Richmond Times-Dispatch

Article date: October 01, 2006 

Fields bloom near Superfund site

30 acres of former Avtex property now site of soccer games in Front Royal area

By Calvin R. Trice

In recent years, local children have played soccer wherever league organizers could find a field.  Some fields were reasonably flat and grassy, others not so much.

So when the chance came for the soccer league to have a permanent home, organizers jumped at the chance even though the property is next to one of the nation’s worst pollution sites.

The former Avtex Fibers industrial complex is undergoing a $100 million rehabilitation and the Skyline Soccerplex that opened last month is one of the community’s most hopeful signs of renewal.

Although Avtex owned the site, the 30-acre soccer complex is on land that wasn’t contaminated or used for industrial purposes, an official with the rehabilitation project said.

Graded and flattened and planted with new grass, the land offers the nomadic Front Royal Soccer Association and its 500 young athletes a place to play where the ball rolls predictably, said Lyle Turybury, the association’s president.

“The fields have been perfect so far,” Turybury said.  “The ball dribbles the way it’s supposed to.  It doesn’t hit a rock and bounce away.”

After a year of construction and $723,000 from local governments and donations, Skyline opened for play Sept. 9.

The fields were one of the top priorities for transforming the site of an environmental disaster into a source of pride and economic development for Front Royal and Warren County.

Cleanup and renovation for the entire 440-acre Avtex site is scheduled for completion in 2009.  Federal, state and private concerns are working with Front Royal and Warren County leaders to turn the site into mixed-use development with a nature conservation area and development-generating businesses.

The soccer complex is one of the first efforts of the redevelopment project. Initial plans were for a seven-field complex that could attract tournaments and collegiate games to boost the local economy.

However, the grounds proved more challenging to flatten and get ready for sport than initially thought, and the project met with numerous delays, said Daniel Lenz, director of the Warren County Department of Parks and Recreation.

The plans were scaled back to make four fields playable as soon as possible, Lenz said.

“We wanted to home in on getting the fields ready for our local association,” he said.  The county still plans to construct three more fields and attract more soccer from outside the area, he said.

The backdrop to the new regulation fields is a place that was once the area’s main economic force– but also a world class polluter.

The plant opened in 1940 and made rayon for the military and space program while contaminating the air, ground and the Shenandoah River with cancer-causing toxins.

The state government forced it to close in 1989 for about 2,000 environmental violations.  The Avtex site became known as one of the most polluted spots on the federal Superfund National Priorities List.

Most of the cleanup is being funded by Chicago-based FMC Corp., which owned the plant from 1963 to 1976.  The company that last owned it, Avtex Fibers Inc., went bankrupt soon after closure.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cleaning up the debris from the implosion last year of the eight-story power house, the last major structure on the site, said John Torrence, the cleanup site manager for FMC.

“But once the rubble is cleaned up, they have to go and [take out] the foundation structures, which are quite significant,” Torrence said.

The Front Royal and Warren County Economic Development Authority is working on plans to attract business to a 165-acre business park called Royal Phoenix.

One of the first two tenants has gone out of business. Another is expected to come in by the end of next year, said Paul J. Carroll, the authority’s executive director.

The plan is to concentrate on hospitality, wine, culinary and alternative-energy business clusters.  But a months-long study scheduled for completion in March will give an objective sense of what may or may not work for the area, Carroll said.

The Avtex site might not be the economic powerhouse it once was for the area, but local people are upbeat because they have control over its fate, he said.

“We’re really able as [a development authority] and as a community to be proactive on where we go from here,” Carroll said.  “It’s a nice place to be.”