The Tri-Cities of Virginia (also known as the Tri-City area or the Appomattox Basin) is an area in the

Greater Richmond Region The Greater Richmond Region, also known as the Richmond metropolitan area or Central Virginia, is a region and metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Virginia, centered on Richmond. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines the are ...

which includes the three independent cities of Petersburg, Colonial Heights, and Hopewell and portions of the adjoining counties of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, and Prince George in south-central

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. Other unincorporated communities located in the Tri-Cities area include Ettrick,

Fort Gregg-Adams Fort Lee (formerly Fort Gregg-Adams), in Prince George County, Virginia is a United States Army post and headquarters of the United States Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM)/ Sustainment Center of Excellence (SCoE), the United States Ar ...

, and

City Point City Point of CityPoint may refer to: United Kingdom * CityPoint, an office tower in London, England United States * City Point (New Haven), a neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut * City Point, a section of the South Boston area in Boston, Massa ...

, the latter formerly a historic

incorporated town An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation. Canada Incorporated towns are a form of local government in Canada, which is a responsibility of provincial rather than federal government. United States An incorporated town o ...

which was annexed to become part of the City of Hopewell.

Regional description

The Tri-Cities area is centered on the

Appomattox River The Appomattox River is a tributary of the James River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 in central and eastern Virginia, named for the ...

about south of

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

. The Appomattox has its confluence with the

James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...

near historic

in Hopewell. The applicable Metropolitan Statistical Area for the Tri-Cities area is the Richmond, VA MSA, which includes Richmond and counties generally to the north of the Tri-Cities area. Economic diversity is typical of the entire Richmond-Petersburg region, and helps to insulate it from hardship due to economic fluctuation in particular sectors of the economy. The region has been undergoing a opioid epidemic for several years now as well. The region's central location also allows it to benefit from growth in other regions of Virginia and the state as a whole.

Transportation in the Tri-Cities

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

is the major north-south highway. Interstate 85 and Interstate 295 also pass through, as does U.S. Route 1 (The Boulevard in Colonial Heights), U.S. Route 301, State Route 144 (Temple Avenue). Major east-west highways are U.S. Route 460, State Route 10, and State Route 36. Major river crossings include the Martin Luther King Memorial Bridge and the twin Charles Hardaway Marks Bridges across the

, and the Varina-Enon Bridge and the Benjamin Harrison Memorial Bridge across the

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

passenger

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

service is provided with a station at Ettrick, an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Chesterfield County adjacent to both Petersburg and Colonial Heights. Freight railroad service is provided by both

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

and

Norfolk Southern Corporation The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

. Bus Transportation is provided by the Petersburg Area Transit. There are nine routes serving parts of Petersburg, Ettrick, Colonial Heights (Southpark Mall area), Fort Gregg-Adams, and Prince George County that all have their intersection in Old Town. PAT and GRTC together provide express bus service between Richmond and Petersburg, with some express buses stopping at Brightpoint Community College in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

Media

Periodicals include: * The ''

Richmond Times-Dispatch The ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'' (''RTD'' or ''TD'' for short) is the primary daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, and the primary newspaper of record for the state of Virginia. Circulation The ''Times-Dispatch'' has the second-highest circul ...

'', local daily paper for

. * '' The Progress-Index'', local daily paper for the Tri-Cities and Sussex located in Petersburg. * ''The Colonial Voice'', a weekly for Colonial Heights. * The ''Traveller'', for U.S. Army post then named Fort Lee. Defunct as of January 2021. * The
Chester Village News
', for Chesterfield County. *
The Hopewell News & Patriot
', (defunct) for Hopewell, Prince George County and Colonial Heights. Radio and television stations are the same as those listed for

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

Culture

Like many cities in the United States, the city of Petersburg is a city that has sought to revitalize its downtown area by promoting its arts scene. In the 1990s and 2000s, several areas including the "Old Town" area has seen increased remodeling and renovating of old, abandoned buildings into loft apartments and eclectic restaurants. In 2004, the Shockoe Bottom Arts group moved from downtown Richmond to downtown Petersburg due to lower real estate prices there. Several

antique An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

shops, a former train station, and a theater are the centerpiece of "old town" See Also: Petersburg Similarly, Hopewell has commenced a revitalization projects with renovations of their harbor complex, "Town Triangle," and the historic Beacon Theatre. Other cultural productions in the Tri-Cities occur at local colleges and at the playhouse on

Education

Educational facilities in the region are listed as follows: *K-12 ** Appomattox Regional Governor's School for the Arts And Technology ** Chesterfield Public Schools ** Hopewell Public Schools ** Petersburg Public Schools ** Prince George Public Schools ** Dinwiddie Public Schools ** Colonial Heights Public Schools *Colleges and Universities ** Richard Bland College (Petersburg) **

Virginia State University Virginia State University (VSU or Virginia State) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically Black land-grant university, land-grant university in Ettrick, Virginia, United States. Founded on , Vi ...

