of grandeur in doing the 6th Street project. City officials had previously commissioned the destruction of a major chunk of predominantly black Jackson Ward north of Broad Street in the 1960's to build the looming, frequently dark and foreboding Coliseum (now inadequately sized) in place of once-thriving retail businesses. Most of those small businesses in Jackson Ward had been renting their spaces in short-term tenancies, so they got no money for condemnation when they were wiped out in the name of "redevelopment"! Only the absentee (mostly white) landlords got paid anything.
After the 6th Street Marketplace got built, both Thalhimer's and Miller & Rhoads closed, as did other nearby businesses, and the entire area fell into desolation. 6th Street Marketplace was a mercantile disaster.
Dwight Jones, the current mayor of Richmond, now wants to build HIS "bright idea," another looming, frequently dark and foreboding baseball stadium smack in the middle of a very crowded, parking-starved, mostly retail Shockoe Bottom in one of the oldest parts of Richmond. This will be for the use by and benefit of the sadly-named "Flying Squirrels" minor-league (AA) ball team now out in "The Diamond" (formerly "Parker Field") fronting on The Boulevard across from the bus station and just down the 4-lane street from interchanges with I-95. Jones has been promoting this as a sure-fire way to "revive" Shockoe Bottom with a facility SURE to attract and energize more development and economic growth, as now supposedly happens around The Diamond and the bus station--NOT! That Boulevard neighborhood is currently a cesspool of mostly economic failure.
Jones has not bothered to explain how "enriching" the Shockoe ballpark can be during "away" games and the 8 or 9 "off-season" months when NOTHING is happening there! He has nurtured visions of happy families and kids skipping gayly down the sidewalks of Shockoe Bottom, cotton-candy and hot dogs in hand, pennants flapping, eagerly traipsing to the home baseball games! Jones has not bothered to address the thugs and other assorted miscreants who may well be lurking in the shadows when NOTHING is happening down there, NOR has he addressed how the pre-game and post-game vehicle traffic is supposed to get to and from I-95 through the narrow, already-crowded streets of Shockoe Bottom. Jones may well facilitate that traffic flow by putting even more street parking in the Bottom off-limits.
The Richmond City Council has, at least, temporarily killed the stadium proposal but, of course, they have done nothing to address the seriously deficient parking situation, and nothing is being discussed. The mayor is in a snit because his "bright idea" has been derailed (for the time being), so he's not proposing any alternatives!
