The Warren Sentinel

Article date: April 28, 2005

It’s Avtex no more– Royal Phoenix rises from the ashes

By: Roger Bianchini

With its April 15 approval of the Royal Phoenix Development, Marketing and Investment Recruitment Plan the Front Royal -Warren County Economic Development Authority made it official – Avtex is history, Royal phoenix is on the rise.

During discussion leading up to the EDA’s 6-0 vote of approval of the marketing and strategy plan developed by North American Realty Services, EDA Executive Director Paul Carroll requested that his board make an effort to eliminate the name Avtex from its vocabulary except as a historical reference to the site.

“We want to start using the name Royal Phoenix both to brand the site and begin to eliminate any possible negative connotations,” Carroll said.

Avtex was the 467-acre Superfund site’s third and final corporate owner, the owner of record when the plant was finally closed down in 1989 by the state government for ongoing violations of state water control board regulations.  Those violations left not only the site polluted, but also the adjacent Shenandoah River.  Sixteen years later the river continues to be under restrictions on te edibility of fish caught in the area due to PCB contamination as cleanup efforts continue on the land and the groundwater passing through it.

But despite ongoing cleanup efforts at the site the imminence of the anticipated release of more land on the site’s north side within view of its office has clearly created excitement within the EDA.  During a break following last week’s vote EDA Board Chairman John LaBarca commented on the psychological water shed achieved by the move away from the name Avtex.

“We needed to do that from a marketing perspective not only for the outsiders, the people who are interested in investing, but also because we’ve got to start changing our thinking here about where we are.  Now we have a site where we are focused on development as opposed to just clean up.  It’s exciting,” LaBarca said of this moment in the property’s storied history.

That history extend from the plant’s 1939 opening as American Viscose, one the world’s largest synthetic materials manufacturing operations – an operation that would prove crucial to the Allied war effort of World War II – to Avtex’s 1976-1989 ownership during which the plant was for a time the sole supplier of a material necessary to NASA’s space shuttle program.

But that was Avtex ( and American Viscose and FMC) and that is history.

John Torrence of FMC reflected the present in Friday’s remediation report.  FMC, which owned the plant from 1963-1976, is the plant’s sole surviving corporate owner.  After describing coming work on cleaning up the site’s sewer system, Torrence reported, “We are very close to the complete involvement of the north half of the site to open up for remediation.”

Torrence added that the Army Corps of Engineers has indicated demolition of the lone remaining structure on the section of the property, the massive power plant, remains on schedule for early fall.

“Approving the marketing plan is the first really tangible step that positions us well to move forward on redevelopment.  It is roughly two months early and we’ve done it sooner because we’ve had to because of the pressure we’re getting from inquires by developers and people who are interested in the property.” LaBarca said.

The EDA is working toward a mixed-use vision for the site’s north side 160-acre business park that would include a hotel-conference center, a culinary institute, Virginia wine and arts center and business technology center.