Henrico likely to resume indoor arena project

After a pandemic-prompted pause, Henrico County officials are set to resume initial work on their planned indoor sports arena and convocation center at the current site of Virginia Center Commons mall.

The county’s Board of Supervisors Tuesday is expected to approve a resolution that would authorize $1.9 million in funding for the demolition of the building on the county-owned portion of the site and also for the design and preparation of construction plans for the arena.

The moves come several months later than anticipated, the result of Henrico’s decision to slash $99 million from its Fiscal Year 2020-21 budget and freeze most capital projects in March at the outset of the pandemic.

But the county’s economy hasn’t dipped as low as officials once feared, and they appear ready to take the next step in the process of building the arena, which they expect to be a boon for indoor sports tourism. The county announced its intention to build the arena at the Virginia Center site nearly one year ago.

Henrico’s Economic Development Authority earlier this spring sold $50 million worth of bonds to fund the project; county officials spent slightly more than $8 million of that amount to purchase the roughly 25-acre site at VCC from The Rebkee Company, which had bought it along with the majority of the mall site in January for $12.8 million. Henrico is partnering with Rebkee and Shamin Hotels on the project.

The original arena timeline would have resulted in a completion date of late next year or sometime in the spring of 2022; that target date is now late summer of 2022, according to Henrico County Deputy Manager for Administration Brandon Hinton.

“That could change depending on many different factors,” he told the Citizen.

Henrico has invested heavily in sports tourism in recent years, and the arena will be another step in that direction. Officials view sports tourism as being virtually bulletproof, because even in difficult economic times, people still tend to travel for their children’s games.

An example of that came just last week, when county officials said that sports tourism spending in Henrico between June 13 and Aug. 30 amounted to about $14.7 million – only about $1.6 million less than had been expected during that period prior to the pandemic.

Henrico’s parks and sports complexes hosted more than 180 tournaments and other events in last year, generating more than $55 million dollars in estimated local spending, according to county officials. A study conducted by Richmond Region Tourism for Henrico County last year concluded that the county was missing out on at least $33 million in additional economic impact annually from indoor sports tournaments that it could attract if it had sufficient space.

The arena, which will seat at least 4,500 and include 12 basketball courts (convertible to 24 volleyball courts), as well as team rooms and other amenities, ultimately is expected to share the Virginia Center site with a hotel and conference center built by Shamin Hotels. Earlier this month, Shamin and Rebkee agreed to purchase the 7.67-acre JCPenney site at the mall, meaning that they and the county will own all of the mall site except for the American Family Fitness building.