Stafford Soccer supports Aquia Town Center field house; Owner pleads for continued tax breaks

STAFFORD — The idea to build an indoor recreation center at Aquia Town Center has its supporters.

Stafford Soccer General Manager Barry Hill said he’s got 4,000 members, from children to adults, who play the sport that would not only utilize the facility but would also participate in two-day tournaments that would draw in hundreds from far away.

“These are the same people who stop and have lunch in existing restaurants, and shop here,” said Hill.

Most of the soccer club’s membership comes from what Hill called the county’s northeastern quadrant — from Quantico, and then from points south to Courthouse Road. All of them are looking for a place to play.

“The demand for indoor soccer increases every season. We can’t keep up with demand in the little venues that we have,” he added.

Talk of an indoor sports facility comes as Stafford County leaders are considering rescinding a 2015 offer to the owners of property Mosaic Realty Partners, giving them up to $6.5 million in tax incentives to encourage development at the site.

Those tax breaks only kick in if something — anything — is built on the site to generate tax revenues. To date, nothing has been built so no one is out any money.

A plan to lure a significant anchor store like Harris Teeter and a second “confidential” tenant have both failed, according to Mosaic Realty Partners founder Eron Sodie.

“We were well-intentioned when we went into this,” Sodie told the Board of Supervisors. A harsh retail climate has made it tough to get anything done, he said, and he estimates Mosaic is losing $800,000 a year in lease payments that aren’t rolling in.

“We have skin in the game. This is real for us… we ask the county to work with us,” Sodie continued, pleading with Supervisors.

Stafford officials in a public request for proposals made their intentions known that the county wants a 40,000-square foot field house to be built somewhere in the community.

The county government wants to enter into a public-private partnership and is willing to provide financing for the deal, fund up to a half million dollars in first-year operations costs, and provide an annual $234,000 annual rent payment so that a county-funded gymnastics program could use the space. All it needs is a private firm similar to the one that operates the county’s Jeff Rouse Swimming Center to manage it.

Residents who live in the adjacent Aquia Harbour neighborhood, a private community of 7,000 people, want something to be rebuilt at the old shopping mall at the confluence of Interstate 95, and Routes 1 and 610 It’s been dormant for nearly 15 years after shops closed and then razed to make way for what people thought would be a revamped town center with new shops, offices, restaurants, and homes have never materialized.

“Everyday I drive past that wasteland after spending my money, instead, in Fredricksburg or Woodbridge,” Aquia Harbour resident Lydia Leap told Supervisors.

“Our residents get pretty worked up about the town center. They remember a time when it was a convenient and vibrant place of commerce, and because of the last 13 years they have to look at it every single day,” said Trish Harmon, Aquia Harbour Property Owners Association General Manager.

Harmon encouraged Supervisors to “vet any idea that could lead to development,” and to keep the tax incentive program in place. So did a former member of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors who pushed so hard for it before stepping down from the Board in 2017.

“When people ask you, ‘What are you doing for that mess at Aquia Harbour?’ I want you to say you are doing everything that you can,” said former Aquia District Supervisor Paul Milde, who called the failure to redevelop the town center the biggest failure of his political career. “If you take this plan away, you cannot say that … Please don’t pull the rug out from Mosaic.”

The Board of Supervisors huddled behind closed doors to discuss the matter. Ultimately, it decided to kick the can down the road another 60 days before making a final decision on whether or not to rescind the tax breaks.

No elected leader made a single comment about the development or the situation following the deliberation. Instead, the following day, the body decided to use the county government communications office to speak through a written press release.

“The Board is extremely concerned that there has been no significant development of the site or additional tax revenue generated,” the statement read.

When reached over the weekend, multiple Supervisors declined to comment on the matter.

One person spoke in favor of jettisoning the tax incentive plan.

“Keeping tax incentives is favoritism,” said Paul Waldowski, a regular at the Stafford Board meetings and a past candidate for county office.