Impending Quantico Corporate Center property auction concerns Stafford leaders

STAFFORD — Stafford County officials are closely watching a land auction at Quantico Corporate Center.

Four commercial properties zoned for office space were supposed to have been auctioned to the highest bidder on April 20, but a title issue with one the properties forced the auction’s postponement.

The parcels totaling just over 40 acres are located in the rear of the Quantico Corporate Center development and front Interstate 95. Another adjacent property not up for auction is slated to become the future home of the Stafford County Technology Research Park.

Stafford acquired the property in 2012 with the hopes of developing a research park on the site, in conjunction with George Mason and Mary Washington universities. Six years later and no building, county officials are in the process of having the property’s value assessed.

The Board of Supervisors asked for the assessment so it could decide what to do with the parcel, whether to hold it, develop it, or sell it, according to Stafford County Deputy Administrator Mike Smith. The results of the assessment will be presented to the county’s infrastructure committee on June 5.

Smith said the auction of the four adjacent properties could affect the assessment of its property. The four parcels will be auctioned off to the highest bidder no matter what the price, according to Nichols Marketing and Auction Group, the firm behind the auction.

The auction will be held at the Courtyard by Marriott Stafford Quantico at 375 Corporate Drive at Quantico Corporate Center. A new date for the auction has not been announced.

The auction comes as one of the original developers of Quantico Corporate Center James Ashby Moncure, of Fredericksburg, was sentenced to 65 years in prison in 2015 for engaging in wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions.

Moncure was offered to repay $8.3 million in restitution to his victims that he solicited “for investment opportunities in exchange for short-term promissory notes offering returns ranging from 10 percent up to 25 percent,” according to federal prosecutors.

Elected leaders on Tuesday also pointed to a downturn in the office market in recent years.

“The need for commercial property space has just crashed,” said Stafford Rock Hill District Supervisor Wendy Maurer.

A federal contractor by day, Maurer said a lot of work that was once handled by workers at Quantico has been outsourced to other bases and states, to include Dahlgren Navy Base and South Carolina, respectively.