Richmond affordable housing effort features modular homes

Jan 13, 2024

Mayor Levar Stoney, center, speaks in March about the "housing crisis" in Richmond. Behind Stoney are City Council members Cynthia Newbille, from left, Ann-Frances Lambert, Michael Jones and Katherine Jordan.

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A Richmond nonprofit wants to start making modular houses to help tackle the city's affordable housing crisis by replacing aging mobile home units.

Project:HOMES will build a warehouse facility to assemble modular homes on the vacant lot at 112 Carnation St., a block and a half south of Midlothian Turnpike, just to the east of Chippenham Parkway.

"The warehouse will be a working lab for the production of modular and manufactured home prototypes," said Mark Baker of Baker Development Resources, handling the zoning request for the nonprofit.

"Project:HOMES will utilize contractors and volunteers to produce affordable replacement homes for their clients in obsolete manufactured housing in the region and will develop new modular solutions for affordable single-family housing," he said.

The nonprofit will make small, affordable mobile home units, which will be certified to meet U.S. Housing and Urban Development standards and are intended to replace aging mobile homes in the Richmond area.

They will be built by hand by Project:HOMES staff and volunteers.

The nonprofit expects to build about six units a year, and ship them from the warehouse to the sites where they will be placed.

Project:HOMES serves low-income individuals and families through its current programs making critical home-safety repairs, accessibility modifications and implementing energy conservation measures in their homes. It has undertaken more than 42,000 projects on more than 36,000 homes.

In 2018, a shed washed up against a fence near a mobile home park off Semmes Avenue in Richmond. Nine mobile homes were declared unsafe or uninhabitable after heavy rains.

City planning staff, calling the project a "unique instance of a nonprofit specifically constructing modular dwelling sections for the use of affordable housing," said it could play a part in the city's push to expand housing opportunities.

While the Carnation Street site is zoned for residential use, with buildings limited to 25% of the area, it is immediately to the south of several industrial and warehouse operations.

Since the building will take up more space on the site, with smaller setbacks from the property line that the residential zoning dictates, a row of evergreen trees and a fence will shield the facility from neighbors.

The facility will only operate between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. and overnight storage of material or equipment outside the building will not be allowed.

Workmen put the finishing touches on Cloverleaf Mall in August of 1972.

Opening day at Cloverleaf Mall, August 1972

Chesterfield County police aid shoppers at Cloverleaf Mall during its first week in August of 1972.

When it opened in 1972, the Crystal Room at the Sears in Cloverleaf Mall included furs.

Seymour Hoffman, vice president of District Theaters in Washington, in front of the twin cinema at Cloverleaf Mall, which opened with the mall in August of 1972. It was expanded to an nine-screen Regal Cinema in the 1987 renovation.

Chef William A. Richards prepares food in the Piccadilly Cafeteria in 1972.

Cloverleaf Mall in 1975

A 1976 meeting in the Community Room at Cloverleaf Mall. Community groups took advantage of the free room almost every day.

Thirty five tubists showed up to play carols at TubaChristmas at Cloverleaf in December 1985.

The interior of Cloverleaf Mall after the renovation in 1987.

Cloverleaf Mall's parking lot was full on Christmas Eve of 1990.

Chesterfield County and Richmond, Va., firefighters remove debris from the site of a fire at Cloverleaf Mall, on Oct. 12, 1995.

Frederick's of Hollywood at Cloverleaf Mall in 1995

Christmas trees decorated by Chesterfield and Richmond school students are on display at Cloverleaf Mall. Pictured here a mall walker passes by the trees on Dec. 20, 1997.

A construction worker guides the placement of one of three metal pyramids at the entrance of the Cloverleaf Mall in October 1998. When completed the would have a renovated front entrance and food court , a new major entrance sign and other upgrades.

Chesterfield County opened a new Police station inside of Cloverleaf Mall in November of 1999.

Regal cinemas at Cloverleaf Mall closed in 2001.

Cloverleaf Mall Sears store worker Richard Lanzarone (right) who has worked for Sears for 45 years, leaves the sales floor with a fellow employee after the store closed for good on Jan. 25, 2006. Sears opened a new store in Chesterfield Town Center

The food court at Cloverleaf mall was empty on July 21, 2005.

Chesterfield County bought Cloverleaf Mall in 2007 with plans to demolish it and replace it with a mixed-use development.

Joseph Toney makes his rounds inside Cloverleaf Mall on May 22, 2007. Chesterfield County bought the mall in 2007 and intends to demolish the mall and build new commercial and residential development

Deon Payne (left) and Gaylen Braxton shop Cloverleaf one last time on Feb. 28, 2008.

The closing sign posted on the main entrance to Cloverleaf Mall, the day before the mall's official closing.

Cloverleaf Mall buildings are surrounded by a padlocked chain link fence on August 20, 2010.

James F. Downs, of Crosland Southeast, was among the officials breaking out the gold sledge hammers to begin the long-awaited demolition of Cloverleaf Mall on October 25, 2011.

The long-awaited demolition of Cloverleaf Mall began on October 25, 2011.

Construction of the Kroger at the former Cloverleaf Mall site on Aug. 13, 2012.

Dave Ress (804) 649-6948

[email protected]

@DaveRess1 on Twitter

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