Miller and Rhoads Rehabilitation and New Construction

Commonwealth Architects is currently providing architectural services to ECI Investment Advisors for the conversion of the historic Miller & Rhoads Department Store into an elegant business hotel in downtown Richmond.

Miller & Rhoads originally opened as a department store on Broad Street in 1888 and quickly became the place of choice for shoppers from all over Virginia. With the insurgence of suburban malls, the department store was forced to close its doors in 1989. After years of neglect, Commonwealth Architects is now collaborating with Chicago-based ECI to convert the department store landmark into a business hotel adjacent to the newly expanded Richmond Convention Center.

The comprehensive rehabilitation and new construction project will transform the abandoned building into a 220-room hotel, with retail and dining on the First Floor to serve the Richmond Convention Center patrons. The hotel will occupy a full block between 5th & 6th Streets and Broad & Grace Streets.Working jointly with the urban planning and landscape architecture firm Smither Design, widened sidewalks will be transformed into landscaped pedestrian walkways flanked by sidewalk cafés. Sixth Street will be re-opened to two-lane automobile traffic with cobblestone paving similar to Shockoe Slip.