In July, Fairfax County acquired 2.32 acres of land located at 6318 Quander Road in the Mount Vernon District to preserve green space, allow for stream restoration for Quander Brook and act as a buffer between the existing community and the future Kings Crossing community business area at Fairview Drive.
“It’s an opportunity,” said Mount Vernon Supervisor Dan Storck, whose office had been working on the effort for nearly a year.
The Quander property is adjacent to the county-owned Fairchild property and provides access to the land from Quander Road. Both the Quander and the Fairchild properties are undergoing county-funded stream restoration, and once completed would serve to provide a green network of new public parks, green spaces and recreation facilities connected to natural resources. Storck noted a plan for a park in this area, but this is in an early development stage and has not been made official.
Fairfax County paid $650,000 for the property, Storck said, and it will remain undeveloped for now. Would it ever be developed? “Not what I would expect,” Storck said.
This network also supports the community’s efforts through the Embark planning initiative to re-envision revitalization along the Richmond Highway Corridor, with new transportation systems, and to move away from the 1950’s style of road patterns and shopping centers that Storck has pointed out throughout this process. “The project aligns closely with our goals of Embark Richmond Highway, which calls for increased density around the Community Business Centers to support Bus Rapid Transit and demonstrates the Richmond Highway corridor’s development pivoting to the 21st century,” said Storck.
The property on Quander Road belonged to the Quander family for more than 100 years and carries with it the legacy of the Quanders as a pre-eminent family in the history of Fairfax County. The Quander family is believed to be one of the oldest documented families of African ancestry in present day America, some of whom are descendants of slaves of George Washington, such as Nancy Carter Quander who was 11 years old in 1799 and lived with her mother, Suckey Bay, a field-worker as noted in information from George Washington’s Mount Vernon.