Shockoe Alliance to Hold First Community Meeting April 15

During his State of the City Address, Mayor Levar M. Stoney announced the creation of the Shockoe Alliance, a group of city staff, preservation experts and community members focused on ensuring a collaborative approach to initiatives of cultural and historical significance in the Shockoe Bottom area.

The Shockoe Alliance will hold its first community meeting at 6 p.m. on April 15, 2019 at Main Street Station, 1500 E. Main St.

Shockoe Bottom, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, was originally inhabited by Native Americans before being colonized by English settlers and later turned into the country’s second largest center for the selling and buying of enslaved Africans.  

The Shockoe Alliance is charged with guiding the design and implementation of concepts and recommendations for the future of Shockoe with the goal of creating an innovative space of memorialization, learning and transformation – all while protecting the area’s cultural and historic heritage.

“The Shockoe Alliance will help to determine the larger, shared vision for Shockoe Bottom that connects current and future historical, cultural and economic development initiatives,” said Mayor Stoney. “We want to ensure that a diversity of stakeholders are a part of the collective process of determining how to most appropriately commemorate the significant history of this area, preserve treasured historic resources and promote equitable opportunities for growth and sustainability.”

In addition to key city offices and departments, the Shockoe Alliance includes representatives from the Rose Center for Public Leadership’s Rose Fellows, the Slave Trail Commission, Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, Preservation Virginia, Shockoe Neighborhood Association and Shockoe Business Association. The group will work closely with the newly-formed History and Culture Commission in its recommendations and implementation of plans for the area.