The vision for the Greater Richmond Transit Co.’s bus depot got a little clearer on Tuesday.

The GRTC’s board gave the green light for the organization to sell its coveted 7-acre site at 101 S. Davis Ave., also known as the bus barn, to a trio of Richmond developers who said they are planning a mixed-use project on the property.

The buyer is DKJ Richmond LLC, a joint venture between Chris Johnson and Tom Dickey of Monument Cos. and Howard Kellman of the Edison Co.

In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Johnson and Dickey said they plan to keep all nine of the site’s existing structures intact and renovate them into a mixture of mostly residential and commercial space. They total about 112,000 square feet.

Some new construction is also planned for areas near West Cary Street, Grayland Avenue and South Robinson Street.

“It’s 7 acres in a very nice part of the city,” Johnson said. “It’s hard not to get excited about the potential for a project like that.”

The developers said they will hold two public meetings in October to present more specific details on the project.

Dickey, Kellman and Johnson prevailed as the lead bidders in an RFP process that began in May. They will pay $9.12 million in cash for the property. They now have 60 days to close on the purchase.

Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2016 and be completed in 2017.

Monument Construction, which is the construction arm of Monument Cos., will handle the work on the site. Walter Parks is the project’s architect.

They’ll take on a 112-year-old property that at one point housed horse-drawn trolleys before becoming a bus depot, Dickey said. It was actively used by GRTC until 2010.

Johnson said there were two aspects of the property that made it especially attractive: its zoning and the potential for historic tax credits. He said knowing the site wouldn’t require any special use permits to develop a mixed-use project took away a lot of uncertainty and made it “shovel-ready.”

“I think the GRTC and the city did a very good job putting the zoning in place for the property,” Johnson said. “They got more for that property because they removed uncertainty about zoning.”

Johnson said without historic tax credits, the existing structures would likely have had to be torn down.

The property has sat idle since its closure as GRTC worked on an environmental cleanup process to remove bus-related chemicals from the grounds. GRTC will complete that process, which is still ongoing, the developers said.

Most of the murals that were painted on the dormant site in recent years will be erased during the course of construction, the developers said. But some public art will likely be incorporated in the development.

Monument Cos. and the Edison Co. have at least one other joint project in the works. They’re behind the $30 million renovation of 800 E. Main St. and 7 N. Eighth St.

“We’ve worked well together,” Dickey said. “It made sense to continue the relationship with this project.”