Goochland design committee to review bank project at Wilkes Ridge Parkway
Burke & Herbert Bank’s proposed branch at 1650 Wilkes Ridge Parkway went before Goochland’s design committee, putting Centerville’s growth and corridor standards on the same table.
Goochland’s Design Review Committee took up a Burke & Herbert Bank plan for 1650 Wilkes Ridge Parkway, a proposed branch that would add another new commercial building to the fast-changing eastern edge of the county. The item, COA-2026-00001, asked for a Certificate of Approval tied to building design exceptions on Tax Map No. 59-7-0-B-0, a B-1 parcel with proffered conditions in the Centerville Village Overlay District.
The hearing landed in Room 270 of the Goochland County Administration Building at 5:30 p.m., alongside the committee’s annual organizational meeting. That makes the bank case more than a routine agenda item. It is the point where Goochland decides whether a new financial institution at the northeast corner of Broad Street Road and Wilkes Ridge Parkway, in the Notch at West Creek mixed-use area near Short Pump Town Center, fits the county’s expectations for one of its busiest growth corridors.
The Design Review Committee is a five-member board with three members and two alternates, and its job is to make sure new development follows overlay-district design standards that protect the county’s natural, scenic and historic resources. In Centerville, that review can shape the look and feel of a project before a shovel ever hits the ground, including the building’s appearance, site layout, access points, lighting, landscaping and buffering. The COA is required by County Zoning Ordinance Sec. 15-435.
That matters in Centerville because the overlay rules were written to preserve the character of villages, rural crossroads, major roadways and historic resources through architectural control of development. The ordinance applies to new construction as well as changes to existing structures, and it allows reasonable deviations when they still fit good planning principles. In practice, that gives Goochland leverage over how a commercial building meets the road, how it is screened from neighbors and drivers, and how it reads visually from Wilkes Ridge Parkway.
Burke & Herbert’s proposal is part of a larger push by the bank, which was founded in 1852 and entered the Richmond market in 2022. Its first Richmond-area branch opened in 2023 at 2065 Huguenot Road in Chesterfield, and county records show the bank later bought the 1.2-acre Wilkes Ridge parcel for $2.15 million on July 17, 2025. That purchase confirms the branch is no longer a concept. It is a live project moving through Goochland’s review process.
The decision also comes against the backdrop of Centerville’s unfinished growth debate. Goochland’s small area plan once envisioned a 2045 village with shops, restaurants, offices, recreational spaces and residential neighborhoods, but the Board of Supervisors denied the plan on Oct. 4, 2023. Even without that blueprint, the bank project shows how commercial development is continuing to reshape eastern Goochland one site at a time.
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