The Albemarle Board of Supervisors adopted the Places29 Master Plan in February 2011 as a vision to guide the transition of commercial spaces into areas where people could live.
“There is no timeframe for the vision,” reads an introduction to the plan. “In fact, it may be decades before the area builds out in fulfillment of it.”
So far the owners of the Rio Hill Shopping Center and Albemarle Square show no signs of getting on board with the conversion of 20th century shopping centers, while the owners of The Shops at Stonefield have delivered on the residential side of the vision with 686 of 800 allowed units built as of April 1. On the commercial side, less than half of the nearly 1.2 million square feet of commercial space has been built…