A sizable fire at Southside Plaza has been burning for a couple hours now. Several businesses seem to be affected, but no immediate word regarding severity of damage just yet.

The T-D is reporting on a carjacking early this morning at Southside Plaza.

The car was described as a black Nissan Sentra four-door sedan with chrome wheels and Virginia license tags KJS 7726.

The suspect was described as a young black man with a thin build and wearing a yellow T-shirt and black shorts.

It’s been just over a year since the accident that claimed the life of Forest View resident and beloved man-about-town Jonny Z. A tribute to Jonny is shaping up in the form of a mural on the side of the fan location of Joe’s Inn. Spearheaded by ART180 and manned by friends and a contingent of kids from St. Andrew’s School, the general consensus is the tribute couldn’t be any more fitting.

Thx to Terry @ FDH for the heads-up.

Special Olympics Virginia’s summer games will be held June 6-7 at UR, and they’re looking for 3000 fans to attend the games. All the details can be found here.

Thanks to the I Have A Dream Foundation, 15 George Wythe seniors have earned college credit during high school and will be able to continue their education at university and/or the military. These students are also acting as mentors for younger children at Broad Rock Elementary, where students receive academic support, cultural activities and individual attention through their elementary, middle and high school years, plus tuition assistance for higher learning.

Dante Lamont Lewis, who shot ice cream vendor Daniel Teodorescu in the parking lot of Greene Elementary, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison.

A website set up in October to help pay for some of Teodorescu’s medical bills is still alive and accepting donations.

We’ve received a couple of reports that there’s a person threatening to jump off the city side of the Huguenot Bridge, and that RPD water rescue is involved…

Improvements to the Reedy Creek drainage system kick off Monday, March 10, and will result in the closure of West German School Road between Midlothian Turnpike and Deter Road for approximately four months. The full Dept. of Public Works press release and map of the recommended detour appear below the fold.

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Dante Lamont Lewis was convicted today of 6 charges related to his shooting & wounding ice cream vendor Daniel Teodorescu in the parking lot of Greene Elementary last fall.

The next phase of the downtown planning process features smaller neighborhood breakout groups. Tonight’s session focuses on Manchester and Blackwell. Everyone is invited to The Bankuet Place (the old Mechanics & Merchant’s Bank in Downtown Manchester) 1129 Hull Street, from 6-8PM.

Of additional local interest may be the James River-specific session on February 19, 6PM, at the Main Library, 101 E. Franklin St.

No heat at Elkhardt MS + burst water pipes and “not insignificant” flooding at George Wythe HS = just another day of shoddy RPS maintenance.

Here’s hoping the “New Direction” plan includes updating the infrastructure of some of these buildings. Doubtful, but hey, we can dream.

The next public hearing on the downtown Master Plan will be held tomorrow night, January 15, at 6:30pm in City Council Chambers on the 2nd floor of City Hall. As we mentioned before, while not directly related to our neighborhoods, a strong downtown is a win-win for everyone. The Westover Hills branch of the library should have a physical copy of the draft of the plan, should you wish to bone up on things in a non-electronic format.

If you’re looking for more info, John Sarvay is the go-to guy on all things related to the downtown plan. We also welcome any attendees who wish to share their impressions of the hearing and/or the plan itself.

Carena’s Jamaican Grille is the latest restaurant to spring from the always entertaining Jimmy Sneed. Style’s Brandon Fox takes a proper look at the place, a collaboration with Carena Ives of Jamaica House fame, and seems to like what she sees.

Today’s T-D is reporting on two mailbox explosions, believed to be caused by homemade explosives, in the Cedarhurst neighborhood. I heard some distant “booms” last night around that time, but chalked it up to the McCrory’s demolition cleanup or general noisiness. Here’s hoping it’s nothing more than bored neighborhood kids.

Today’s T-D “Street Beat” addresses two issues not quite in our neighborhoods, but close enough to be of interest: road construction at Forest Hill @ Huguenot, and missing Chippenham sings @ Jahnke Rd.

