At 405 Draper Road — directly across from the Blacksburg Library, in the building that's been a laundromat, a restaurant, and Rocket Music over the years will soon become something Blacksburg hasn't had: a three-in-one market under a single roof. Katie Pritchard & John Boyer, owner/operators of Blacksburg Wine Lab, are working on our next creative venture aimed at expanding the high quality food & shopping experiences in Blacksburg VA.

Draper Provisions will be the retail half: a high-end gourmet food and kitchen supply store with a specialty cheese and charcuterie counter. The design leans rustic and regional — vintage Virginia apple crates as display shelving, antique furniture as functional decor, a general-store feel updated with international gourmet goods sitting alongside products from nearby farms and artisans. Boyer has planned weekly cheese, wine, and new-product tastings, plus monthly events: local producer meet-and-greets, cooking classes, custom gift baskets, and complimentary knife sharpening.

The Library Café is the restaurant half — rustic, European-influenced, casual, with a full professional kitchen and seating for 40–50 indoors and another 40–50 on the patio. Small plates, a few entrées, soups, salads, sandwiches, an international wine list, crafted cocktails, and full espresso service. Boyer even floated an open-pit BBQ tailgate during VT football season.

Between the two sits the Middle Market — grab-and-go beverages and prepared lunch and dinner items, aimed squarely at downtown professionals, town and county employees, university staff, and students moving through the area.

The site runs roughly 5,570 square feet plus outdoor seating and parking. Boyer's pitch: "A cosmopolitan scene straight out of Milan or Paris or Barcelona, but right here in Blacksburg."

Opening Spring 2026, they are documenting their construction journey along on youtube for the latest updates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xciWUvJV_2g

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Walk down Draper Road today and you'll see the cheerful string lights, temporary dining barriers, and outdoor tables spilling onto the sidewalks. It looks like a lively pedestrian plaza, but these "tactical placemaking" additions are actually temporary placeholders installed in 2024 to keep our downtown vibrant while the town prepares for the real transformation.

If you've been wondering when the heavy equipment is moving in, how much the project will cost, or how state funding makes it all happen, here is your complete guide.

The Master Plan: Transforming Draper Road

The finalized Draper Road Streetscape Project aims to permanently transform the corridor stretching from College Avenue to Washington Street into a curbless, highly walkable, and bike-friendly public space. Grounded in the community-selected "Bold + Blended" concept, the redesign features dramatically widened sidewalks, native landscaping, contraflow bike lanes, and permanent outdoor dining zones. The goal is to better integrate the heart of downtown with Virginia Tech's neighboring Creativity and Innovation District while preserving our cohesive downtown character.

The Timeline: Road to Realization

While the initial conceptual planning began back in 2021, the official construction schedule moves through a phased rollout to minimize disruption:

So why is permanent construction starting in 2027 instead of sooner? The timeline was altered for two primary reasons:

The Financial Blueprint: An $11 Million Capital Investment

While early preliminary planning estimated the streetscape cost at roughly $10.5 million, the formalized project has been integrated as an $11 million capital line item within Blacksburg's newly adopted five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

The town is coordinating the streetscape alongside two major companion projects:

The VDOT Connection: Navigating State Funding Cycles

The town pursued a 50% matching grant through the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Revenue-Sharing Program. This biennial VDOT program provides matching funds up to $10 million per project. Following a successful application process, Blacksburg requested $4.85 million in matching VDOT funds, with the town funding the remaining balance through municipal capital reserves.

The project was evaluated and screened as a Priority 2 project within the state portal to accelerate its schedule. Because VDOT officially programmed these allocations into its FY29 and FY30 funding cycles, the state money cannot be physically accessed until 2027. Rather than moving forward without these funds, town leadership structurally aligned the permanent construction timeline to start in Summer 2027, utilizing the 2024 interim setup to bridge the multi-year gap.

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