Sunsetting the Richmond We Thought We Knew and Rising to Something Greater: The East Riverfront as a Living Narrative of the American Dream and the Fight for Inclusive Opportunity
Concept developed by Architectural Designer, Shane Powers of arch-well
Richmond at a Crossroads
The City’s move to prepare the Intermediate Terminal Building (ITB) for potential sale may appear to be a routine real estate decision. But in truth, it highlights a much larger choice: will Richmond continue to treat its riverfront as a series of isolated transactions, or will it embrace a district-scale vision that honors history and builds inclusive prosperity for generations?
The East Riverfront Innovation Coalition (ERIC) was created to lead this conversation, not simply react to it. While the ITB is one parcel, its location and history make it a powerful metaphor for the entire East Riverfront. What happens here will shape not just a building, but Richmond’s identity as a city at the crossroads of memory, innovation, and opportunity.
The East Riverfront as Living History
This stretch of the James River has always been a place of exchange and transformation. The Manchester Docks once anchored a domestic slave trade that scarred countless lives. The Richmond Slave Trail carries the weight of remembrance, walking us through a history that cannot be ignored. The ITB itself—built for river commerce—embodies the flows of goods, labor, and people that connected the port to the city and the nation…a placemaking opportunity for transience as framework, sentience as interface.
These sites are more than relics. They are reminders that the American Dream has always been contested: defined by both bondage and emancipation, exclusion and opportunity, exploitation and resilience. Harvard PHD historian Sanjay Paul, whose dissertation explores the social and environmental history of emancipation in the U.S. South, is examining how rivers and waterways were bound up in systems of labor and freedom, shaping both oppression and liberation.
Humanities leadership is essential here. Scholars like Dr. Ed Ayers (University of Richmond) and Ana Edwards (Sacred Ground Project) have long insisted that Richmond’s future prosperity must grow from honest remembrance of its past. Their scholarship informs ERIC’s vision: to make the East Riverfront a space where memory anchors innovation.
The American Dream in Motion
The American Dream has never been static. It has always evolved through struggle and reinvention.
In the 19th century, emancipation was tied to literacy. As Frederick Douglass declared, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Literacy was not just about reading words — it was about access to dignity, work, and civic belonging.
Today, emancipation takes a new form. The AI revolution has the potential to free us from the drudgery of rote computer work, opening space for creativity, care, entrepreneurship, and human connection. Just as literacy once allowed newly freed people to step into society, AI literacy and the future of work, like we see being taught to American students by non-profit AI Ready RVA, can allow today’s citizens to step into a future where technology serves freedom rather than control.
Public thinkers are already making this connection. Ruha Benjamin warns that without careful design, “technology is not creating the problems, it is reflecting and amplifying them — and often hiding inequality under a veneer of neutrality.” Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, shows how biased algorithms can carry life-and-death stakes, as when facial recognition errors led to wrongful arrests of Black Americans. For both, emancipation today means dismantling the “New Jim Code” and building what Benjamin calls liberatory design.
By contrast, voices like Baratunde Thurston remind us of the positive vision: “We don’t just follow system prompts… we can choose a higher goal.” AI, he argues, can expand human agency if we embed it with freedom-centered values.
ERIC: Innovation with Integrity
The East Riverfront Innovation Coalition was formed to make that intentional future possible. Convened by Character Developer, a civic intelligence platform by Modern Ancients, ERIC is bringing together developers, architects, universities, nonprofits, investors, and residents to co-create a district-scale vision.
At the heart of this is VoiceBuild™, which makes engagement continuous, accountable, and rewarding. As Todd Waldo of the Shockoe Institute has said, Richmond’s growth must link innovation with cultural inclusion: “It’s not just about development, it’s about the enduring impact of our shared history.” VoiceBuild™ ensures those cultural truths are not sidelined but encoded into the very design of future prosperity.
Virginia’s Leadership
This work aligns with a broader story unfolding across the Commonwealth. Virginia is the first state to integrate generative AI into its policy processes, signaling a commitment to responsible innovation.
Local leaders like Garret Westlake (VCU da Vinci Center) are helping make Richmond a hub for innovation literacy. Leah Fremouw of Bridging Virginia ensures community financing is tied to equity. Jonathan Zur of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities links this work to reconciliation and civic trust. Together, these voices make Richmond’s coalition more than local — they make it a model.
Nationally, Brendan McCord’s Cosmos Institute warns that societies must “build for freedom or watch others build for control.” Palantir’s “Working Intelligence” project insists that AI should be “human-first,” designed to augment rather than replace. These ideas echo ERIC’s mission: emancipation through innovation, rooted in community.
The ITB as Catalyst
The Intermediate Terminal Building is more than a warehouse. It is a threshold — a physical reminder of the river’s power to connect and transform. By treating the ITB not as an isolated parcel but as the anchor of a district-scale vision, we can unlock:
Remembrance: interpreting the Slave Trail, docks, and Ancarrows Landing with honesty and depth.
Innovation: piloting civic technology and engagement platforms that set new standards for inclusion.
Prosperity: aligning multiple parcels under a coordinated strategy that grows value for both investors and residents.
The ITB’s fate will signal whether Richmond chooses terminal vision — narrow, fragmented development — or district transformation, where history and innovation flow together.
A National Metaphor
Through ERIC, Richmond can model what American prosperity looks like when it is grounded in history and extended through innovation. The East Riverfront can become a national metaphor: a place where the struggles of the past inform the opportunities of the present, and where technology bridges the physical and digital realms in service of human freedom.
This is the promise of Character Developer and the coalition it powers. By aligning community intelligence, design foresight, and equitable investment, we are building more than a district. We are building a framework for inclusive prosperity that can be replicated in cities across the nation.
The American Dream, Renewed
The East Riverfront is a living narrative of the American Dream — a place of commerce and captivity, labor and liberation, exclusion and inclusion. Today, it calls us to write a new chapter.
Through the ITB pilot, ERIC and Character Developer are showing that emancipation in the 21st century means using innovation to expand freedom, using technology to amplify every voice, and using history as a guide to build a more inclusive future.
This is how Richmond becomes not just a city with a past, but a city with a purpose. A city that remembers, innovates, and leads — for itself, for Virginia, and for America.
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