The Northern Virginia Daily

Article date: April 16, 2005

 EDA approves business park marketing plan

Group hopes to attract interested developers to former Avtex Fibers site

 By William C. Flook

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority approved a marketing plan Friday to attract potential developers to the former Avtex Fibers site.

This approval gives the green light to New York-based North American Realty Advisory Services to begin official marketing for the “Royal Phoenix development,” a planned business park on 160 acres of the 440-acre EPA Superfund site, according to EDA Executive Director Paul Carroll.  The firm will now seek out a developer to handle the entire project, he said.

Spiros V. Antoniadis, vice president of North American, said the firm is looking for groups with the “financial capability, experience, and wherewithal to take over a project of this size.”

He said a substantial number of developers and investors have expressed interest.

“There is real interest there,” he said.  “So that’s encouraging to us, that in fact Front Royal has been discovered.”

Experience with brownfield sites will be a plus, but not an absolute requirement, Antoniadis said.  According to the EPA, brownfields are “real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.”

“We’re trying to remove the stigma of that designation,” Antoniadis said.

Once home to a massive rayon plant, the land was declared a Superfund site in 1986 and the plant closed in 1989.  It is now the subject of a massive cleanup effort involving the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and FMC, the only non-defunct company to have owned the plant.

The EPA must declare it has “ no further interest “ in specific areas of the site before they can be developed, Carroll said.  The “Superfund” title will not be lifted until the entire site is remediated, he said.

He said tourism and innovative technology will be pillars of Royal Phoenix, named after a mythological bird that spontaneously bursts into flames at the end of its life, only to have a new born phoenix rise from the ashes.  The planned uses of the site were outlined in a conceptual plan approved by the EDA in October.

A presentation prepared by North American lists the advantages for a developer to come to Front Royal.  Among them are a “Stringent development climate in Northern Virginia”, the strength of the greater Washington market, and the lower costs of living factors compared to metropolitan Washington.

Antoniadis also said he thinks Front Royal’s proximity to Washington Dulles International Airport and the “straight shot” to Washington on Interstate 66 also grant an advantage.

He said there is not yet a specific timeline on how long it will take to identify a list of suitable developers.