MANASSAS — Leaders put the brakes on a proposed redevelopment study for 20 acres of land south of Downtown Manassas.
Councilman Mark Aveni on Thursday told the city’s land use committee that redeveloping the land behind the Manassas Museum, between Buckner Road to Prince William Street, into a mixed historical district with urban single-family homes “could be the most significant development in Manassas since the railroad came through.”
He urged the committee to ask the city planning and zoning staff to review his proposal and come up with recommendations on how to redevelop it.
His suggestion comes nearly a year after a developer Torti Gallas + Partners and current city council candidate Rex Parr urged the same committee to explore redeveloping the area. The development firm offered to create a master plan for the area for $25,000.
The city’s downtown sector plan revised in 2006 calls for single-family detached homes in the area, similar to what sits at nearby Hastings Marketplace, with rear-facing garages and alleyways. The area is within walking distance to Virginia Railway Express and Downtown, making it ripe for urban redevelopment, Aveni argued.
The city will build a new $24.5 million police station, dubbed its public safety center, along Grant Avenue across from the proposed redevelopment area.
It has also budgeted $7 million on street improvements on Grant Avenue, between Lee Avenue and Wellington Road. The plans are to remake the street into a boulevard, reduce the number of lanes from four to two, and underground utilities along the route.
The design portion of the project is underway. The project is slated to begin in 2020, and when complete, the south portion of Grant Avenue “will look as pretty as the northern side” of the street north of Lee Avenue, officials said.
Aveni urged his fellow council members to move forward on a plan to redevelop the 20-acre site in hopes that some of the costs to remake Grant Avenue could be picked up by a developer.
Councilman Ian Lovejoy, chairman of the committee agreed. “We can bake-in south the south landscaping into the development,” he said.
Officials said the city, by state law, could not force a developer to pay for the entire Grant Avenue improvement plan as outlined in its current capital improvement plan, however, it could ask a developer to pay for frontage improvements along the avenue facing any future development.
But, with a new police and fire stations all in the works, Councilwoman Sheryl Bass pumped brakes on any such study.
“I feel like this a runaway train when we have other projects in the mix,” she said, citing the city’s planning staff already has too much on its plate to take on yet another project review.
Councilman Mark Wolfe urged leaders to continue its ongoing “community conversations” series with residents and ask them if they would like to see that area redeveloped, then move forward with a study.
“It’s not quite soup yet,” said Wolfe. “Let’s come back to this later.”
The 20 acres is also known as Holmes Heights and is largely owned by Holmes Smith who sits on the city’s Economic Development Authority and also attended Thursday night’s meeting.
“It seems you’re interested in spending money on developing South Grant Avenue with one lane on each side a boulevard in the middle, but you don’t seem to be interested in redevelopment on 20 acres,” Aveni added. “We’ve spent money on studies for roundabouts, so why not this?”
