A $100 million apartment complex with 279 units opened this week on Telegraph Road near the former Virginia Center Commons mall in Henrico County, bringing housing for more than 1,000 people to a corridor the county has spent years trying to reinvent. Signal at Medallion Park, which opened this week, includes studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units alongside two renovated office buildings totaling 150,000 square feet.
The project traces back to a 2021 land purchase, when National Financial Realty Inc. acquired the property for $6 million before partnering with Bristol Development Group to build the apartments, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The developers later expanded the site's footprint; in August 2024, Bristol Development Group purchased a 3.3-acre parcel at 10551 Telegraph Road for $6 million from Mohawk Investment Partners LLC to assemble the full 7-acre development, according to Richmond BizSense. That pad site had originally been set aside for a third office building before it was repurposed for residential use.
Signal’s website listed starting total monthly leasing prices of $1,488 for a studio, $1,589 for a one-bedroom and $2,159 for a two-bedroom. The complex includes a fitness center, clubhouse, business center, makerspace, dog park and pet-washing station. Developers say the name nods to Telegraph Road and an early telegraph line that once connected Richmond and Washington, D.C.
A Mall Site Reborn Through Zoning and Public Investment
Virginia Center Commons opened in 1991 as a major enclosed shopping mall before decades of retail decline led the center to permanently close its concourses in October 2022, clearing the way for redevelopment, per Camoin Associates. Henrico County later designated the corridor as a form-based overlay district, a zoning move the county's planning guidelines use to encourage denser, walkable, mixed-use projects around the old mall, as reported by Richmond BizSense. That policy shift prompted Mohawk Investment Partners to market the pad site for multifamily development.
National Financial Realty also received a grant through the county's renovation incentive program to modernize its existing office buildings. Henrico launched that initiative, known as the Henrico Tomorrow program, in December 2024 after county officials and public-sector experts began collaborating on it in 2023, offering matching reimbursement grants of up to $500,000 and 15-year real estate tax abatements to upgrade qualifying commercial properties like those at Medallion Park, according to the Greater Richmond Partnership.
Cori Tretina said upgrading the office spaces delivers immediate value to the park's existing commercial tenants and makes Medallion Park a major win-win for Henrico and the greater Richmond region. David Hanchrow said Bristol Development Group has built communities across the Richmond area and learned the region's needs, adding that he was especially excited to work with National Financial Realty on Medallion Park and Signal given the area's momentum and new offerings.
Sports Tourism and Hotels Reshape the Corridor
The apartments join a broader transformation of the former mall property. The $50 million Henrico Sports & Events Center opened in 2023 on the former mall site, drawing 400,000 visitors in 2024. The center generates roughly $40 million in annual local economic activity, according to the Aria Group. Shamin Hotels opened a 111-suite Residence Inn by Marriott near the sports complex and Medallion Park in May 2026, with a companion Home2 Suites hotel and new dining options under construction as part of the broader master plan, per Henrico County's own announcement.
Bristol Development Group brings a track record of large multifamily deals to the project. The Franklin, Tennessee-based firm built and sold the 335-unit Collective West Creek apartment complex in nearby Goochland County for $102.1 million, or about $305,000 per unit, to Weinstein Properties in February 2025. The developer also built the 373-unit 2000 West Creek Apartments in Henrico County, which sold for $103 million in 2019 and was resold to Weinstein Properties for $115 million this past July, a deal Multi-Housing News described as one of the largest single multifamily sales in regional history.
Families moving into Signal at Medallion Park fall within the attendance zones for Longdale Elementary School, Brookland Middle School and Hermitage High School, according to real estate directory data from Zillow.
