Dōma at the Diamond District — Richmond, Virginia

More than a hundred people showed up on July 29 to watch shovels go into the ground at 2707 Diamond View Drive. Dōma is the first privately financed vertical building inside Richmond’s 67-acre Diamond District, and the first non-baseball construction start on the site.

Project Scope

Six stories, 276 market-rate units, $80 million excluding land. The name plays off “domicile.” Units run 525 to 1,400 square feet, with a mix that’s 49% one-bedroom, 17% one-bedroom-plus-den, 32% two-bedroom and 2% studio. Projected rents land between $1,700 and $3,100 a month. There’s 4,000 square feet of street-level commercial, a rooftop terrace with a gym and lap pool, and a 453-space parking deck shared with the planned office building at 2727 Diamond View Drive.

Diamond District Partners, led by Thalhimer Realty Partners, is the developer. Baskervill is architect, KBS is general contractor, and the consultant bench includes Kimley-Horn, EM Structural, CMTA and Waterstreet Studio. SouthState Bank leads the debt with Atlantic Union Bank. First units deliver in the first quarter of 2028.

The groundbreaking followed the June 30 transfer of the Phase 1A-2 parcel from the Richmond Economic Development Authority to the partnership. The EDA had bought the property from VCU for $25 million.

Why It Matters

Richmond issued $170 million in bonds for CarMax Park and district infrastructure. Incremental tax revenue from private buildings is how that gets retired, and the 18-acre first phase is projected to generate more than $400 million in tax revenue over 30 years. Until Dōma, none of that private vertical development had actually started.

“The only reason we’re here today is because of the leadership, the vision and the risk that the city has taken to transform 67 acres of underutilized, nontax-producing real estate,” said Jason Guillot, principal at Thalhimer Realty Partners and managing director of the partnership. He was more direct about the road here: “Many of you guys here today have seen us battle through the noise, the storms, the naysayers, the skepticism. We’re still standing here today.”

Dōma is the first of seven uses in the initial phase, alongside a 115,000-square-foot office building anchored by law firm Hirschler, a 20,000-square-foot retail building, a 180-room hotel, 161 workforce housing units at or below 60% AMI, more than two acres of greenspace, and CarMax Park. Thirty-two city residents have been trained on site for district construction jobs.

Project Team & Details