WOODBRIDGE -- A $36 million renovation of Northern Virginia Community College's Woodbridge campus is expected to start in fall 2020. The Seefeldt Building will be updated to include centralized student services, new classroom spaces, and updated infrastructure.
The renovation, which will take approximately 18-24 months, will provide badly-needed updates and changes to the nearly 50-year-old building.
The Seefeldt Building is the campus' main instructional and administrative building, and the majority of classrooms are located there. With it being out of commission, space is going to be a bit tight.
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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY -- With Silicon Valley thousands of miles away, where can a tech startup go for advice and investment?
One local app developer says it’s a great idea to stay right here and take advantage of the area’s surprisingly supportive tech community.
Natalia Micheletti, the co-founder of the workplace app Engaged, has spent the last year getting her app up and running with fellow co-founder, Tim Hylton. Natalia told Potomac Local that experts in the Greater Prince William region have given them invaluable support and networking opportunities that came as a surprise to her and Tim.
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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY -- As Prince William County Public Schools experiences its smallest enrollment increase in recent history, plans for a fifteenth high school and two new middle schools have been nixed from the school division's Capital Improvements Program.
The Capital Improvements Program (CIP) covers 2019 to 2028, and budgets projects to meet demands driven by enrollment growth and student population shifts.
The fifteenth high school was originally planned for 2027, with a capacity for 2,557 and a projected cost of $165.3 million. The two additional middle schools were planned for 2024 in the West-Linton Hall area and 2026 in an undisclosed area. These will be revisited in a future CIP.
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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY -- A Prince William County firm is leading the way on the cybersecurity battlefield. It’s ammunition -- a mastery in sensory artificial intelligence.
Manny Rivera founded RiVidium in 2008 and the company is at the forefront not only cybersecurity but also sensor security, developing secured communications with a deployed series of small sensors.
“If you’re on a battlefield, you will often need to deploy a sensor to detect movement and terrain. Cyber sensors are similar,” Rivera explained. “Once the sensor is away from you, they have to self-actualize and communicate with a network. When you deploy a sensor without knowledge, anyone else could tamper with it and input malicious information, and that’s where we come in. I developed a mechanism that resists that.
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MANASSAS — A potential solar farm project at Manassas Regional Airport is being put on hold, as staff continues to research options to keep it cost-effective.
The farm would be placed on a portion of property identified as a flood plain, which makes traditional development on it challenging.
“It’s unused property at this point,” said Richard Allabaugh, airport operations at Manassas Regional. “It wouldn’t be a worthy site for development as far as business goes, but it could certainly be identified for use with green energy.”
Solar farms — or photovoltaic power stations — are large installations of solar panels that absorb sunlight to generate electricity. They are considered eco-friendly, because they do not produce pollution and consume far less water than traditional power plants.
In January the airport spoke with Virginia Solar, a local vendor, to gather information on costs and the amount of capital investment needed. However, airport officials have since concluded that the project would not be cost-effective.
“We have put the issue on hold,” Juan Rivera, airport director of Manassas Regional, told Potomac Local. “It was our hope that we would save money on our electric bill, but that does not look to be the case with our limited research.”
“We may look at alternative forms of energy savings, but as it stands, [Manassas Regional] would not have a lot to gain,” said Rivera.
Building projects like this is not an easy or inexpensive task. There are grants and state financial assistance programs that can be applied for, but they do not entirely cover the costs.
Over in Midland, the Virginia Department of Aviation approved an initiative for a green terminal at Warrenton-Fauquier Airport. Working with the state, airport officials developed 10,000 square feet of eco-friendly design with two floors and a comfortable passenger area.
The terminal incorporates many green elements including solar panels, geothermal HVAC, rainwater harvesting, high R-rated walls, thermal windows, and LED lighting.
“The main reason was to spur economic development in our county,” Dave Darrah, director of Warrenton-Fauquier Airport, told Potomac Local. “A viable airport with a suitable terminal that could provide services to companies was very important to us.”
“We wanted the building to meet the needs of our community not only for today, but for the next 50 years. We also wanted to incorporate the latest technology to keep costs down and be a friend to the environment,” said Darrah.
The project was five years in the making, all told, and included environmental assessments and special exception permit applications.
The Federal Aviation Administration covered 90 percent of entire site development costs. A total of 8 percent was provided by the state, and the other 2 percent came from the locality. The building itself was funded entirely by the state and locality. A local benefactor donated $1 million to the project as well.
“We’re very lucky,” said Darrah.
The building cost roughly $4.8 million, Darrah shared. A second phase is planned that will finish an access ramp and site development, which will cost another $2 million to $3 million.
Warrenton-Fauquier’s green terminal is on track to open this July. An August ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled to take place at the airport.
STAFFORD COUNTY -- Another winter storm is potentially on its way to cover the region in snow and ice mid-week, and schools in the area are looking to recoup lost days by using holidays and exam days.
“This year has set a precedent,” Thomas Nichols, chief secondary officer for Stafford County Public Schools (SCPS), told Potomac Local. “We usually don’t miss this many days before the end of the semester.”
