Pretty much everything has a personality. Obviously people have a personality (and not all of them are great!), but so do areas of a city, neighborhoods and, condominiums. And while each of us will be attracted to a little something different in a condo, here are some simple personality traits in some of the condos […]
Originally written October 2018 · updated June 2026.
Pretty much everything has a personality.
People have one (and let’s be honest, not all of them are great). So do cities, neighborhoods — and condos.
Walk through enough of them and you start to feel it. Unit 1501 at the Vistas on the James has as much personality as any condo in Richmond. And while every buyer is chasing something a little different, most of our condos fall into one of a handful of “personalities.” Here’s the field guide.
Richmond isn’t New York, DC, or San Francisco — but we have a solid handful of larger-scale condos with that finished, elevator-and-covered-parking feel. Newer construction, high- or mid-rise, well-secured (sometimes with a guard), handsome common spaces, and parking you don’t have to think about.
Richmond is an old city (by American standards), and a lot of our building stock reflects it. The “Formal” condos lean traditional — classic Richmond architecture, often at an address that’s been desirable for a century.
In the early 2000s, developers started converting Richmond’s industrial and office districts — turning blighted, underused buildings into some of the most characterful condos in the city. Exposed brick, timber beams, freight-elevator bones. If you want a home with a story, start here.
Combine a traditional Richmond location with a high finish level and floor plans built for the way we actually live today, and you get a small but growing slice of the market. Monument Square’s rise has tracked right alongside the resurgence of the Willow Lawn corridor.
For a brief stretch in the post-WWII era, Richmond built two towers whose scale feels a little out of place — bigger than everything around them, neither traditional nor formal, dropped into what was then the suburbs. They’ve always felt a bit different. But great locations and (historically) friendly price points have made them more and more popular.
Not everything in Richmond is traditional or industrial — a few of our condos are genuinely contemporary. Cary Mews’ modern exteriors are striking against the old industrial stretch of Cary Street. And several historic renovations blend modern finishes into old bones for a sharp old-meets-new effect. A lot of these were featured on the Downtown Loft Tour.
That’s the fun part. Richmond’s condo market is small enough to know building-by-building — and personality-by-personality — and big enough that there’s almost certainly one that fits you. Polished or quirky, formal or contemporary, a warehouse with timber beams or a glass tower over the river.
Figure out which one you are, and the search gets a whole lot shorter. That’s what we’re here for.
Rick
