310-unit townhouse community coming to Brook Road

The new development, called The Brook, will feature two sections, one with apartments and the other with townhomes, at 9002 Brook Road in Glen Allen.

The apartment section will consist of five buildings, each four stories tall, for a total of 274 units, ranging in size from one to three bedrooms. The townhomes section will be made up of six buildings, each with six units, designed to have two- and three-bedroom units including private garages.

The Brook was designed so it will have access to the nearby and much-heralded GreenCity development.

Middleburg Communities closed on a $4.4 million sale for the land as of March 24, according to county records. Middleburg expects to begin construction at the 13.5-acre parcel this month.

The new community is expected to accentuate the area’s current atmosphere. Unit sizes were also said to skew larger than other areas like Innsbrook and downtown Richmond, and therefore would better appeal to potential renters.

“The site plan was thoughtfully laid out with the townhome situated on the north end as a transition from the neighboring single-family community to the higher-density apartments,” said Aaron Tishkoff, assistant vice president of investment at Middleburg Communities.

“The plans also call for a retail outparcel fronting Brook Road, which has historically been a key retail and commercial corridor,” he added.

Tishkoff also said the area has been underserved for market-rate rental units.

“It’s important to note that there haven’t been any market-rate apartments built within a three-mile radius of the site in 25 years, despite continued population growth in Henrico County,” Tishkoff said. “If you expand the radius to four miles, only one small 137-unit community was built in 2016, which makes the housing stock older with limited rental options.”

The surrounding area has been teeming with other planned or executed projects. The massive $2.3 billion GreenCity “ecodistrict” is expected to break ground later this year on the other side of Interstate 95 from The Brook. Henrico County is currently extending the Magellan Parkway to access GreenCity. The Brook will end up at a major intersection along that road extension, with access to GreenCity.

Homebuilder Stanley Martin is also raising a 600-home-for-sale community called Retreat at One, just across Brook Road from Middleburg’s latest project. Stanley Martin says it has sold 200 of those homes since opening in November 2021, with more units yet to open.

The Brook is a joint venture between Middleburg and Resmark Companies, which is serving as the investment partner for the project. It is the Los Angeles-based firm’s first for-rent project in Virginia. Its for-sale platform has been active in Virginia for many years.

“The opportunity to be part of The Brook was very attractive for us because of the lack of inventory that currently exists in the coveted northern section of Richmond, which possesses many of the qualities that make it an ideal destination to raise a family – strong employment, educational and cultural opportunities,” said Stephen O’Neil, senior vice president of investments at Resmark.

Financing for the project is through Truist Bank.

Though based in Vienna, Virginia, The Brook is Middleburg’s second project in the state. It just announced the incoming Hamlet Watkins Center last month. That 283-unit built-for-rent community is expected to open around 2025. The developer said it has another built-for-rent project in its pipeline for the Richmond area.

Construction on The Brook is set to begin this month with a scheduled open date in late 2024.