|
|
||
Is surgery center moving to Fredericksburg Date published: 3/12/2009
BY EMILY BATTLE When Fredericksburg officials thought in the past about the development prospects of a 2-acre piece of land that Quarles Petroleum owns on Dixon Street, one of their best-case scenarios involved a convenience store. But that site could now be the home of a surgery center and medical office building that could bring 100 jobs and an estimated $284,000 in new tax revenue into the city limits. The Surgi-Center of Central Virginia, which is now located at the intersection of Chatham Heights Road and Kings Highway in Stafford County, is proposing to move across the Rappahannock River into the city. GFA Holdings, a limited liability company that owns the building in which the Surgi-Center is now located, is under contract to buy the property at the corner of Dixon Street and Beulah Salisbury Drive--right next to the city's Dixon Park complex. GFA Holdings has submitted a letter of intent to the city to build a two-story, 40,000-square-foot building on that property to house the Surgi-Center, plus medical offices on the second floor. Before the $15 million project can move forward, the Surgi-Center will need to get a certificate of public need from the state health commissioner. Michael Adams, a managing member of GFA holdings, told Economic Development Authority members this week that he thought that process should go smoothly, since the center is simply moving. Adams said he's hopeful a COPN could be approved as early as June, and GFA Holdings would like to start construction on the new building in October. That would put them on track to open the center in November 2011. As the company's letter of intent states--and as Adams told the EDA--the group was not able to find a site for its expansion in Stafford County. City Acting Economic Development Director Karen Hedelt and Economic Development Manager Kim Schill both said that having a business like the Surgi-Center move onto Dixon Street would help start that corridor toward redevelopment, as envisioned in the JumpStart plan the EDA financed in 2006. That plan calls for Dixon Street, from Beulah Salisbury Drive to Landsdowne Road, to be revived as a place for professional offices and other job-creating uses. The plan calls for more residential development from Dixon Park back toward the Blue & Gray Parkway.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||||||