For the 2018-19 school year, SCPS has already used up eight days for inclement weather closings -- six full days and six two-hour delays. They only have ten snow days built into the calendar, which they calculate by breaking the days into hours.
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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — The soon to be former home of the Potomac Nationals could be transformed into a multifunctional community center with shopping outlets, recreational facilities, and housing developments in the near future.
A team of four companies, led by DCS Design, suggested the community development idea in their response to a Request for Information (RFI) from the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors.
The board’s RFI was “intended to gauge potential interest in the redevelopment of the [Pfitzner Stadium] sports complex,” Brent Heavner, communications chief for the county parks and recreation department told Potomac Local.
“The integration of civic functions, recreational uses, upscale retail and workforce, age-restricted and luxury, market-rate housing creates an opportunity to craft a place that is unique in the Washington area,” DCS Design’s response read.
DCS Designs would partner with several development companies on the project, including Toll Brothers for luxury, age-restricted housing; Good Works for affordable workforce housing; and Peterson Companies for retail and commercial development.
“This is an opportunity for Prince William County to create a symbolic center for the County,” DCS Designs concluded in their response.
Other suggestions were offered to the board as well. Safe at Home submitted a multifunctional ballpark concept that could be an activity center and event host. Victus Advisors suggested a multi-use indoor sports complex.
Another organization, Complete Game, envisions “a baseball program that develops local talent into refined athletes” with youth baseball, adult softball leagues and college summer teams by designing an indoor baseball/softball facility at Pfitzner Stadium.
Interested parties were asked to maintain “a balance of local resident use/access, economic impact, market competition, environmental sensitivity, and tourism” in their ideas.
County supervisors noted in the RFI that they are “interested in maintaining a semi-professional baseball club” but are also “equally interested in alternative uses that will have the greatest community impact.”
Soon to be the former home of the Potomac Nationals Minor League Baseball team, County Government Center Park has 65 acres of land. Seven of those acres are taken by Pfitzner Stadium, and another 15 are occupied by three public softball fields and a BMX track.
Last year, the Nationals announced they would be leaving Prince William County and moving to Fredericksburg in 2020.
Sports tourism is a growing part of the county’s market. Athletic events and tournaments have been touted as enhancing the county’s appeal, and officials could continue to tap that interest.
“Staff are considering the responses as they work to develop scenarios for future development and use plans for the complex,” Heavner said. “Ultimately, we will look to the Board of County Supervisors to set the direction for the future of the facility.”
MANASSAS -- The city council and school board have reached a temporary funding agreement for the fiscal year of 2020 that includes a 3 percent increase to Manassas City Public Schools.
The budget was decided at an annual city council retreat.
“Three percent may not seem like much, but it is 50 percent more than the increase expected for all of our other government functions,” wrote City Councilman Wolfe in a Facebook post. “The three percent also represents a 14 percent increase in the rate of growth from this year.”’
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PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — What should the future of parks and recreation amenities in Prince William County look like? Members of the community will get a chance to answer that in an upcoming forum on January 26.
The forum is just one part of a concerted effort the county has made in hearing what residents want more of in their parks. It is the last planned community forum at this time, so anyone interested is encouraged to come and share their ideas.
“We want to make sure we are making investments where our citizens want them to be,” Brent Heavner, communications chief for the county, told Potomac Local. “We encourage anyone who is interested to join us.”
There will be about 100 electronic response devices in circulation for participants in the forum. General questions will be addressed to the audience and participants can use the devices to indicate agreement or disagreement, and facilitate group discussion.
Consultants will work with participants to determine the appropriate balance of future amenities for Prince William County parks. Playgrounds, sports fields, hiking trails, cyclist trails, green space — all of these are recreational needs that could be made more of a priority if enough residents want it.
As one example, a few years ago many residents started to request more courts and areas for playing pickleball, a fast-growing sport across the country. Since then, Heavner said the County has developed more pickleball areas. It might seem niche to some, but if enough people request a recreational activity, it can gain traction.
The forum will help shape the county’s comprehensive plan, a ten-year vision for service in all aspects of county government.
“This gives us a vision of how the community wants to see their recreation assets develop over the course of the next decade and what their expectations are,” Heavner explained.
“If there are members of the community that have recreational needs that our current facilities and programs are not meeting, then we want to know that,” said Heavner. “That’s something we want to consider over the next ten years.”
Parks play a big role in resident satisfaction and the county’s attractiveness to visitors and new businesses. Open green space where a family can picnic, well-maintained biking trails, sports fields utilized by teams all over the nation, and children’s programs are just a few services the parks provide to the community.
In addition to the forum, surveys will be mailed shortly to a random, geographically representative sample of about 15,000 households in the county, followed by a data collection and summarization process.
The forum will take place on Saturday, January 26, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the James J. McCoart Administration Building. For more information, visit pwcgov.org/government/dept/park/Pages/community-needs-assessment-forum.aspx.
