The Northern Virginia Daily

July 18, 2011

Construction of connector road could start soon

By Ben Orcutt

Local officials are hopeful that a road across the Avtex Superfund site connecting Main Street to Kendrick Lane can be constructed within a year.

On Wednesday, interim Town Manager Steven M. Burke and Councilman N. Shae Parker met with Jennifer McDonald, executive director of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority, and Patricia S. Wines, chairwoman of the EDA.

Representatives of FMC Corp., the responsible partner of the Avtex Superfund site, now known as Royal Phoenix, also were present at Wednesday's meeting.

"The sum of the meeting is that FMC and the EDA are comfortable with the town utilizing an existing roadway along the eastern side of the site that will help reduce the construction time and the cost associated with putting in a temporary road from Main Street to Kendrick Lane," Burke said Thursday.

Burke said the EDA is going to contact the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to try to obtain a letter of "no further interest in that location."

"We hope that that will be one to two months to get the clearance on the actual area," Burke added. "Once we have the clearance, the town will start working to make the connections to Main Street and Kendrick Lane as well as do some further improvement, patchwork paving and some smoothing out of some of the sharper curves to facilitate a temporary road to be opened up. And we hope that all of this will be realized within about a year."

The temporary road would start at the intersection of Kerfoot Avenue and Main Street and head north to Kendrick Lane, Burke said.

"The construction would start hopefully within two months once we get the clearance from the EPA that they have no further interest in the area for the road to be constructed within," Burke added.

In addition to relieving congestion, the road will also improve access to Warren County's new skate park and the adjacent Skyline Soccerplex, Burke said.

"It would be a temporary two-lane road because we would only be looking at a temporary easement for its construction," Burke added. "That results from the EDA not knowing the ultimate layout of the site for development. The developer may want to have this road pulled further into the site to help access the industry and commercial ventures that go in at the site."

The road would be about three-quarters of a mile in length. Burke said the town is in the process of getting more information about how much work will be required to construct the road, but hopes are it will cost the town between $50,000 and $100,000 to build.