Commonwealth Construction will give away more than 1,000 gallons of left over paint beginning today at 11AM at 521 N. Adams St. Some of the paint has been partially used, some is unopened 1- and 5-gallon containers. [via]

The current draft of the Downtown Plan will be up for a public hearing at 6:30PM Tuesday in City Council Chambers at City Hall. The plan has seen very positive public support so far, with some developers expressing concern about the plan’s vision for some riverfront parcels. The plan covers Manchester and “the Broad Street corridor, including the Jackson Ward and Carver neighborhoods; VCU and adjoining neighborhoods, including Oregon Hill, Gamble’s Hill and Monroe Ward; City Center, which incorporates the central office district, VCU Medical Center, Virginia Biotechnology Research Park and the State Capitol; the James River, which has become a focal point of preservation and development; and Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom”. [via]

The RRHA announced yesterday that it has ended talks with Trammell Crow Residential on Jackson Place, a mixed-use, mixed-income community development, 13 months after the project was announced. Housing authority officials said that they will seek new development proposals early in 2008. [via]

The revelation that no contract was completed for the project came as the latest in a long series of disappointments for Charles W. Finley, president of the Historic Jackson Ward Association.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time,” Finley said yesterday. “It has been sitting there as vacant land for a long time. A lot of people are tired of seeing concepts come and concepts go, and nothing ever happens.”

The planned redevelopment of the 44-year-old 60-unit Dove Court housing complex at First Avenue and Dove Street is being held up as pilot for what could happen at Gilpin Court in the coming years:

What happens at Dove Court early next year also is likely to influence the future of Gilpin Court, the city’s oldest and largest public-housing complex. The housing authority and city are working on a study to eventually redevelop Gilpin as part of a broader plan for Jackson Ward, especially the part of the neighborhood that lies north of Interstate 95. [...] The 60 units of public housing that will disappear with Dove Court will return as part of a 260-unit, mixed-income community that won’t concentrate the poorest residents in one place. Not all of the 783 housing units in Gilpin will be replaced in the community that takes its place, Hill-Christian said. “Some units of public housing will have to go to another place.”

[via]

We’ve heard that the historic Eggleston Hotel has come close to emergency demolition in the past week due to its rapidly deteriorating condition. With work at the hotel apparently stalled since fences went up in November, maybe this will spur quicker action to save the landmark building.

Something is in the works at the long empty Eggleston Hotel, with chain-link fencing going up around the landmark building today.

Flickr provides a great then (1986) and now for the building that now houses the Transmission Gallery and part of the new Emrick Flats.

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richmond.com’s popular Ask the Mayor this week answers the question “Are there any plans for a senior apartment complex in the Downtown area?”, saying that “the former school complex at 21 East Leigh Street is being redeveloped into an independent-living senior community”. (UPDATED)

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Mayor L. Douglas Wilder recently canceled a town hall meeting in Gilpin Court, the city’s largest public housing project, where he was expected to unveil plans for the revitalization of Gilpin, Fay Towers and North Jackson Ward. A 2006 plan recommends a new magnet school, mixed-use zoning, and a new 2nd Street bridge. [via]

We’ve heard that the new construction at Harrison and Leigh Streets will end up totaling around 15 houses, with the buildings themselves being 2 or 3 house units.

The 1200 block of West Marshall (at Harrison Street) is a low, open space between a crush of apartment and university buildings to the west and rows of historic housing to the east. Which way will this space go?

Our neighbors to the west, the resurgent Newtowne West, will soon welcome hundreds of new residents as the Southern Stove Lofts are now leasing units.

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