(Ettrick) ** Brightpoint Community College (Chester) ** Army Logistics Management College (Fort Gregg-Adams)

Infrastructure

The area is served by several

hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

s, John Randolph Medical Center (a HCA Hospital) (Hopewell), Hiram Davis Medical Center (Acute Care) (Petersburg), Southside Regional Medical Center (Petersburg), and Poplar Springs Hospital (psychiatric facility) (Petersburg).

Southpark Mall

Southpark Mall is a large regional

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

in the Tri-Cities area. Built in 1988 at the intersection of State Route 144 and

, the mall complex has expanded significantly to include many big box retailers. While the mall itself is located in Colonial Heights, Virginia, other development has increased throughout the area.

Fort Gregg-Adams

Fort Gregg-Adams, formerly Fort Lee, is a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

post and headquarters of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM), U.S. Army Quartermaster Center and School (QMCS), the Army Logistics Management College (ALMC) and the U.S.

Defense Commissary Agency The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), headquartered at Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia, is an agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that operates nearly 240 commissaries worldwide. American military commissaries sell groceries and ...

(DeCA). A

United States Army Forces Command The United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) is the largest command of the United States Army. It provides land forces to the Department of Defense's unified combatant commands. FORSCOM is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and ...

(FORSCOM) unit, the 49th Quartermaster Group (Petroleum and Water), is stationed here. Fort Gregg-Adams also hosts two Army museums, the U.S.

Army Quartermaster Museum The United States Army Quartermaster Museum, located at Fort Gregg-Adams, Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia, is an American Alliance of Museums, AAM accredited museum in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The museum's aim is to preserve and exhibit the his ...

and the U.S. Army Women's Museum. Military personnel make up a significant presence in the area as well. The fort is named after two African American officers Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. Prior to the fort's redesignation in April 2023, it was named for Confederate

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

Federal prisons

The Tri-Cities also is home to a

federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for people who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), people considered dangerous (Brazil), or those sen ...

complex called the Petersburg Federal Correctional Complex. It consists of medium and low security Federal Correctional Institutions known respectively as FCI Petersburg Medium and FCI Petersburg Low. Despite its name, the address of the Petersburg Federal Correctional Complex is actually in Prince George County. In addition, there is United States

Probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offence (law), offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incar ...

Office near FCI – Petersburg, in Colonial Heights, Virginia, and the two agencies enjoy a supportive relationship.

Industries

Puddledock Sand & Gravel, in Prince George County, Virginia is a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

that has made significant alteration of the landscape along the

and State Route 144 (Temple Avenue). The quarry is currently owned by Vulcan Materials Company and quarries natural

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

as well as

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

and

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

aggregates for

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

. Ruffin Mill Industrial Park or Appomattox Industrial Park is located off Ruffin Mill Road exit from I-95 and is . Hopewell also is known for a number of chemical manufacturing plants.

Civil War history

Many sites in the Tri-Cities area have names reflecting the region's role in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. A major logistics base for the Union Army was located at

and the

City Point Railroad In 1836, the Virginia House of Delegates approved a charter for the City Point Railroad. City Point, Virginia, was just ten years old. The Lower Appomattox Company ran boats of cargo from Petersburg, Virginia, to the large port at City Point. The c ...

that enabled the

siege of Petersburg The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the siege of Petersburg, it was not a c ...

is still in operation today. The history of the Battle of the Crater can be viewed in Petersburg National Battlefield Park and is commemorated in nearby ''Crater Road'' and the Fort Gregg-Adams entry "Mahone Gate" named after Confederate Brigadier General

William Mahone William Mahone (December 1, 1826October 8, 1895) was a Confederate States Army general, civil engineer, railroad executive, prominent Virginia Readjuster Party, Readjuster and ardent supporter of former slaves. He later represented Virginia in th ...

, who was present at the Battle of the Crater during the

Siege of Petersburg The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the siege of Petersburg, it was not a c ...

in 1864. Until 2023, Fort Gregg-Adams was named after Confederate General

References

External links

Area Map with Google Maps
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