Ronald McDonald House kicks off $40M campaign to fund planned Jackson Ward facility

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond is planning to build a 50-room lodging facility for families to stay while their children undergo medical treatment at local hospitals. (Images courtesy RMHC of Richmond)

With a site now in hand for a years-in-making downtown lodging center, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond is lining up the cash needed to build the project.

The local nonprofit, which provides lodging and hospitality services to the families of hospitalized children, is underway on a $40 million fundraising effort for a 50-room facility that would be built at 505 W. Leigh St., near the Belvidere Street interchange with Interstate 64.

There would be lounges, reading rooms, playrooms and community meeting rooms in the 52,000-square-foot, three-story building, as well as a kitchen and dining hall. There would also be outdoor play areas for kids. The center is designed to serve as a temporary home base for families to stay while their children undergo medical treatment in local hospitals.

“Many of them are in critical situations and they need a place to relax, get away, get a cup of coffee and do their laundry. If the families are near the children, the outcomes are better,” said Mike DeRuosi, the chairman of RHMC Richmond’s board of directors.

RHMC planned to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning on the site of the future facility to formally announce the project and start of the fundraising drive’s “public phase,” when the group will solicit funding support from the wider community, following outreach to major donors.

The campaign has secured a little over $15 million in commitments during the preceding “quiet phase” as of Tuesday afternoon, according to its website.

The Ronald McDonald House planned in Jackson Ward would feature a courtyard, lounges, playrooms and other spaces for guests to use during their stays.

The project to build the new lodging center comes in response to growing demand for pediatric medical care in the region. RMHC estimates that the region needs 54 to 65 rooms based on the discharge data at Richmond-area pediatric hospitals.

The project would bring it more in sync with demand, which can’t accommodate with its current 15 beds spread across its main lodging facility on Monument Avenue, Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital and The Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. Families stay an average of eight days per visit.

“We know there’s a growing demand and need,” RHMC Richmond CEO Emily Toalson said. “We’re not equipped to support that right now with a nine-room house (on Monument), and even with those other programs … the sleep rooms don’t match the discharge data.”

That demand is likely to continue to grow, Toalson said, citing plans by VCU Health to further expand its operations at its downtown pediatrics hospital, following the completion of a $420 million expansion in 2023. Bon Secours is also planning an expansion at St. Mary’s with an emphasis on pediatric care.

RMHC’s Leigh Street facility is expected to open in early 2027. The project is slated to break ground late this year or early next year.

The project is currently expected to cost around $37 or $38 million, Toalson said, and the capital campaign would be fully devoted to the project. RMHC previously pegged the project at nearly $33 million, and the increase is due to higher anticipated construction costs.

DPR is the project’s general contractor, and SMBW is designing the project.

RMHC anticipates the proposed new lodging facility in Jackson Ward will cost nearly $40 million.

The project is slated to rise on a 1.6-acre property at the corner of West Leigh and Brook Road, across the street from Abner Clay Park. RMHC bought the land for $4 million in December from the VCU Real Estate Foundation.

John Kemper, the project manager and a donor to RMHC, said that over the years the organization looked at different properties for the center, including the one where it ultimately ended up. Kemper said the Leigh Street property has space for further expansion.

“We looked at this site way back when, but VCU decided they needed to retain it at that point. We came back around to that a couple years ago. And the beauty of it is it gives us unlimited expansion capability, so that if the children’s hospital continues to grow, which everybody thinks it will, we’ve got plenty of room,” he said.

RMHC’s project site was sliced off a larger 2.6-acre parcel owned by the university’s real estate arm, and Kemper said the nonprofit has first right of refusal on the rest of the block, which is now a grassy lot formerly the site of Belvidere Medical Center.

The project needs a conditional use permit approval from City Council, and Kemper said he anticipated the organization’s request would be heard by council members in May.

A rendering of what most of the bedrooms would look like in the 52,000-square-foot lodging center.

RMHC had previously planned to open a larger facility as part of VCU Health’s now-abandoned plans to redevelop the site of the former Public Safety Building in downtown Richmond.

Plans to open the new facility in Jackson Ward come amid the expansion of RMHC’s local operations in recent years. The organization in 2023 opened a four-bedroom center at VCU Health’s downtown pediatric hospital. At St. Mary’s, RMHC has a two-bedroom center. Last year, RMHC expanded into Southside with hospitality services at Johnston-Willis Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center.

The Richmond arm of RMHC opened its lodging center at 2330 Monument Ave. in 1980. The nonprofit plans to close that center, and sell the property, as part of the expansion project.

The local arm of the nonprofit, which has chapters in multiple states, has nearly 30 employees. RMHC isn’t owned by McDonald’s, though the restaurant chain is the nonprofit’s largest corporate partner.

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