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Business partners Robin Miller and Daniel A. Gecker have taken a new twist on projects they are doing in Manchester, contributing over the past 13 years to the revitalization of a once-neglected area of Richmond south of the James River.

They’ve done more than 125 historic tax credit projects there, some in such rough shape that many people would have bulldozed them.

Their latest project is new construction — an attached, contemporary duplex at 1109 and 1111 Porter St. that they have just finished.

“It’s a very modern design, yet it fits with the scale of the neighborhood,” said Miller, principal of Miller & Associates, a development company. He also is co-owner with Gecker of Richmond-based Urban Development Associates, an entity that owns various properties.

He pointed to historic houses across the street, including two that he and Gecker took on six years ago at 1106 and 1108 Porter St. The houses, once condemned by the city, stand tall now. They are three stories, similar in height to the duplex. “They were in incredibly terrible shape,” Miller recalled.

The duplex sits on a nearly empty city block that Urban Development bought about five years ago from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.