Plans to put an artists colony with showrooms, studios and residences in the 80-year-old brick buildings of the former Lorton prison got a boost July 26 when the Board of Supervisors formally signed off on the project. Supervisors approved a rezoning application brought forth by the nonprofit Lorton Arts Foundation to approve the Laurel Hill Arts Center on 56.04 acres of the former prison site, which housed inmates from the Washington, D.C., Department of Corrections until 2001.
The arts center would be housed in 30 of the old prison buildings, built during the Progressive Era as a model correctional facility. Plans call for artists studios, galleries, a sculpture garden, a 350-seat black-box theater, another 300-seat performing arts space, a music barn with 300 indoor seats and 500 outdoor seats, a museum, restaurants and about 40 units of housing for resident and visiting artists.
An old baseball diamond with bleachers would remain as part of the project, but fences and guard towers that are deemed too unstable to remain would be torn down.
"This is wonderful. It's a huge milestone," Tina Leone, executive director of the Laurel Hill Arts Center, said of the rezoning.
NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS have been pushing for the arts center since before the prison was closed. To them, the arts center has come to symbolize the blossoming of the southern part of the county, which for decades was dominated by the prison.
"The workhouse arts center offers the rare opportunity to transform a once-dominant symbol of decline and despair into a vibrant center of progress, culture, economic progress and community health," said Neal McBride at the Board meeting, representing several neighborhood organizations. "Lorton will no longer be remembered as a notorious place to escape from, but instead as a glorious place to escape to."
If all goes well, the project will break ground next spring, Leone said. The center would open 18 months after that.
"It obviously needs to be preserved and renovated, but the renovations are not so extensive that it will take years to open," she said. "We can get artists in there working in studios relatively quickly."
Right now, the land is owned by the county, but the arts center has an agreement with the Board of Supervisors under which it would sign a symbolic 99-year lease for $1 a year. The entire project would cost between $75 million and $100 million and be partly financed by county bonds. Private contributions and foundation grants would cover the rest. Leone said the project has already benefited from about $600,000 in in-kind help from private businesses. Architects, land-use planners and lawyers have all volunteered their time.
On Aug. 2, County Executive Anthony Griffin recommended that the Board direct $5.3 million toward improvements to buildings on the old prison grounds. Leone said about $2.8 million of that will go to preserve the buildings that are on the site of the future arts center.
"That $2.8 million will keep the buildings stabilized," she said. "I don't think they'll make it through another winter without being stabilized."
THE ARTS CENTER is one of several new uses for the old prison. Besides the arts center, parts of the Lorton site are being turned into a park, a high school, a golf course and other uses that have yet to be determined.
The Board of Supervisors decided to fast-track the arts center because of concerns over the state of the buildings. The transformation of the prison into the Laurel Hill Arts Center is "almost utopian," said Supervisor Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon), adding it is one of the most exciting projects he has been involved in in his 17 years on the Board.
"Without a doubt, it is the most incredible opportunity that we have to have an artistic center on the prison site," he said.