With 2006 at a close, residents in Lorton, Fairfax Station and Clifton find themselves in the midst of a changing landscape, as a school’s population is in flux, new developments opening and a small town reinventing itself once again.
When South County Secondary School opened in September 2005, parents and students were eager to become a part of a brand new school and community. In fact, so many parents and students wanted to be involved that the school is currently more than 500 students over capacity, prompting the Fairfax County School Board to conduct a boundary study to reduce its population.
The study, currently underway, is looking at the population of the school, which draws students from Lorton, Fairfax Station and parts of the Newington Forest community, to determine how the boundary could be changed to bring South County’s population closer to its capacity of 2,500 students. Parents have expressed their frustration with the School Board, both for not listening to their concerns about the initial boundary being too large, but also for possibly tearing apart a newly-formed community.
"I knew the school was going to be crowded, but I never thought it would be within a year's time," said Liz Bradsher, a Crosspointe resident and one of the people often
credited as working to negotiate the public-private partnership that got the school built earlier than scheduled on the school system's Capital Improvement Plan.
The boundary study has explored the options of removing all middle school students from South County and relocating them to either Lake Braddock Secondary to the west or Hayfield Secondary to the east, where most students at South County originally went to school. Other options have included moving students in seventh and ninth grades to Hayfield or Lake Braddock. A third option would move seventh, eighth and ninth grade students to Hayfield alone for two years, until the population at Lake Braddock adjusts after its renovations are completed. That option would also provide a two-year window to find ways to pay for a proposed middle school at South County, at which point the students who were removed would be brought back.
The secondary school parents aren't alone in their concerns about overcrowding: two of the three elementary schools in the area, Lorton Station and Silverbrook, are overcrowded as well, while a third school, Halley, has extra space.
In June 2006, the School Board voted to approve an administrative boundary change, which will reassign any new students who have moved into the boundary, or into a new house regardless of its location, to Halley Elementary.
The possiblity of moving up the construction of a planned Laurel Hill Elementary school by a few years has been discussed, with the school opening in 2009 instead of 2011, thanks to an additional $5 million in funding through the School Board’s Capital Improvement Program.
AS MORE FAMILIES moved into the Lorton area, it became apparent that the area lacked many amenities to meet their needs. In 2006, two new shopping centers opened, featuring grocery stores, restaurants and medical facilities.
“People are going to be able to stay in the community to get what they need,” said Supervisor Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon).
One new shopping center, the Lorton Marketplace on Lorton Road, opened a Shoppers Warehouse grocery store over the summer. A string of restaurants, including a Quizno’s, a Japanese steakhouse and Caribou Coffee, shortly thereafter.
In the Lorton Station neighborhood, residents there have their own shopping complex, modeled after the Reston Town Center and featuring a Subway, other restaurants and several salons. KSI, Inc. developed both shopping centers as well as a portion of the Spring Hill adult residence community adjacent to South County Secondary school. Pulte, another developer which helped build the school, was responsible for construction of the other half of the Spring Hill homes, which also opened in 2006.
The Lorton Marketplace center provides more than 135,000 square feet of shopping space, said Troy DeHaven, commercial project executive with KSI. In addition, the Lorton Town Center property also features a medical center on top of its 36,000 square feet of office and retail space. Another medical center will open at the Lorton Marketplace in 2007.
What sets the two properties apart is the inclusion of 26 condominium units that KSI has built at Lorton town Center. Another 256 units will be built by Engel Developers, DeHaven said.
Hyland said Lorton residents will also continue to see their community turn into "a vibrant place. Lorton is an exciting place to live. There's been a tremendous metamorphosis from what used to be there, and it's arriving at a rapid pace."
WHEN MOST OF the new residents of Lorton first arrived, the few roads in existence were quickly crowded. In 2006, a $15.9 million construction project drastically changed Lorton Road between Richmond Highway and Silverbrook Road, increasing the thoroughfare from one lane in each direction to six lanes across.
The new road, completed in July, features new traffic signals along the 1.3 mile stretch, including at the off-ramp from Southbound I-95 and the on-ramp for Northbound I-95. Previously, drivers hoping to make a left turn onto Lorton Road from the off-ramp had to wait long stretches of time for the traffic on the busy street to stop before crossing the road.
Dudley Howard, Fairfax Assistant Administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation for the Lorton Road Project, said residents were happy to see the project underway.
