Richmond wins!
Posted: September 20, 2010 | Author: Nathan Hughes | Filed under: City of Richmond, National News | Tags: best state, business environment, business owners, Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, Forbes.com, government, Richmond, Virginia | Leave a comment »
We're number one!
As I mentioned earlier this year in “Richmond loves its working moms“, I appreciate when the rest of the world acknowledges Richmond’s superiority in all ways. It seems there are lists for everything, and while I find it to be overkill most of the time — any list can justify itself as being relevant and highly insightful by the obvious addition of Richmond (or Virginia as a whole) to the top of its rankings.
Imagine my delight when I found a helpfully compiled list of Richmond’s awards on the Greater Richmond Partnership’s website (here) and a similar but not completely identical list on the City of Richmond’s website (here).
Browse the awards and bookmark the links for future reference. Find a few that mean the most to you and let everyone know how great Richmond is! (and feel free to rub it in to friends that live in cities that ranked below us…)
How important is biking and walking to you?
Posted: September 17, 2010 | Author: Nathan Hughes | Filed under: City of Richmond, Government Institutions, New Urbanism, Transportation | Tags: downtown Richmond, government, Richmond, walkability | Leave a comment »If you think biking and walking should be more prominent in Richmond City’s transportation planning, then I encourage you to get out to this and participate!
Received in my email this afternoon:
Department of Planning & Development Review
CITY OF RICHMOND
News ReleaseWednesday, September 15, 2010
For Immediate ReleaseCity to Hold Public Forum on Pedestrian Biking and Trails
Richmond, VA – The city of Richmond will hold a public forum on Monday, September 20, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Carillon in Byrd Park. The forum is being held to encourage input from residents on ways to make biking and walking an integral part of the city’s transportation system.
In May 2010, Mayor Dwight C. Jones established a Pedestrian Bicycling and Trails Planning Commission to provide his administration with advice on ways to make the city more pedestrian friendly. The commission divided into work groups: Economic Development; Public Policy/Legislation; Infrastructure and Physical Design; Grants and Funding; Outreach, Education and Safety; and Metrics and Evaluation. The workgroups have studied the plans and strategies of the city of Richmond, other jurisdictions as well as those of other countries.
On Monday, four of the Commission’s work groups will present some of their recommendations for public consideration. They are: Public Policy/Legislation; Economic Development; Infrastructure and Physical Design; Outreach, Education and Safety.
Residents who are unable to attend the forum can provide input through a survey that will be posted after the public forum on the city’s website at www.Richmondgov.com.
Contact: Tammy Hawley (804) 646-3110
Tammy.Hawley@RichmondGov.com
Cleveland looks towards Richmond
Posted: July 12, 2010 | Author: Nathan Hughes | Filed under: City of Richmond | Tags: business environment, downtown Richmond, Restaurants, Richmond | 9 Comments »It’s always interesting to hear what kind of impression Richmond leaves on someone visiting, and of course I especially enjoy it when that perspective reaffirms what I already love about the city.
Take a look at how a correspondent from Cleveland.com views the River City: “Richmond: Southern charm with an edge” (thanks to @verystickyrice & @sharischaefer for tweeting about the article, or I would have totally missed it)
I think he captured the feel of Richmond very well, and the piece was well thought through. Granted, it’s a certain piece of Richmond and there are plenty more aspects that weren’t covered, but hey…he was only visiting for short time! It’s hard to get the full view even while you’re living here.
Feel free to leave comments here on RVA Business, but it might be better to leave comments on their site to keep the discussion going.
Come on back anytime, Stephen!
Don’t let them catch you dancing!
Posted: July 8, 2010 | Author: Nathan Hughes | Filed under: City of Richmond, Government Institutions, Hanover County, Henrico County, Legal, Restaurants | Tags: business environment, downtown Richmond, government, legal, Restaurants, Richmond, Virginia | Leave a comment »Everyone can now rest easy, dancing will no longer be tolerated in the City of Richmond! (Well, when I say “everyone can now rest easy”, I really mean everyone except for those pesky dancers.) From what I hear, dancing brings about all sorts of immorality so I am relieved that we won’t have dirty dancers parading around making light of the city’s laws. (My research really is confined to movies from the first half of certain movies from the 80′s)
I’m actually a little confused because visitors or transplants to the city are always complaining about how there aren’t many dance clubs here anyways.
Style Weekly has plenty of information in this week’s edition here, including a Q&A follow up session with a representative from the Mayor’s office.
As a tribute to the new City ordinance, here’s a video of some scenes from the movie Footloose:
Actually, this ordinance is nothing new here in the Richmond metro area. Chesterfield and Henrico have been issuing permits (or NOT issuing permits, depending on who you talk to) for a couple of years now.
Here are a few links about the stink from last year about Chesterfield and dance permits:
- Richmond BizSense article from 3/24/2009
- Midlothian Exchange article from 3/24/2009
- NBC12 article from 3/27/2009
(thanks to Richmond Good Life’s time-capsule archives for those links!)
Henrico has the same type of ordinance and dance club permits, but I recently had a tenant that had to apply for one and it wasn’t a huge ordeal.
If you’ve run against any of these dance ordinances or know of how it’s handled in other areas, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Leave a comment!
Poor, poor, strip club owner…
Posted: March 3, 2008 | Author: Nathan Hughes | Filed under: City of Richmond, Government Institutions, Restaurants | Leave a comment »Sam Moore, owner of Velvet in Shockoe Bottom, has been getting a lot of press lately. If you prescribe to the “any press is good press” motto, then Velvet has been getting way more attention than his Hummers and rooftop spotlights could ever give him.
Take the following articles in the RTD as examples: Example #1 (2/26/08), Example #2 (2/27/08), Example #3 (2/28/08). That’s a lot of coverage… (edit: AND there’s another article in this morning’s RTD, on the front page no less!) [new edit (7/31/10): most of those RTD links are dead now, but here are some from that same time-frame that are live -- 2/25/08 & 2/24/08]
I don’t know Sam in any personal or business sense, so I don’t have any way to know if he deserves the bad rap he’s been getting lately. It does, however, seem awfully suspicious that as soon as the news breaks that he is looking to open a Hooters-style restaurant in the old Julians building (2/13/08), his business in Shockoe Bottom is raided and everything hits the fan.
The overly anxious coverage of the charges against Sam Moore reminds me of the equally eager coverage of Nat Dance over the years of Nat Dance and Club 534 and Club Cotton. (The latest example can be read here.) Now I’m not saying this is a conspiracy by the newspaper, or even that the paper is in on it. Rather, I think that there is a force behind it whose hand is bluntly obvious, even if the players involved aren’t.