Today at noon, the city will unveil the first draft of the new downtown master plan. Though the focus won’t directly impact the Forest Hill corridor, it’s still an important exercise for the city as a whole. The plan will be available for review on the City Website, all Richmond Public Libraries locations, Community Centers, and City Hall rooms 110 and 510.

Between his engineering and production work at Sound of Music and his live performances with the likes of The Broken Hips, Bryan Hoffa is one of Richmond’s best-known musical forces. Bryan’s suffering from a particularly nasty illness, so some of his musical brethren have set up a benefit show to help offset some of the medical bills.

Bryan Hoffa Benefit Show, Saturday night, Nov. 17
The Expansion Joint, 211 West 7th Street.
Featuring:
Spokane
Tulsa Drone
Marionette
Mammy

Today’s T-D is reporting that the Huguenot Bridge replacement project will be moved up and could open a year sooner than originally announced. A public hearing willl be held Nov. 13, 4:30-7:30 PM at Bon Air Elementary School, just across the city-Chesterfield line.

On Friday Oct. 19 the city will hold a free one-day workshop designed to inform citizens, realtors, property owners, buyers, contractors, neighbors, architects, engineers and developers regarding the requirements of and issues relating to vacant building ownership. Topics including City concerns, rights and responsibilities, structural systems, building codes, violations, maintenance, demolition, spot blight abatement, historic rehabilitation tax credits, financing, tax delinquent sales, and more. For more information, contact Tyler Potterfield, 646-6364. No registration required.

The workshop takes place at the Hickory Hill Community Center, from 9am-5pm. No official word as to whether this was sparked by the attention Vacant Richmond has generated towards our blighted and abandoned properties, but I can’t help but think they’re at least partially responsible.

The University of Richmond will be hosting an on-campus eWaste recycling event Oct. 11-13. The Thursday and Friday drop-off is reserved for K12, Colleges & Universities, Non-profits and small businesses. Saturday the 13th is open to the public.

All the details (and there are lots of them) can be found on the event’s website.

Tonight is the next community meeting to update the Downtown Master Plan, 6:30 at the Renaissance Conference Center (107 W. Broad). As I mentioned before, this process doesn’t directly relate to our neighborhoods, but it does impact us all in a greater sense.

If you missed all the hoopla the first time around, John Sarvay has a blow-by-blow archive of where we are and how we got here.

Richmond Public Schools will hold the “RPS Safe Schools: Safe Communities Festival” today, Aug. 30, from 3–7PM in the parking lot of the Southside Plaza Shopping Center.Entertainment, RPS drum lines, health screenings, food vendors, face painting, clowns, balloons, school safety tips from Richmond City school and police officials, kids moonwalk and area radio station personalities are among the attractions. Teen R&B vocalist Imani is also scheduled to perform.

Many of the Southside Plaza merchants will be offering store discounts to those who attend the festival.
For more details, contact Felicia Cosby at 780-7100.

Another one joins the fray, as the Near West End News launches.

Scoot Richmond, the artists formerly known as SCOMO, are presenting “Bike-In Theatre” tonight at their W. 7th Street showroom (just up the street from Legend). In addition to a screening of “Empire Records” they’ll be providing a grill, ice & condiments for your food & beverage needs.

A bit outside our normal scope, but important to the community as a whole, I think. Contact John Sarvay if you need information above & beyond what’s listed here.

Your opportunity to help transform Richmond starts next Friday!

From July 20 through July 26, the City of Richmond, Venture Richmond and Florida-based planning firm Dover Kohl invite the public to participate in a highly interactive process to update Richmond’s Downtown Master Plan.

The series of discussions and design events (known as a charrette) are open to the entire community – residents, business owners, non-profits and government officials. Each day, a public design studio will be updated to reflect – in the moment – the ideas contributed by participants. The results of this week of work will shape the future of Downtown Richmond, and the broader Richmond community.

For ongoing coverage of the Downtown Plan charrette, visit Buttermilk & Molasses’ Richmond Planning and Development page. For more details on the Downtown Plan charrette, visit the city’s Department of Community Development website, or contact Brooke Hardin with the City of Richmond at (804) 646-6310 or email him at brooke.hardin@richmondgov.com. To participate, drop by one or all of the following public events:

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