"This whole area was a swamp three years ago," he said, driving past where the new Lorton Marketplace shopping center now stands. "There was no high school on Silverbrook when we started. There were no townhouses. I've never seen a place build up like this corridor has in Northern Virginia."
"When we started, there was a small bridge over the
(Pohick) river and the road was very congested,” said Sanjeev Suri, another VDOT engineer. "The inconvenience and pain people have suffered here will be worth it when the road is opened."
A LITTLE NORTH of Lorton, another major roadway isn’t moving at all.
Despite the Army’s plans to place some 18,000 employees on the Engineer Proving Ground as part of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) changes to Fort Belvoir, no completion date is in sight for a 2-mile segment of the Fairfax County Parkway.
Last fall, U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-11) and VDOT Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer met in U.S. Sen. John Warner’s (R-Va.) office to talk with Army representatives about the completion of the road, a vital piece of infrastructure for the mainly vacant EPG.
The ground, owned by the Army, cannot be turned over to VDOT for a road to be built until it passes standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The impasse concerns whether the Army would be willing to agree to build the road itself.
“If the Army would agree to build the road, VDOT would turn over the $86 million set aside for it to be used so long as the Army paid in any additional costs,” said Gerry Connolly (D-At-large), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Once the road was completed, VDOT would assume control of the road and maintain it like all other roadways in the state, he said.
All sides agree that the road is necessary for any successful development at the EPG. No agreement is in place, however, as to who will build the road or when work might begin.
An added wrench in the plan is the original design of the road was not meant to accommodate the 18,000 new employees that would use the road.
The initial plans for the road were designed for 3,000 to 4,000 jobs at the EPG, Homer said.
In fact, the change is so dramatic, a traffic study is currently underway to determine if the parkway has to be redesigned, which would further delay the project, Homer said.
In a written statement released a few months ago, Army spokesman David Foster said the Army is working with state agencies to "complete a Memorandum of Agreement and other supporting documents that will facilitate the transfer and provide written assurances that the Army will provide remediation for any additional contamination that might be detected once the Commonwealth begins construction."
In other words, the Army is not able or is unwilling to build the road, but would rather transfer the EPG to VDOT and let them complete the parkway.
WHEN A SEVERE rainstorm hit Fairfax County in late June, the Acacia Lodge Number 16 in Clifton was devastated by flooding. The entire first floor suffered extensive water damage, forcing all paneling and carpeting to be removed. Water rose nearly 21 inches on the outside of the building, which backs up to Pope’s Head Creek on the edge of town.
The lodge, a Freemasons Temple, was originally built as a mill and was located closer to the creek by a team of horses in 1920, said William Baumbach, a member of the lodge that has been spearheading the reconstruction and renovation effort since July.
Ideally, Baumbach and his fellow Masons hope to renovate the building, but in order to do so, they’ll have to find a way to finance the entire project themselves. The lodge was denied any financial aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and estimates for the work might be close to $100,000.
If the temple is to be restored, Baumbach said they will first have to raise the building several feet to prevent similar flood damage in the future. When the temple was moved, it was settled on a small crawl space without a proper, poured foundation.
"If we make any cosmetic changes to the outside of the building, we'll have to go through the Architectural Review Board here in town to make sure we use the right kind of windows and the right style of wall," Baumbach said, as the building is listed as number 58 of the 62 contributing structures to the town’s Historic Registry.
"We need to put in a real foundation because we're slowly
sinking," said Scott Call, another Mason, who added that the building may need to be raised as much as four feet.
CLIFTON FAMILIES came together last spring to help install new playground equipment in the town’s park. Volunteers spent several hours laying down wood chips around a new swing set, large green train and other toys.
New landscaping will be installed in the new year, as the community is working to raise the $40,000 to $50,000 needed to purchase the greenery and repair some of the older playground equipment that was taken into storage before the renovation began.
“We’re working to raise money so we can renovate three pieces of equipment that were here for decades,” including a see-saw shaped like a watermelon and a wooden Ford truck, said Trish Robertson, a former Town Council member who has been organizing the renovation.
New picnic tables will also be installed once the money has been raised, Robertson said.
After nearly 30 years of serving the town, Clifton mayor Jim Chesley stepped down in 2006, and when elections were conducted in May, an entirely different Town Council was elected.
Some of the Council members, like Wayne Nickum and Pat Layden, had served before, while others, like Lane Johnston and Mike Anton, are newcomers to local politics. Rounding out the board are Chuck Rusniak and new mayor Tom Peterson.