Richmond, Virginia

The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.

The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.

At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.

Richmond's whole roll is public, so the largest holders can be counted rather than guessed. The Assessor's September 2026 file lists 76,976 parcels assessed at $56.06B. Public and institutional owners dominate the top of it: Virginia Commonwealth University alone holds $2.48B, the Commonwealth $1.44B and the City $1.33B. Each figure below groups every spelling of the owner's name on the roll (owner lines plus care-of lines); attention lines naming employees are left out here. Railway figures include the state-assessed public-service-corporation lines, which have no street address or acreage. Values are 2026 land-book totals, including exempt property, which the roll still assesses.

New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.

Richmond builds mostly apartments. In 2025 the city permitted 2,681 new housing units: 2,252 of them in 23 buildings of five or more units, 368 single-family houses, 44 in two-unit buildings and 17 in three- and four-unit buildings. In 2024 it permitted 2,540, of which 2,077 were in five-plus buildings (Census Building Permits Survey, annual place file). For-sale building is therefore small and fragmented. The figures below count new homes (built 2024 or later) sold in calendar 2025 by each seller named as grantor in the Assessor's transfer file: 449 such sales in all. Large apartment developers do not appear in it, because they keep what they build.

The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.

Inside the city limits, listed REITs own little. A search of the September 2026 roll for the large US REITs finds a handful of parcels. Richmond's downtown office towers are held mostly by private single-asset partnerships (see the marquee list), and Highwoods, the REIT with the largest Richmond office market in its filings, holds only one building on the city roll. The holdings below are what the Assessor's roll names inside the city, tied to the parent's own SEC filing where one was opened. Assessed values are 2026 land-book figures.

Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.

1. Assessor of Real Estate - Data Request: 'Public Data Sets which can be accessed free of charge in Excel format ... updated on or about the 15th of each month' — City of Richmond, Assessor of Real Estate · openA
2. Assessor Public Data Set (Property Information), 2026-09-23: 76,976 parcels with owner, mailing address, use, exempt code, stories, year built, acreage and five years of assessed values — City of Richmond, Assessor of Real Estate · openA
3. Assessor Transfers (Property Transfers), 2026-09-23: 439,398 rows with transfer date, consideration, deed book/page, deed type, qualified flag, grantee and grantor — City of Richmond, Assessor of Real Estate · openA
4. Circuit Court Clerk - Deeds: the Clerk 'records deeds, deeds of trust (mortgages), and other official instruments ... in the city of Richmond'; staff 'are unable to perform title searches' — Clerk of the Richmond Circuit Court · openA
5. Circuit Court Clerk - Records: land records open to public inspection; 'Copies of public records are available for $.50/page. A certified copy is available for an additional $2.00' — Clerk of the Richmond Circuit Court · openA
6. Circuit Court Clerk - Secure Remote Access: 'Each subscriber fee is $50.00 per month, requiring a 6-month subscription, paid in advance'; deeds back to 1782 (north of the James) and 1874 (south) — Clerk of the Richmond Circuit Court · openA
7. SRA Application & Subscriber Agreement: '$300 for 6 months or $600 for a full year'; information 'shall not be sold, distributed, posted on a third-party website' — Clerk of the Richmond Circuit Court · openA
8. Property Search redirect notice: 'The legacy Property Search is no longer available' - now at actdatascout.com — City of Richmond, Assessor of Real Estate · openA
9. Code of Virginia 58.1-801: state recordation tax 25 cents per $100 of consideration or actual value, whichever is greater — Virginia General Assembly (LIS) · openA
10. Code of Virginia 58.1-802: grantor tax 50 cents per $500; no deed recorded unless 'the amount of the consideration is stated on the first page' — Virginia General Assembly (LIS) · openA
11. Code of Virginia 58.1-3800: city recordation tax equal to one-third of the state tax — Virginia General Assembly (LIS) · openA
12. Code of Virginia 17.1-276: clerk's secure remote access fee 'not to exceed $50 per month' per subscriber, plus a per-image fee — Virginia General Assembly (LIS) · openA
13. Richmond EDA approves deal allowing VCU to play at CarMax Park, but agreement with Squirrels is still required — The Richmonder · openA
14. UBS 2018-C11 Commercial Mortgage Trust, FWP term sheet: Loan No. 2, Riverfront Plaza (borrower, sponsor, 949,875 SF, acquisition January 2016) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 1740040) · openA
15. Hines Real Estate Investment Trust Form 10-K for 2015 ('In December 2015, the Core Fund sold Riverfront Plaza') — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 1262959) · openA
16. CoStar Group Form 10-K for 2025, Item 2 Properties (owned buildings at 501 S 5th Street and 901 Semmes Avenue; leased space at 951 and 901 E Byrd St) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 1057352) · openA
17. Dominion Energy Form 10-K for 2025, Item 2 Properties ('owns five corporate offices in Richmond, Virginia') — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 715957) · openA
18. Dominion Energy 2025 10-K Exhibit 21, subsidiaries (incl. Dominion Energy Services, Inc., Virginia) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 715957) · openA
19. Benchmark 2022-B36 Mortgage Trust, FWP term sheet: Gateway Plaza (333,030 SF, 18 storeys; fee bought by Woodbranch Investments Corp for $150.0M and ground-leased) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 1927678) · openA
20. Capitol Complex Parking Facilities (lists 'P5: James Monroe Building Deck') — Virginia Department of General Services · openA
21. Building Permits Survey, annual place-level file 2025 (so2025a.txt), South Region: Richmond city, Virginia; and the 2024 file (so2024a.txt) — U.S. Census Bureau · openA
22. NVR, Inc. Form 10-K for 2025 (trade names Ryan Homes, NVHomes, Heartland Homes; production facility in Richmond, Virginia), with Exhibit 21 at a2025ex21.htm — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 906163) · openA
23. Highwoods Properties Form 10-K for 2025 (Item 2 market table: Richmond 1,740,000 rentable sq ft, 84.9% occupied; Schedule III Richmond, VA properties incl. One Shockoe Plaza) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 921082) · openA
24. Realty Income Corporation 2025 Form 10-K, Exhibit 21.1 Subsidiaries (lists 'Realty Income U.S. Core Plus 3, LP', Delaware) — U.S. SEC EDGAR (CIK 726728) · openA