Prince William to hear rezoning case for mystery logistics center

Who is going to operate a new logistics center that is slated to be built on nine acres of land on Wellington Road in Gainesville?

On Tuesday, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors will vote to rezone over eight acres of land from heavy industrial to industrial/transportation use. The property is located on Wellington, near the intersection of University Drive.

An arrangement has been made by the owners of these parcels to build a logistics center that will be designed by Progressive AE, an architecture and engineering firm with offices located in Michigan and North Carolina, county officials tell us.

This comes after approval from the county’s Planning Commission who approved the rezoning order at its July 1 meeting. The owners of the pair of parcels listed in county documents are L & D NOVA, LLC, 350 South Washington, LLC, The Shawn D. Adler Trust and Superior Properties, Inc. Superior Properties is a subsidiary of Superior Paving which is in Gainesville.

Omitted from county documents is what, or who will operate this new logistics center.

According to Prince William County Assistant Planning Director Stephen Donohoe, the county doesn’t require information on who will be operating on the property that’s being rezoned.

“The Planning Office worked with the applicant’s land use representatives in the progression of this rezoning case. The ownership information and signature is required at the time of rezoning submission, however, the end-user information is not, and is often not provided. This, in part, is because end-users often change and the County does not regulate this. The focus of the Planning Office review is to analyze the proposed land use and offset its impacts.”

The applicants are making several monetary contributions to the County Board of Supervisors as proffers for the zoning ordinance change.

For example, a spill contingency plan will be in place in the event of an incident with chemicals, fuels, solvents, or hazardous materials, county documents state.

Additionally, for the potential environmental impact, the applicants will be making contributions of $75 per acre which with over 8.8 acres would come to a little over $660 for water quality monitoring, drainage improvements and/or stream restoration projects. The reason for this listed in county documents is that there is a 60-foot wide conservation area between the two parcels.

Another contribution will be for fire and safety in which the applicants will pay the County $0.61 per square foot of gross building floor area for any new building on the property to be used for fire and rescue services.

The final decision will come during the evening session of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, which begins at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 21.