Construction of the MeadWestvaco Corp. headquarters building is a portent of future development to come along the James River. The nine-story, 300,000-square-foot building will be leased to the Fortune 500 company by NewMarket Corp., a specialty chemicals corporation whose headquarters facility is up the hill. But it may be the last new project we see for a while.

The MeadWestvaco building should be complete by November 2009. To accommodate employees whose parking was displaced by the project, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is erecting a six-story parking deck. The 900-space building should open for business by April.

"The MeadWestvaco building is part of what NewMarket envisions as a larger project called Foundry Park, which would include other office, retail, and possibly a hotel or residential space on the remaining 3½ acres of the site," writes John Reid Blackwell in the Times-Dispatch today.

Development along the Canal Walk has proceeded at a painfully slow pace since the reconstruction of the James River and Kanawha Canal a decade ago. Much of the land at the far western end of the Canal remains vacant or underutilized, leaving a gap between downtown proper and the Dominion headquarters complex upstream. But corporate development in downtown Richmond is slowly but surely shifting its center of gravity toward the James River, with its spectacular vistas, and the canal, with its park-like setting.

Development most likely will take another pause after completion of the MeadWestvaco building and the Fed parking lot. The economic slowdown has put many corporate expansion plans on hold. Meanwhile, the departure of Wachovia Securities from the nearby Riverfront Towers leaves a glut of vacant, Class A office space downtown, which could take years to fill.

"I think the downtown marketplace makes us very hesitant to say it is time to build another building today," Bruce Hazelgrove, vice president of corporate resources for Newmarket, told the Times-Dispatch. "Any speculative space you put up today is going to probably take space from somebody else.

Still, NewMarket continues to explore possibilities for retail and other development on the site. "We are patient, and there will be a time when another opportunity comes along and it is time to put another building up," Hazelgrove says. "We know our new neighbors down there would love to see a little more activity there."