The first moving trucks started appearing on Maury Street last week, backing up to the loading dock of a sleek six-story building that didn’t exist two years ago. The Hub, as its developers call it, rises from what was once a vacant lot in Manchester — that former industrial district south of the James that has become ground zero for Richmond’s apartment construction boom.
Dodson Development Group and Fountainhead Real Estate Development, both Richmond-based firms, have positioned the project as something different from the luxury towers sprouting along the riverfront. Mixed-income, they emphasize. Workforce housing. The kind of development that doesn’t just price out the neighborhood.
But walk through Manchester today and you’ll find longtime residents who’ve heard these promises before. The neighborhood’s median rent has jumped 47 percent since 2019, according to CoStar data, outpacing even Scott’s Addition’s meteoric rise. Each new building that opens its doors seems to push the baseline higher.
The Hub’s 120 units will include a percentage set aside for households earning below area median income — a threshold that currently sits around $82,000 for a family of four in the Richmond region. For a single person, that number drops to roughly $57,400. Whether that qualifies as affordable depends entirely on who you ask.
What’s not in dispute is the transformation underway at this particular intersection. Standing at 500 Maury Street, you’re a five-minute walk from the Manchester Climbing Wall, the breweries that have colonized the old industrial buildings along Hull Street, and the T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge connecting to Brown’s Island. You’re also blocks from public housing at Hillside Court, where residents have watched this new Manchester rise around them.
Dodson and Fountainhead have built a track record in Richmond — Dodson’s projects include adaptive reuse work in Scott’s Addition, while Fountainhead has developed properties across the metro area. Their partnership on The Hub represents a bet that the mixed-income model can work financially in a market where developers typically chase higher margins.
The building’s ground-floor retail space remains a question mark. What fills it will signal much about who this Manchester is being built for: a coffee shop with $7 lattes, or something the neighborhood’s existing residents might actually use.
City records show the parcel’s assessed value jumped from $340,000 to $4.2 million following construction. That’s tax revenue, yes. But it’s also a preview of what happens to surrounding property values — and the rents they support.
Manchester’s story is still being written, one six-story building at a time. The Hub is simply the latest chapter.
- The Hub is a 6-story, 120-unit mixed-income apartment building at 500 Maury Street in Manchester
- Developed by Richmond-based firms Dodson Development Group and Fountainhead Real Estate Development
- Manchester’s median rent has increased 47 percent since 2019