SPOTSYLVANIA BOARD OKS HARRISON CROSSING CENTER

09/14/05 - Route 3 west of Five-Mile Fork to get long awaited neighborhood shopping beginning 2007
 
By GEORGE WHITEHURST/The Free Lance-Star

Spotsylvania supervisors cleared the way last night for construction of a Home Depot and Giant Food store in the western end of the county.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to grant the Fredericksburg's Silver Cos.' request to rezone 93 acres at State Route 3 and Harrison Road. The board also voted to move 53 acres of the tract into the county's primary growth zone.

Silver plans to build a 550,000-square-foot shopping center, dubbed Harrison Crossing, on the site. It is slated for completion in 2009. In addition to the Home Depot and Giant, the center will contain a variety of smaller shops and possibly some restaurants.

Moving the site into the growth zone will allow Harrison Crossing to use county utilities.

To win final approval from the supervisors, Silver has agreed to spend more than $7.8 million on transportation improvements, including widening to eight lanes the part of Route 3 in front of the shopping center. Silver also will bear all of the costs of widening Harrison Road between Route 3 and Gordon Road.

Other proffers include a 50-foot landscaped buffer intended to help the project blend into the scenery adjoining the nearby Chancellorsville battlefield.

That didn't impress Onorato, who complained that the buffer is 10 feet less than the distance between a pitcher's mound and home plate.

Silver Vice President Chris Hornung retorted that the county's development guidelines require only a 10-foot buffer for such a project.

Hornung then once again pitched Harrison Crossing as a tool for reducing traffic congestion around Spotsylvania Mall and Central Park.

He described it as a "neighborhood shopping center" rather than a "destination shopping center" that would draw traffic from the eastern end of the county.

He also predicted that Harrison Crossing will annually generate as much as $4.7 million in tax revenue for the county.

Those arguments didn't impress Spotsylvania resident Nancy Cole, who accused Silver and other developers of assaulting the county.

"They come in and rape our beautiful towns, turning them into asphalt jungles, unbearable to live in," she said.

But Mary Tibbatts, who works as a real-estate consultant and lives about a mile from the Harrison Crossing site, praised Silver for its innovative approach.

"I'm quite impressed with the proposal," she said. "It will be done beautifully. The sheer fact that it will be done with road improvements at the developer's expense, is a gift to our community."

Date published: 9/14/2005
 
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