August 2024 City Scoop: Richmond
City Grill
Colin Robinson
Senior Vice President of Operations
Branch Builds
Health care, life sciences and municipal markets “continue to perform strongly in Richmond,” Robinson says, adding that “federal and state government funding for the life sciences and municipal markets are seen as necessary to build adequate infrastructure in the U.S. Like most cities, Richmond is seeing the impact and influence of interest rates on multifamily and developer-led projects,” he says.
Robinson also notes that as companies move workers back to the office, the tenant improvement market could pick up. “A large return to the office would be a positive for building owners, property managers and contractors alike,” he says. But Robinson also says that he sees an “overall simplification of design details and material selections” to achieve project budgets. “Inflation and interest rates continue to have an impact,” he adds, “especially on larger projects that were budgeted years ago.”
But he also says that the Richmond-area’s market has “proven itself to be fairly robust in the face of economic changes” since the Great Recession in 2008.
