State gives $3.5M grant for Petersburg's Sycamore Grove and its long-promised grocery store

Bill Atkinson, Petersburg Progress-Index
·2 min read

PETERSBURG – The city will receive $3.5 million in state grants for a proposed development that officials hope will house the long-awaited downtown grocery store.

The total for the Sycamore Grove mixed-use development on the former site of Southside Regional Medical Center is the largest among the seven localities sharing more than $10.4 million worth of Industrial Revitalization Fund grants. According to the Youngkin administration, the projects will create a total of 330 jobs and 87 new housing units, and leverage an extra $49 million in private investment.

“Strategic and targeted investments like these are critical to ensuring that localities have the resources they need to complete projects that will directly benefit their communities and spur regional development efforts,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a statement accompanying Friday's announcement.

Sycamore Grove is an important cog in the economic wheel that helps turn Youngkin’s “Partnership for Petersburg” multi-pronged initiative to improve and promote the city. The development, to include a mix of residential, office and retail space, is slated to occupy the old hospital site off South Sycamore Street that has been unoccupied since the hospital moved to its south Petersburg location in 2003. The building was torn down six years later.

Administration and Petersburg officials have doubled down on Sycamore Grove’s importance because it would anchor a major grocery retailer – something that market-starved Petersburg has pined after for several years. Food Lion and Walmart are the only big-box grocery stores located within the city limits, prompting federal health officials to label Petersburg as a “food desert.”

Earlier this month while cutting the ribbon on the new Goodr Mobile Grocery Store in Petersburg, Youngkin and Mayor Sam Parham were asked by reporters about progress on Sycamore Grove and the supermarket. Parham said then that the city was “in discussions with various operators” and that a recently concluded feasibility study on the demand for more grocery stores will be a tool to use in leading that search to a final decision.

Related: Petersburg cuts the ribbon on its first Goodr Mobile Grocery Store; officials rave over impact

Related: 'Sycamore Grove' development planned for old Petersburg hospital site, anchored by grocery store

Launched in 2012, Virginia’s IRF program has funded 66 projects to reboot vacant properties and blighted buildings. According to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the program has created more than 1,200 jobs and generated $228 million in public and private investments.

In addition to Petersburg, the other grants were:

  • $2.8 million for the One Ellsworth project in Martinsville whose city manager, Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, held the same position in Petersburg from 2017-21;

  • $1.5 million for the Sledge & Barkley building project in Lawrenceville;

  • $1 million for the Exxon Redevelopment project in Halifax;

  • $750,000 for the 140 South First Street project in Wytheville;

  • $650,000 for a project at Mountain Gateway Community College in Buena Vista; and

  • $247,217 to revitalize the Blackstone armory.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: State announces $3.5 million grant for Petersburg development