Woodbridge homeless must leave whether or not $37 million parking garage goes here

WOODBRIDGE — A new $37 million parking garage will go a long way to help relieve a commuter parking shortage along Interstate 95 in Prince William County.

It’s a project the county is moving ahead with after winning federal funds to construct the garage. It just needs to find a spot to build it.

At least two of the three potential sites for the garage is now privately owned. One of the sites, the “Parsons property,” is home to a contingent of homeless that live on the wooded area, in tents. They’ve been given until March 1 to leave or face trespassing violations.

A commuter parking garage in the Woodbridge area has been talked about for years. A plan to build a parking garage across from Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, next to what would have been a new Potomac Nationals Minor League Baseball stadium, fell through last year when the team couldn’t shore up the necessary public backing the stadium’s construction.

The commuter parking shortage cropped up seven years ago after I reported Potomac Mills mall would reduce by 75 percent the number of commuter parking spaces at the Woodbridge shopping mall that had for years been available for carpoolers and bus riders. Since then, there has been a shortage of parking for slugs, and for those who ride OmniRide commuter buses.

Location

The official name of the project is the “Neabsco Parking Garage,” and it will be built along Interstate 95 in Woodbridge. It will be the first parking garage to be built by the Prince William County Government.

Officials narrowed the site search for the new garage from 10 possible locations to three, to include the Parsons property, which sits on the narrow portion of Telegraph Road behind the Potomac Festival Shopping Center and near the OmniRide Transit Center at 14700 Potomac Mills Road.

This site is owned by Parsons Potomac Mills Limited Partnership, founded by Kenneth Parsons, a longtime land and business owner, and the operator of Parsons Farms on Route 234 at Independent Hill.

A large group of homeless have set up tent camps here. Signs posted on Jan. 25 demand the homeless campers vacate the site by March 1, or be subject to trespassing laws.

Dave Johnson, a spokesman for the Parsons Potomac Mills Limited Partnership, said Parsons is looking to develop the commercial property in the best manner that fits the property.

Johnson declined to comment when asked if his organization was in negotiations with the county about building a parking garage on their land.

He said something would be built on the property, whether it’s a parking garage or a new commercial structure, for which the land is zoned. Parsons wishing to develop the property is part of the reason why the homeless are being forced out.

A second site is a property near an “at home” decor store, which replaced an old K-Mart store two years ago. The decor store, like it’s predecessor, has a largely underutilized surface parking lot. Its location next to the highway is ideal.

Both of these sites are located inside the Neabsco Magisterial District, while a third site also being considered is located in the nearby Woodbridge District.

Negotiations are ongoing between the property owners and county officials. The locations of the three sites have yet to be announced to the public.

A $300,000, three-month study of the three finalist sites will help determine the land’s ability to support the structure, and test bores will be drilled to examine the soil at each location. It’ll be paid for by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

The study should be completed by summer, said Prince William County Transportation Department Director Rick Canizales.

Recurring cleanup costs

Parsons not only wants homeless campers on his land without permission gone because of trespassing issues, it’s also because of the recurring clean-up bills, said Johnson.

Parsons has received multiple violations form the county for litter on the wooded site, and he adds Parsons has spent tens of thousands of dollars cleaning up the site over the years.

“We’ve had everything from clothes, mattresses, sofas, TVs, to household trash,” said Johnson.

Johnson said his partner Parsons, 85, wants to develop the property and not leave that burden to his heirs. He said he’s working with Prince William County’s Office of Social Services that will work to relocate the homeless.

Prince William County Occoquan District Supervisor Ruth Anderson said she supports social services in their effort to relocate the homeless. She also sympathizes with the property owner.

“Can you imagine if that was your property? Nobody is helping them pay the garbage collection bills,” said Anderson.

Joyce Entremont works with Streetlight Outreach Ministries, a non-profit in Woodbridge that regularly visits the homeless camps with food and supplies. About 35 to 40 men live in the camps on the Parsons property, she said.

“Space in the woods around here is getting tight,” said Entremont. “I don’t know where they’re going to go.”

New county homeless assistance program

Prince William County officials recognize the homeless problem and the need to provide more services to get more people off the streets. However, they’re not there yet.

A new program “No Wrong Door” is being developed within the county’s office of social services. The idea is to create a hotline that someone can call or a center where someone can go to request assistance.

The goal is for it to be a “one call does it all” resource so users of the service can get help on multiple levels.

“We need to be able to determine how we can help them, if we have the means to help, or if we need to put them in touch with state or federal agencies,” said Prince William County spokesman Jason Grant.

Right now, homeless can receive help at a number of nearby area places in Woodbridge like the Hilda Barg Homeless Prevention Center on Route 1, The Bill Mehr Drop-In Center next to the OmniRide Transit Center, and a 47-bed overnight shelter near the corner of Route 1 and Opitz Boulevard operated by Streetlight Ministries.

It’s unclear when the “No Wrong Door” program will be up to and running. Grant says the project doesn’t have a timeline yet, and that social service is now in the process of identifying which agencies in which to partner for the program.

Cost of the new garage

The commuter parking garage is expected to cost $37 million and will be paid for with federal funds. Prince William County won the money through the state’s Smart Scale process, which evaluates which individual transportation projects eligible for funding based on need, and the potential to eliminate traffic congestion.

The project was once attached to a new baseball stadium that failed that last year failed to win approval from the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. The state had planned to build the parking garage at the proposed stadium site at Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center, between Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center and Wegmans. Commuters would have used the garage on weekdays and minor league baseball fans on nights and weekends.

With the stadium deal now off the table, the parking garage will be used solely by commuters. For this reason, Transportation Director Rick Canizales said it needs to be conveniently located near Interstate 95 and the E-ZPass Express Lanes.

Access to and from the new garage

Users of the new garage, if built on the Parsons property, or at or near the “at home” store,  have ample access to the E-ZPass Express Lanes.

For drivers headed north on I-95 in the mornings, they’ll be able to enter the highway at Dale and Opitz boulevards and use a northbound collector lane that provides access to a ramp leading to the E-ZPass lanes.

In the afternoons, drivers will be able to exit the E-ZPass lanes at a flyover before Dale Boulevard, placing them back into the main lanes of I-95 just before getting off the highway at Exit 156 for Dale Boulevard and Potomac Mills mall.

If the Parsons property is chosen as the site of the new garage, one thing to keep in mind is the narrow portion of Teleƒgraph Road on which it sits, between the OmniRide Transit Center and Opitz Boulevard. The street doesn’t have pavement markings and is heavily used by OmniRide commuter buses going to and from the transit center.

In the mornings, drivers would use Telegraph Road, then turn right onto Opitz Boulevard and then take a ramp to enter I-95. In the afternoons, drivers would get off I-95 at Exit 156, stay right to follow signs to the OmniRide Transit Center, and at the end of the exit ramp turn left onto Potomac Mills Road, then left on Telegraph to get back to the garage.