The Northern Virginia Daily

Article date: August 27, 2005

Avtex site planning continues

By: William C. Flook

A firm selected to develop the conservancy park at the Avtex Superfund site says it will be coordinating its design with the safeguards installed at the once highly-toxic property.

“We want to make sure that the environmental protections that have been put into place are maintained while building a conservancy park on-site that everyone will be proud of ,” said Troy Kincer, regional manager with Hayes, Seay, Mattern and Mattern’s civil and environmental division office in Roanoke.

Kincer said the firm will pay a visit to the approximately 440-acre site next week to compare environmental data with the master plan laid out for the 240-acre park.

Once the redevelopment of the site is complete, the conservancy park will sit alongside a 160-acre business park and 30-acre soccer complex.  The land once was the home of an enormous rayon plant, which was declared an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in 1986 and closed in 1989.

The design of the conservancy park will need to take into account numerous capped basins, according to John Torrence, Avtex site manager for FMC, a company charged with a large portion of the site’s cleanup.

Trails cannot be built over the 20-some basins containing a variety of substances, Torrence said, and no digging can be done over the basins.  A future wastewater plant will also need to be addressed, he said.

The conservancy park is expected to follow the guidelines of the master plan, which lays out vegetation, animal life, the creation of trails, informational kiosks, and other features, according to Paul Carroll, executive director of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority.

HSMM will try to incorporate all of the master plan features into the park, said Kincer.  It’s too early to say where or how big each will be, he said.

Within the next 30 days, HSMM will have a draft of a revised master plan to present to the EDA, he said.

Kincer said he doesn’t see any upcoming roadblocks in the park’s development.

“I don’t see any obstacles at this point,” he said.   “We’re just moving down the path in a logical fashion.”

The firm also intend so make the conservancy park compatible with the accompanying business park, according to Kincer.

“We believe that one will enhance the other,” he said.  “You will want to have your business in that area because you’ve got that conservancy park next door.”

The EDA has selected New York-based North American Realty Advisory Services to market the business park, with the goal of eventually selling it to a developer. A number of interested groups have visited the Avtex site, Carroll has said.