4/20/20
Clean & Safe in Downtown Richmond
Keeping Downtown’s sidewalks clean is a public-private partnership between the City, the Downtown taxpayers and Venture Richmond, that began in 1999. The City outsources Downtown sidewalk cleaning to Venture Richmond who enhances the services. Venture Richmond contracts with Community Business Group (CBG), a local minority owned business that Venture Richmond’s predecessor organization, Richmond Renaissance, helped start to provide the Downtown Clean and Safe services. Julius Richardson, owner of CBG, is a retired Richmond Police Captain. His business is located in Historic Jackson Ward. Over the years, Capt. Richardson has employed long-standing staff, some of whom have worked with him for 15 years!
Last year, the Clean & Safe team removed 10,384 bags of trash, which is 415,360 gallons of trash. They also removed 465 cubic yards of leaves, provided weed patrols and steam cleaning sidewalks in the 440 block service area. Since 1999, over 6.2 million gallons of trash has been removed from Downtown.
And, as the Clean & Safe program celebrates 22 years of serving our downtown businesses, Venture Richmond has refreshed the brand with new logos, uniforms and safety gear, and freshly painted and branded equipment to make them even more visible Downtown.
We offer a special, heartfelt thank you to our Clean & Safe team, especially during the Coronavirus Pandemic, as they are deemed “essential services” by the City of Richmond, and have continued their work downtown during this significant time in our community. Thank you!
