The Northern Virginia Daily

Article date: May 7, 2005

Officials say drop ‘Avtex’ from site

By: William C. Flook

With the hope of bringing new development to a Superfund site, officials want to make the word “Avtex” history.

The name, left over from the last company to own the giant rayon plant before it closed in 1989, would be used as a “historic reference,” said Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Paul Carroll.

“It’s an important part of the history of the site,” he said, but noted the company was only one of the three to own the plant since its 1940 opening: American Viscose, FMC Corp., and Avtex Fibers Inc.

American Viscose and Avtex Fibers Inc.  have since gone belly up, and FMC was charged with a large portion of the property’s cleanup after it was declared an EPA Superfund site in 1986.  Still, the approximately 440-acre cut of land is commonly referred to as the Avtex Fibers site.  The EPA’s Web site also uses that name.

“When you do a Google search on Avtex, what immediately comes up is a Superfund site,”Carroll said.

He said Avtex will be relegated to history, which will be preserved in an interpretive site in the basement of the EDA administration building.  The Shenandoah Center for Heritage and the Environment has been charged with collecting and preserving materials for that site.

The EDA is transitioning from cleanup of the once highly polluted land to redevelopment, with plans to convert it into a 160-acre business park, a 240-acre conservancy park, and a 30-acre soccer complex on which officials recently broke ground.  The tallest building left standing at the site, the boiler house, is slated to be demolished in September by the Army Corps of Engineers.

“Avtex is what it was in the past,” said EDA chairman John LaBarca.  “The last building comes down, and it’s kind of over.  Now we’re moving on to the future.”

Hence, the agency is using the new working title “Royal Phoenix” as part of an effort to attract a developer who would buy and develop the business park.  The developer would be ultimately responsible for naming the site, LaBarca said.

“Royal Phoenix is our attempt to move on,” he said.

Though the name Avtex represents a time of prosperity in the area, it also reflects a polluted site, LaBarca said.

“We want to put that Superfund behind us, so developers and people who are interested in putting money into the operation look at it differently too,” he said.