Winterfield Crossing, Nine Years On: What a Village-Style Center Actually Looks Like

Chesterfield talks a great deal about walkable mixed-use development. Winterfield Crossing is the local example with enough years on it to judge.

It is the clearest case study the corridor has, and the useful thing about a nine-year view is that it includes the parts that did not work.

The land was part of the 58-acre "Midlothian Town Center," which went into foreclosure after the 2008 recession. Blackwood bought in during 2012 and first proposed Winterfield Crossing in 2015.

The Planning Commission rejected it in January 2017, primarily over traffic. It was deferred again in June. Approval came on July 26, 2017, after revisions that included a roundabout at the Turnpike entrance, reduced Turnpike buffers, removal of apartments above retail, size caps on commercial tenants, and a ban on standalone fast-food buildings. Supervisor Leslie Haley: "I'm proud to support this development."

Two of the developer's 2017 commitments are worth reading now, nine years later, because they describe deliberate choices:

And:

Hold that second one in mind for the last section of this post.

The developer published a design book, and it is more specific about Midlothian heritage than most marketing:

The stated intent was "a blend of hip and gable roofs with a combination of brick and stone… to give the entire project a post-industrial style." The named precedents are all local: Tredegar Iron Works, the coal mining headstock at Mid-Lothian Mines Park, Fulton Gas Works, The MillWorks at the Green, Capital Ale House in Midlothian Village, the Chesterfield County Courthouse, and decorative gooseneck lighting along Midlothian Turnpike "in keeping with the style of Midlothian Village."

Note the sequencing. This was approved in July 2017. The Midlothian Community Special Area Plan was adopted in December 2019 and the Midlothian Special Design District followed in 2021. Winterfield Crossing did not follow the plan; it drew on the same source material the county later wrote down. Whether the design district's boundary ever reached this parcel, and how a 2017 approval with proffered conditions interacts with it, are questions for Chesterfield Planning at 804-748-1050.

The anchor and the grocers. Aldi opened in October 2019 and remains the anchor. Stella's Grocery opened May 14, 2026, in about 2,300 square feet — its eighth location and its first in Chesterfield.

The restaurants came in waves. Triple Crossing Beer was announced in September 2020 and Wong's Tacos in June 2021, both from established Richmond operators. Four Seasons opened in early January 2022 in 4,200 square feet on the ground floor of the Gather building. Mason's Famous Lobster Rolls took about 900 square feet in 2024 and Cinnaholic opened that July.

Coworking arrived at an interesting moment. Gather signed its lease in July 2019 and opened in 2020 — into the first year of the pandemic, which turned out to be either the worst or the best possible timing for flexible workspace, depending on which year you asked.

Three fitness concepts have come and gone from this center in six years, and the pattern is the honest lesson.

Row House closed on what its operator described as significant monthly losses at an underperforming location; the company's Henrico store stayed open. Jetset Pilates has signed a ten-year lease for 2,200 square feet and pulled a building permit in September 2026 for a $285,000 upfit.

A cycling studio replaced by a grocer, and a rowing studio replaced by Pilates. The center's 2021 marketing still promises "an indoor cycling or rowing class." That is not a failure of the development — it is what boutique fitness has done everywhere since 2020, and the spaces refilled quickly, which is the number that actually matters.

There are two apartment properties here that get conflated, and the distinction matters if you are quoting rooftops to a prospective tenant.

The Summerfield, 14300 Winter Breeze Drive, is the age-restricted component inside Winterfield Crossing — 122 units in three stories, one and two bedrooms from 738 to 1,088 square feet, built 2026 and operated by Greystar. Newmark arranged a $23.1 million FHA construction loan for it in July 2025. It was approved in 2017 as 55-and-up; it is operating as 62-plus. A further phase, the balance of the roughly 250 units approved, is described as in the works with no date attached.

The Winterfield at Midlothian, 1104 Winterlake Drive, is a separate 238-unit market-rate property built in 2019, adjacent to the center rather than part of it, with no age restriction.

(One correction we will make openly: a widely repeated "223-unit second phase" figure belongs to an unrelated Blundon project in Richmond's Manchester district, not to Winterfield Crossing.)

Blackwood filed plans in April 2025 for a 13,500-square-foot, one-story building of six suites between 1,800 and 2,900 square feet, on the lot west of Gather — deliberately a mirror image of the strip on the east side. Shell cost was put at $2.5 to $3 million.

The building is up. Its first announced tenant is Solomon Eye Associates in about 2,100 square feet. Broker listings through mid-2026 still showed roughly 9,400 square feet available across four suites there, so there is space in the village for anyone looking.

Also still to come: a 4,500-square-foot standalone restaurant building on the lake at the east side, next to Wong's Tacos, leased to a tenant not yet named.

Winterfield Crossing is on the list to lose its left turns.

The county's Route 60 corridor study proposes a continuous raised median through the village, from Woolridge Road to Old Otterdale Road, removing the two-way left-turn lane. Corridor-wide, full-access crossovers drop from nine to five and thirty full-access entrances convert to right-in/right-out or a directional crossover.

Six intersections are named as moving from full access to partial access, and the Winterfield Crossing and Kroger entrance is one of them.

The intersection is not failing today — the study's own analysis puts the eastbound left at level of service B in the morning and C in the evening, and the westbound left at B in both peaks. The change is driven by safety and access management, not congestion.

There is a real irony in the sequencing. In 2017 the developer paid for turn lanes and signalization as a selling point for this project. The 2023 study now proposes taking the left turns away.

The study is not funded for construction; design on the follow-on project is underway using local money. Anyone with a lease here should read it, and we have written up the whole study separately.

The Kroger is not at Winterfield Crossing. It anchors Ivymont Square, a separate center directly across Midlothian Turnpike at 14101 Midlothian Turnpike, with separate ownership and separate leasing. Chipotle is at Ivymont Square too. The two centers face each other and share an intersection name in the county's traffic studies, which is where the confusion comes from.

With the Chesterfield Observer closed since 2023, Richmond BizSense carries nearly all the original reporting on this center. Openings and closures here are best confirmed with the business directly.

Last updated September 16, 2026.