LOOKING IN AT THE LOCKS
Not many things in life are more satisfying that watching an ambitious vision become a reality. Especially a vision like this one—breathing new life into four historic buildings, beautiful but neglected for far too long. And creating an entire new neighborhood in the process.
That’s why we find it so exciting to watch construction progress at The Locks.
Even without stepping foot inside these buildings, you can already see changes taking place. The Italianate, a former tobacco warehouse from the late 1800’s, just got its first real bath in 50 years. All that scrubbing and power washing uncovered the beautiful cream paint job underneath, complete with a painted advertisement for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco—“Try It Now!” Putting your tobacco warehouse alongside the Haxall Canal in the heart of downtown Richmond may not make much sense to us today, but we’re certainly thankful that it did to R.J. Reynolds back then.
Over at the Alume on Byrd Street, another inexplicable (but less forgivable) choice had been made: painting over five floors of beautiful 8’x10’ windows with a nice mud-brown. Construction crews have just reversed that decision, scrubbing all that paint off to reveal shimmering glass. Drive by the Alume now, and what was once a monolithic brown building is already looking pretty spectacular.
And that’s not the only exciting news. Plans have just been announced for Casa Del Barco, an upscale, modern Mexican restaurant, to make its home on the ground floor of the Italianate, with patio dining opening onto the Canal Walk and overlooking the beautiful Haxall Canal. Created by Kevin Healy, owner of the ever popular Boathouse restaurants in Rockett’s Landing and Swift Creek, you know Casa Del Barco will be good. That leaves us looking forward to perhaps the only thing we could find more exciting than all this construction progress: queso.
This Fall can’t come fast enough.
