Buying Land in Danville, Virginia

From tobacco and textiles to a city rebuilding itself

Danville is an independent city under Virginia law, seated on the Dan River near the North Carolina border. It emerged in the late 1700s as the site of tobacco warehouses that quickly became Virginia's largest tobacco market, and the Industrial Revolution brought a second economic engine in the 1880s when Riverside Cotton Mills was established to take advantage of Dan River hydropower -- eventually growing into the largest textile mill in the South, employing about 14,000 workers in a city of roughly 40,000 during World War II. When Dan River Mills closed in 2006, the city lost those 14,000 jobs at once, and by 2007 the mill buildings and much of the surrounding historic housing stock stood visibly vacant and deteriorating.

Since then, Danville has pursued an award-winning redevelopment plan for its River District, encompassing downtown and the adjoining historic tobacco warehouse district. Many of the tobacco warehouses and mill buildings have been repurposed as apartments, shops, and restaurants -- a genuine, ongoing turnaround rather than a stalled plan, and a meaningfully different city than the one that existed a generation ago.

Zoning: a brand-new citywide code, and special use permits for adaptive reuse

Danville's revitalization has run directly into its zoning code more than once: some River District mill-to-apartment conversions have required special use permits because the area's central-business-district zoning classification does not, by itself, allow multifamily dwellings -- a workaround the city has used deliberately to encourage adaptive reuse and urban residential development consistent with its comprehensive plan's goals, according to Cardinal News reporting.

More significantly for any current buyer, Danville adopted an entirely new Unified Development Code -- its first full zoning rewrite in more than 20 years -- approved by City Council on December 2, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, with two remaining items still to be finalized in summer 2026. The new code created several specific new districts and use categories, including a Metro Plaza District, a North Main Street district, and a new Urban Agriculture zone allowing farming-type uses in multiple areas of the city, and it was further amended in June 2026 to comply with new statewide manufactured-housing legislation. See our standalone page on Danville's new zoning code for the full breakdown -- treat any pre-2026 zoning assumption about a specific Danville parcel as outdated, and confirm the current district and permitted uses directly with the city's planning office.

Septic, well, and utilities

Danville is served by the Pittsylvania-Danville Health District for septic and well permitting, consistent with Virginia's statewide, state-run model (headquarters office at 326 Taylor Drive, Danville, 434-766-9828). Given the city's urban, historically industrial core, most parcels inside city limits are likely already connected to municipal water and sewer, but any parcel toward the city's edges without confirmed utility connections should be evaluated directly with this office before assuming septic feasibility.