Lafayette Green and Pemberton Row: A local developer addresses housing supply and aordability with two radically different strategies
- Center Creek Homes
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 7
Doug Childers/Homes Correspondent
Jul 4, 2025
Images courtesy of Center Creek Homes
With home prices and lending rates remaining uncomfortably high, many aspiring homebuyers find themselves priced out of today’s real estate
market. The subject has garnered widespread media coverage, and some politicians have taken a prominent role in discussing it.
Solving the crisis might not come down to a single solution, though. “We see it as needing an ‘all of the above’ solution,” said Dan Magder, CEO of Richmond-based Center Creek Homes.
While it has developed high-end infill communities like South Richmond’s Stratford Grove, Magder said the company focuses roughly 70 percent of its business on affordable housing.
Center Creek is putting Magder’s “all of the above” solution to the test with two infill communities that address the need for more affordable housing with radically different strategies.
“The communities are very different in design, but they’re united by a shared goal: expanding access to affordable and attainable homeownership in high-opportunity
neighborhoods,” said Greg Shron, Center Creek’s chief operating officer and lead architect.
He added: “What makes these projects newsworthy is not just their scale or ambition, but how different – and yet complementary – their approaches are. Each tackles the challenge from a distinct angle, reflecting the kind of innovation and adaptability that the housing crisis demands.”
Lafayette Green, Center Creek’s new project in Richmond’s perennially popular West End, utilizes a market-driven approach to attainable housing. It relies on creative land use and smart design to build 16 townhomes that will have list prices below many others in the area.
Center Creek finalized the agreement to buy the 0.8-acre parcel of land, which is in the 3900 block of Grove Avenue, in January 2024. A house that dates at least to the mid-1800s stands on the site.
“By right, we could have torn the house down, built five new, 3,000-square-foot houses and sold them for $1.4 million each,” Shron said.
Instead, the company filed for a special use permit and produced a design plan that made clever use of the site. Center Creek will build one “quad”-style building with four smaller, attached homes next to the existing house facing Grove Avenue, and it will build the remaining townhomes in two rows behind them, with a courtyard in the middle.
“Greg brought the price point of each home down $100,000 through smart design” with the quad-style building, Magder said.
Magder said he anticipates the community’s houses, which will feature three to four bedrooms and 2½ to 3½ baths, will have prices ranging from $599,000 to $799,000.
Compared to the by-right option to build five $1.4 million homes on the site, Center Creek’s plan delivers three times the number of homes at half the sales price.
“This is an attainable way to become a homeowner in the Mary Munford school district,” Magder said. “$599,000 is a big deal.”
Pemberton Row
While Center Creek applied a market-driven strategy to Lafayette Green, it turned to a subsidized housing model for the new Pemberton Row community in western Henrico County. For that project, the company entered a public-private partnership that secured a $2.2 million grant through the county’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
When it’s finished, the community, located in the 9200 block of Quioccasin Road, will have 20 four-bedroom townhomes. Each unit will be sold at an average price of $350,000 to income-qualified homebuyers who are at or below 120 percent of area median income.
“New houses in that $350,000 price range in the Tuckahoe District are unheard of,” Magder said. “That’s why we say we need an ‘all the above’ solution because at that price point, you need some subsidies.”
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which launched in April 2024, will provide $60 million in grants over the course of five years to nonprofit and for-profit builders to construct affordable housing in the county. (The money comes from tax revenue collected from the county’s data centers.)
“Builders can also tap into further incentives allowed by a county ordinance for approved affordable housing projects, such as water and sewer connection waivers, expedited planning reviews and waived building permit fees,” said Shelby Carney, special projects director for Partnership for Housing Affordability, Henrico’s designated administrator for the housing trust fund. “On average, it brings costs down about $15,000 per home.”
In its first year, the program issued grants that totaled $8.9 million.
“We have five awarded projects, with 93 units across the county, plus a couple more
proposals in the wings,” Carney said.
The county’s goal is to use the fund to help build 150 homes annually.
“Given that 800 homes receive building permits in Henrico in any given year, we’re seeing an excellent performance for a brand-new program,” said Cari Tretina, the county manager’s chief of staff.
Pemberton Row is the county’s largest project under the public-private program, so far. And its location is noteworthy because land costs in areas like western Henrico pose a significant challenge for affordable housing.
“Purchasing the least-affordable land won’t produce diverse neighborhoods,” Shron said. “There have to be more thoughtful ways to incentivize affordable housing in more expensive zip codes. And Pemberton Row is a textbook example of an effective public-private partnership.”
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