Development

What's being built in Richmond

Every new-construction and demolition building permit the City has issued since 2016, mapped. New construction is where Richmond is adding buildings; demolition is where it's removing them. Turn each on or off, scrub by year, and size the dots by permitted construction value to see where the biggest projects are. Each dot links to the City's own permit record. This map is new construction and demolition only — renovations and remodels of existing buildings, even major ones, aren't included.

4,824 new-building and 1,771 demolition permits, 2016–2026 · As of August 13, 2026 · Richmond, VA

Showing 4,824 new buildings and 1,771 demolitions · 118 not shown on map (no coordinates). When sizing by value, dot area is proportional to permitted construction value; demolitions stay uniform.

The trend

A snapshot of the city's physical development pipeline over time. The new-vs-demolition counts cover every qualifying permit since 2016. The construction-value chart starts in 2020, where the City's valuation coverage is reliable (see the note below it). Click any bar to focus the map on those permits and list them.

New constructionDemolitionTip: click any bar to focus the map and list the permits behind it.

New buildings vs. demolitions, by year

Building permits applied for each year. 2026 is a partial year. Click a bar to list its permits.

Permitted construction value, by year

Structural value only — electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and gas permits are valued separately and not included (see Methodology). Total estimated value of new-building permits (demolitions excluded), 2020–present. Estimated at permit time, not final cost. Earlier years are omitted here — the City's valuation coverage before 2020 is too incomplete to total honestly. Click a bar to list that year's new permits.

Where new construction concentrates

Neighborhoods with the most new-building permits since 2020. Click a bar to list that neighborhood's new buildings.

Where the largest new investment dollars are

Neighborhoods by total permitted construction value, new buildings since 2020. Click a bar to list that neighborhood's new buildings.

Note on construction value: the City records an estimated value on most — but not all — new-building permits, and its coverage was erratic in the early EnerGov years (2018 was only about half-populated). To avoid understating those years, the value chart shows 2020–present only, where 91% of new-building permits carry a value; permits before 2020 are still counted above, just not totaled in dollars. Over 2020–present, $1,573,066,522 of new construction has been permitted across 3,054 valued permits.

How this connects to assessed value

This map is the leading, physical indicator — what's being built right now. A new building permitted here shows up later as assessed value on the City's books: the “new construction” side of assessment growth, as opposed to the City reassessing property it already taxes. For that lagging, dollar view — how much of Richmond's rising assessments is genuinely new construction versus reassessment — see the assessments note.

Methodology

What counts as new: Parent building permits of type Building (C) - New (commercial) and BLDG PRMT (Residential) - New. We deliberately exclude sub-trade permits (electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas) from the project count — those are filed alongside the parent building permit for the same project and would count it more than once. See Construction value, below, for what excluding them means for the dollar figures.
What counts as demolition: The four parent demolition permit types (commercial and residential). Demolitions are counted, not valued — the City records a demolition cost, but that is not investment in the way a construction valuation is.
Construction value: The Valuationthe City records on the parent building permit — an estimate at permit time, not final cost, and the same figure shown on the City's public permit page. This is the structural value only. Electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and gas work is filed and valued on separate sub-trade permits (excluded above, so a project isn't double-counted) — those dollars are not included here, so this figure understates a project's total construction cost (confirmed with Richmond Planning & Development Review, 2026-07-08). Coverage was also uneven in the early EnerGov years, so the value chart is limited to 2020–present, where 91% of new-building permits carry a value. Where it's missing, the permit still counts; it just doesn't add to the value totals.
Window & coverage: Permits applied for on or after January 1, 2016. About 118 of 6,595permits lack coordinates and aren't shown on the map; they are still included in every count and trend above.
Source & provenance: City of Richmond EnerGov permitting system, collected daily. Each dot and its popup link to the City's own permit record, where you can verify the type, address, valuation, and status. As of August 13, 2026.