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Canoe association to make relocation choice later this month

Date published: 7/25/2007

By RUSTY DENNEN

Fredericksburg officials will know soon whether the city will become the new home of the American Canoe Association.

The ACA board was wined and dined here last weekend as it nears the end of a months-long process of finding a new site for its headquarters.

The 50,000-member association told officials here that it would make a decision by Aug. 21.

Now located at a landlocked site in Northern Virginia, the nation's largest paddling trade group wants to be on a river.

Fredericksburg and sites in New York and North Carolina are said to be under final consideration, after a search in 12 states. Local officials are courting the Springfield group because of the potential tourism impact.

"I feel pretty confident," Kevin Gullette, Fredericksburg's director of business development, said this week.

The 21-member ACA board spent the weekend in the Hilton Garden Inn at Celebrate Virginia, and attended a reception hosted by the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance at the University of Mary Washington.

At least one other area group also wants to lure the trade group.

The Currier family, which owns Culpeper Crossing, about 30 miles upriver on the Rappahannock, submitted a plan offering land and amenities on the river.

When it became apparent that the ACA was leaning toward Fredericksburg and the two other locations, the family then proposed an alternate plan to work with Fredericksburg.

"We thought what Fredericksburg was doing would be wonderful and that ours would be a nice, complementary thing," Rob Currier said. He found out this week that neither of the Culpeper Crossing proposals is under consideration by the association.

The alternate plan envisioned office space split between Fredericksburg and Culpeper, giving the association a presence on both parts of the Rappahannock.

Some ACA board members and its director, Pamela Dillon, toured Culpeper Crossing in June.

The Currier family was offering, among other things, new office and storage space, relocation assistance for the office and staff. The proposal included parking, access to broadband Internet service and information technology assistance.

Fredericksburg and economic development interests here have offered a package of incentives worth an estimated $869,000.

The Silver Cos., for example, pledged free office space for up to two years for ACA staff until a permanent site can be found, and an acre along the river in its planned "ecotourism" area of Celebrate Virginia in Fredericksburg.

Developer Tommy Mitchell has offered space to lease at several sites downtown.

Dillon could not be reached for comment.

ACA has said it needs office space for its 15-member staff, and warehouse space, which would house a planned paddling museum.

Date published: 7/25/2007

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