Crossroads Interim Park officially opens
 |
| Crossroads Interim Park |
Crossroads Interim Park officially opened to the public Sept. 28 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The park is on the former site of the Bailey’s International Center, an office building that was torn down last year, on Columbia Pike next to Radley Acura.
 |
| The ribbon is cut. |
The county owns the property and will eventually plan some sort of mixed-use development on the site, but since that is at least five years away, the property will be used as a public park.
There is a plaza area with metal tables, benches, and shade sails and a small straw-covered field where grass has been planted. The area at the rear of the property will remain vacant and fenced off.
 |
| Mason Supervisor Penny Gross speaks at the official opening of Crossroads Interim Park. |
The plan for the area calls for Seminary Road to be eventually connected to Columbia Pike where the park’s asphalt parking lot is now.
County officials hope to schedule pop-up community events at the park, such as performances with food trucks or tai chi exercises, although nothing has been planned yet.
Members of the public will able to hold private events at the park for a $25 fee.
 |
| The park will be closed at night, but not locked. |
“Instead of standing vacant for years, it will serve a useful purpose,” said Mason Supervisor Penny Gross. “It has the capacity for whatever the community wants it to be. It will become an integral part of the community.”
The park will “energize the neighborhood,” added Ron Kendall, the Mason District representative on the Park Authority Board.
The park furniture can be relocated to another park when this property gets redeveloped.
 |
| The park will be here for only about five years. |
The interim park is a joint effort of the Park Authority, the Community Revitalization Section of the Department of Planning and Development, the Facilities Management Division of the Department of Economic Initiatives and the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. Funding for the park, $125,000, is from the county’s economic sustainability fund.
Gary Aiken, the Republican candidate for Mason supervisor, said the money could be better spent fixing up the Bailey’s Community Center.
So, Charles Bronson Park is finally open. See ya after dark. – Sparky
"although nothing has been planned yet" nor will it ever be
Truly embarrassing waste of taxpayer dollars. No plan. No vision. Time for a change.
I appreciate your comment. Please share more about a positive vision for the future.
Gary: stop trolling. Offer ideas. What would you have done with the property? Serious question.
Sign up a developer and follow the Comprehensive Plan.
But Gross has thus far scared off two developers away with her homeless shelter. She is not an urban planner, she is an urban bomb. Time to go. Gary can you please answer this guy's question and inform him as to what good leadership would provide.
Come on, Daren. I agree with quite a lot of what you have to say, and I won't be voting for any commentators above, but it is so painfully obvious that Supervisor Gross should have not tried to shoehorn a government services building in that location. That prime location SE quadrant land should have been sold to a developer. That park is small, sad, and out of place, and I'm a frequent patron of our local parks and very supportive of every dollar spent on them.
I’m just a random person on the internet, but the short answer is that it would have been better if Supervisor Gross did nothing. I usually appreciate Daren’s continually optimistic comments regarding the slow and fitful redevelopment of Mason District, but this Baileys SE Quadrant deal is nearly impossible to defend.
I’m well aware of how difficult the revitalization of Seven Corners, Lincolnia, Annandale and Baileys Crossroads may be with all the stakeholders involved and no easy Metro “silver bullet.” Most of the problems Penny has to deal with were made by supervisors and developers over 50 years ago. But this interim park placeholder plan is just a slap in the face. At worst it’s an indirect form of accepted corruption, at best it’s severe government incompetence.
The land this interim park sits on, that will “eventually” (more than 5 years from now) become a mixed use development, was bought at an elevated price of $6.35 million. The County tax assessment of the property was significantly less than that at the time and being that the building was a dilapidated Class C commercial space it seemed suspiciously generous. The representative for the seller (Landmark Atlantic) was Reston resident John Thillman, who also happens to be a major donor of Supervisor Gross as well as her appointed co-chair of the Seven Corners Task Force. Ignoring the conflict of interest there, the primary reason for the movement of the nearby Baileys Community Center was because Avalon Bay refused to make any deal with the existing and rundown facility nearby. I’d like to think the timing of the County’s 15.7 million dollar approval for a new faciilty was out of the goodness of their hearts, but I doubt it considering the terms of the deal and how the County tried to drop the shelter behind the senior center in Lincolnia first. Avalon Bay backed out of the deal anyway, but the land swap still happened.
None of this seems like sound management of County resources especially since this interim park, even during daylight hours and a positive outlook on life, is a glorified vacant lot with some industrial grade picnic furniture. With all the pushback evident in the comments from this blog that boil down to “Show some excitement for yet another CVS/Walgreens-anchored strip mall!” or “Would you prefer it to stay a vacant lot full of hypothetical crime?”, it seems wrong for the County to choose overpriced County owned Vacant Lot (tax value zero) over an existing although modest stream of commercial tax revenue. The Mason District commercial vacancy rate sits at 44 percent, and after roughly $22 million and counting of associated costs, Crossroads Interim Park is an embarrassing result for a County official with 24 years to make some progress.
Surely pathetic, Gross is just disconnected with her constituency and local needs.
Anon 10:45 – My challenge to Mr. Aiken was "don't troll." He claims "no plan. No Vision" without offering a plan or vision. If you remember the transaction that the county made it was to trade land with a develop so the resultant lot would be more "developable." The original developer pulled out but, I understand, there is a subsequent owner who has a plan. Development deals sometimes take years to come together. If Mr. Aiken has an idea, my challenge to him as opposed to proclaim "time for a change" is to show that he has something to offer that is truly a change.
Daren Shumate
So what you are saying is that Gross had a half baked plan and Aiken's has no plan. Great the Mason Mess is screwed again.
The county plan was sound and based upon need with everything that I have read and studied. Not half-baked. The county cannot force a developer to develop but rather can help developers get through the planning and zoning process. That is exactly what Supervisor Gross did with the Lincolnia Plan and that is why the owner of the Landmark Plaza is actively re-developing. The SE Quadrant will come.
Again, it is quite easy to troll when you remain anonymous.
i wouldn't call trying to make this area into county buildings some re-development
The homeless have begun taking over the park. This is a travesty.