One of the more telling Richmond real estate numbers this month is not a house price. Mike Platania reported for Richmond BizSense that SNP Properties has bought the Turning Basin Building at 111 Virginia St for $9.3 million. The same building fetched $13.2 million at auction in 2018.
That gap, roughly $3.9 million over eight years, is the story. So is who bought it.
The deal
The Turning Basin Building is a five-storey mixed-use property of more than 102,000 square feet, built in 1900, abutting the Canal Walk in Shockoe Slip. Tenants include the architecture firms SMBW and LaBella Associates, and Southern Railway Taphouse, which has been in the building since 2013.
SNP bought it from Jewell Capital, a Florida-based firm, in what principal Eric Phipps described to BizSense as an off-market deal that came about after Jewell read BizSense coverage of SNP other purchases nearby. City records show the sale closed on 25 August and that the property was most recently assessed at $8.9 million. Two floors of office space are currently vacant and about to be marketed.
Phipps told BizSense the firm likes the area proximity to VCU Medical Center, Manchester and Rocketts Landing, and put the thesis simply: the area “was hit really hard by Covid and is just now starting to bounce back.”
The pattern behind it
This is not an isolated purchase. Since 2021, SNP has spent $31.3 million buying four properties in the Shockoe area, including the Sine, Davenport and Watkins-Cottrell buildings. With the Turning Basin added, it holds roughly 300,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial space in a handful of blocks.
The firm is also active elsewhere in the city. It paid $17 million for the Soda Flats apartment building in Scott’s Addition in the spring, and it is building a 12-storey apartment tower in Jackson Ward that Phipps hopes to top off by the end of the year.
What this actually means if you are buying a home nearby
Here is the part the commercial coverage does not address, and it needs one distinction made carefully.
A falling commercial price is not a falling residential market. Office and retail buildings are valued on rent rolls, lease terms and vacancy. This building has two empty floors. Condos and rowhouses a few streets away are valued on what people will pay to live in them. The two move for different reasons and on different timelines, and reading one off the other will mislead you.
What the deal does tell a residential buyer is three things:
- Ownership is consolidating locally. One local landlord now controls around 300,000 square feet across several blocks. Local owners with five buildings in one submarket generally hold longer and lease more patiently than out-of-state funds that bought at auction. For a resident, that tends to mean fewer empty shopfronts over time.
- The ground-floor churn is real and ongoing. The second restaurant space has cycled through Morton’s, then Eden, and is now set to become Passion Fruit Prime. If you are buying nearby partly for walkable dining, weigh the tenants that have lasted, like Southern Railway Taphouse since 2013, more heavily than the newest opening. The same reading applies to Scott’s Addition dinner-only restaurant openings.
- The recovery is a forecast, not a fact. The buyer bought at a discount precisely because Shockoe has not fully bounced back. That is an honest reason for optimism and an honest reason for patience.
Shockoe residential buyers should also weigh transit and access, since much of the appeal here is not needing to drive. The GRTC network and the Canal Walk are a large part of what the submarket sells, and the city publishes the assessment and permit records that show what is actually happening building by building.
Two notes on geography. Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Slip are adjacent but distinct, and price and product differ between them. And Rocketts Landing, which Phipps named, sits downriver in an area we do not yet have a community page for. [COMMUNITY PAGE NEEDED: Rocketts Landing]
We track Richmond commercial deals when they change what a neighbourhood will feel like to live in. More of that coverage is in our Richmond Area News archive, and if Shockoe is on your list, our property search shows what is available there now. Our Scott’s Addition guide covers the same adaptive-reuse pattern.
Questions Richmond-area readers actually ask
What sold, and for how much?
The Turning Basin Building at 111 Virginia St in Shockoe Slip, a five-storey mixed-use building of more than 102,000 square feet built in 1900. SNP Properties paid $9.3 million, in a deal that city records show closed on 25 August 2026.
Why does it matter that the price fell since 2018?
The seller, Florida-based Jewell Capital, paid $13.2 million for it at auction in 2018. Selling at $9.3 million eight years later is a real repricing of Shockoe commercial property, and it is the most informative number in the story.
Does a commercial price drop mean Shockoe homes are falling too?
No, and conflating the two is a mistake. Office and retail buildings are valued on rent rolls and vacancy. This building has two vacant floors of office space. Nearby condos and rowhouses are valued on what buyers will pay to live there, which is a separate market.
Who bought it and what else do they own nearby?
SNP Properties, a local developer and landlord. Since 2021 it has spent $31.3 million on four Shockoe properties, including the Sine, Davenport and Watkins-Cottrell buildings, and now holds around 300,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial space in the area.
What is in the building now?
Office and retail. Tenants include the architecture firms SMBW and LaBella Associates and the restaurant Southern Railway Taphouse, which has been there since 2013. A second ground-floor restaurant space is set to become Passion Fruit Prime, an Afro-Caribbean restaurant.
Is the building fully occupied?
No. Two floors of office space are vacant and are about to be marketed. That vacancy is part of why the price was what it was.
What does the assessment say?
City records show the property was most recently assessed at $8.9 million, so the $9.3 million sale came in slightly above assessment. That is a useful reminder that assessment and market price are related but not the same figure.
Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the neighbourhood?
On balance a good one, with a caveat. A local owner buying a fifth building in the same few blocks is a bet on the area recovering, and local owners tend to hold longer than out-of-state funds. The caveat is that the bet was available at a discount, which tells you the recovery has not happened yet.
Reporting credit: Mike Platania, Richmond BizSense, 9 September 2026. Sale price, closing date and assessment figures are as reported there from city records.
