RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A Richmond business will permanently close its doors at the end of the year to make room for some new construction.
Factory Zero in the city’s Manchester neighborhood offers mixed-use community spaces for artists and others. However, it will be demolished as the developer plans to build an entirely new space.
The business, located on East Third Street in Richmond, has been around for years.
“It’s a wonderful mixed-use space in terms of hosting a lot of different arts and entertainment events. It’s a great community gathering place. You’re chilled, go get a good coffee, and work,” said the past said Ryan Clatterbuck, who visited Factory Zero. “A lot of artists and people who work in the community are using that space to store things.”
The building is scheduled to close by the end of the year.
Fountainhead RVA is a real estate agency involved in the project. They told 8News on Wednesday, November 30. 30, the building will be demolished in January 2023.
While the project is still in the planning stages, Fountainhead RVA will turn the space into apartments. However, Clutterbuck said more housing projects could force low-income and hard-working people out of the area.
“It’s going to drive rent prices higher than they are now and displace more people, so we’re just perpetuating this homelessness or paycheck to paycheck problem,” he said.
Currently, a sign is posted on the gate of Plant Zero warning tenants and customers to move all their belongings out of the building by December 12. 31.
“We’re going to close and tear down some neat stuff and build luxury apartments that we don’t have the infrastructure to support,” Clutterbuck said.
He and other residents are also concerned that the height of new apartment buildings could obstruct views of the city skyline, adding that another housing unit could do more harm than good.
“Unfortunately, this just seems to be a pattern that we continue to have in this community,” Clutterback said.
Fountainhead RVA told 8News that the Commons at Plant Zero apartment building on Hull Street, which is across the street from the East 3rd Street building, is not going to be demolished.