Jack Jacobs July 1, 2025 0
VCU Health is planning to build a cardiovascular outpatient facility on the site of the old Pet Dairy facility, which is underway on demolition, on Robin Hood Road in Richmond. (Jack Jacobs photos)
Months after it was purchased by VCU Health, an old milk-processing plant near the Diamond is coming down to make way for a proposed medical center.
Demolition was underway this week at the former Pet Dairy facility at 1505 Robin Hood Road, where the health system is planning a cardiovascular outpatient facility to be called the Pauley Heart Center Pavilion.
While details about the overall project are scant, state regulatory filings show part of the facility would house a 10,000-square-foot imaging suite with two MRI machines and a CT scanner. That section of the project alone is expected to cost $15.9 million, according to the health system’s application to the state’s Certificate of Public Need (COPN) program.
The overall center is presumably going to be larger and have a higher cost. The center would have “an array of outpatient services for patients with cardiovascular diseases and conditions,” and feature a clinic and shell space, in addition to the imaging capabilities, per the application materials.
The COPN application, which was filed in late March, will need approval from the state health commissioner in order for the associated facility to operate. Imaging centers and other certain medical facilities require state regulatory approval. As VCU Health’s application is focused on the center’s imaging component, it doesn’t provide a full picture of the facility’s scope.
More details about the center were unavailable. A VCU Health spokeswoman declined to comment on the project.
The milk-processing plant on the site was decommissioned in 2017. VCU Health bought the property last year.
A verdict on the COPN request is expected by early September. The filing stated that construction is slated to start April 2026 and be completed January 2028. The facility is currently planned to open in April 2028.
The proposed Pauley Heart Center Pavilion would rise on a multi-parcel, 7-acre site, the bulk of which VCU Health purchased for $9.5 million in October. It would be an expansion of VCU Health’s existing cardiovascular health arm, the Pauley Heart Center.
Founded nearly 20 years ago, Pauley Heart Center is headquartered at the VCU Medical Center in downtown Richmond, and has outpatient centers in central and southeast Virginia. It services a range from heart transplants to cardiovascular disease prevention and cardiac imaging, and it also has a research program.
VCU Health said in filings to the state that there’s a growing need for cardiovascular imaging, and the project planned on Robin Hood Road would allow the health system to meet that demand. VCU Health said the project would provide better access to medical services for patients, due to its location just off I-64. The center also is designed to be a one-stop shop for cardiovascular care that’ll be able to offer easier parking than the health system’s downtown campus.
The health system says it’ll need to hire 16 full-time staff to run the center’s imaging operations.
The site of VCU Health’s proposed cardiovascular center is outlined in red. (Courtesy SkyShots Photography)
The 108,000-square-foot Pet Dairy industrial building being razed was decommissioned by a subsidiary of now-defunct Dean Foods Co. in 2017. A sizable portion of the Pet Dairy facility was still standing Monday morning as excavators were working on tearing it down.
An adjacent, 1-acre site at 1500 Sherwood Ave., which VCU Health bought more than a decade ago, is also part of the project site.
The cardiovascular center’s site is next to a portion of VCU’s 42-acre, multi-site Athletic Village project that’s now underway. The cardiovascular site is also just west of the Northside campus of the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU.
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