Community Profile | Fredericksburg
450,000-square-foot clinic will energize everything from hotel development to nursing programs at local colleges. “It’s a big win,” Marshall says. But Marshall and Debbie Sanders, the county’s interim economic development director, hasten to point out that the clinic is not the only headline project for the county, which also is the site of the largest solar energy project east of the Rockies. That’s particularly relevant these days, with the Biden administration’s recently announced goal that solar energy should make up nearly 45% of U.S. electricity by 2050 and the Virginia Clean Economy Act’s 100% carbon-free electric production goal for the same year. The 620-megawatt Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center is currently under construction and will encompass about 6,350 acres. Approximately 3,500 acres will be developed as part of the solar project and about 2,000 acres will be remain undeveloped. About 800 temporary construction jobs are expected to be generated by the project, but only 35 permanent positions. Meanwhile, the economic development office remains on overdrive. “We’re not slowing down,” Marshall says. “Last year, we opened up 200 new businesses.”
Stafford County When he became Stafford’s economic
development director in 2018, John Holden had a revelation: “One of the first things we did was to restructure and reposition some things that put us in position to attract a number of distribution and warehouse projects,” he says. “I knew that market was expanding and Stafford’s geographic position [along Interstate 95] … was pretty much designed for that kind of product.” It’s worked out pretty well. In 2020,
DHL Supply Chain invested $72 million to establish a distribution center in Stafford, yielding about 600 jobs. In September,
Amazon.com Inc. announced that it would open a 200,000-square-foot delivery station, creating 100 jobs. “Within the last three years, there will be permitted or built 2.5 million square feet of flex industrial/ distribution space in Stafford,” Holden says. On another economic development front, there has been long been talk of
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“We’re developing a distinct economy from Northern Virginia,” says Curry Roberts, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance, which represents Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford.
creating a “Downtown Stafford,” but the original vision has recently changed from the idea of a conventional downtown to something much more high tech. Working in conjunction with the Center for Innovative Technology, Stafford is the site of Virginia’s first Smart Community Testbed, an initiative for testing new technologies in a real world setting. Plugged by state officials as a “living
laboratory for entrepreneurs,” pilot projects will focus on public safety, data security and training, economic development and tourism, as well as 5G technology. McLean-based OST Inc., a systems integrator that works on local, state and federal government projects, is a founding partner and will integrate the testbed’s projects. Holden suggests that the development of a “smart city” model could be a big step in further diversifying the county’s economy as new technologies emerge.
Fredericksburg
Among area localities, the city of Freder- icksburg is the only one that has more workers
commuting into the city than going out. Bill Freehling, the city’s economic development and tourism director, is proud of that. But he also points to a number of big projects that have been in the works and are now completed or close to being finished. One is the $90 million redevelopment of what used to be The Free Lance-Star newspaper’s headquarters, a 4-acre property that is being completely transformed into class A office space, along with new restaurants, residences and a hotel. “People are interested in class A office space downtown,” Freehling says. Downtown Fredericksburg is eminently walkable, he says, with opportunities to stroll down to the Rappahannock River, which runs through the city, or to just duck into a nearby restaurant.
Another measure of pride for the city is its fielding of a Minor League Baseball team, the Fredericksburg Nationals (aka Fred Nats), which has a 5,000-seat stadium and attracts fans from throughout the region. The team debuted in 2021 after a one-year delay due to the pandemic.
Photo by Will Schermerhorn
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