Article date: December 18, 2000

Executive director: Learning from other communities important to future of site

By Ashley May

Smart growth and ecologically sound industrial development are two topics that are important to the future of Front Royal, especially to fate of the Avtex Fibers Superfund site, said Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Stephen Heavener.

Having returned recently from two smart growth-related seminars held in Atlanta and Chicago, Heavener described how those topics relate to Avtex and the EDA’s big plans to create a "green" business and conservancy park on the 500-acre former textile plant.

The Partners for Smart Growth conference held in Atlanta on Dec. 4-6 focused on principles of good growth such as collaborations between public and private sectors, mixing land uses, conserving open space, and encouraging infill development and redevelopment, Heavener said. Over the past five years, the EDA has assisted in the development of more than 800 acres of open space to encourage Warren County’s economy, but the EDA has a different goal for the future, he said.

"As with the Avtex redevelopment, we’re trying to evolve as an agency, and take the smart growth approach," he said.

"We want to continue to broaden our knowledge base because this is a new way to develop. And Avtex is the perfect smart growth project," he said.

While the smart growth conference involved detailed discussions of smart growth, with a goal to make a community more "livable," the Eco-Industrial conference held in Chicago on Dec. 7 and 8 focused on "how do you actually make this happen?’ Heavener said.

Heavener heard from the developer of a green ecological industrial park in Londonderry, N.H., a project similar to but further along than the business park that is planned for 165 acres of the Avtex site, he said.

Learning from the successes and failures of other communities is a smart way to approach the future, Heavener said.

"The whole goal is not to reinvent the wheel," he said.

"We want to be more efficient with government resources," he said.

Because of the pollution from plant operations, the Avtex site was designated a federal Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1986, and last year was named as one of the pilot sites in the EPA’s Superfund redevelopment initiative.