rogress in Winchester, Va., looks like a commerce park
going up where abandoned buildings
once stood. It’ll also take the form of a big mess downtown while streets and
sidewalks are being torn up as utility lines are buried. But citizens can deal with
temporary disruptions because they have looked at future improvements in a simulated
streetscape model.
"People love the end results," says Winchester City Engineer Frank Sanders of
the images Anderson & Associates modeled for a
public meeting showing citizens Winchester’s future new look sans wires and poles.
"Downtown will be quite a mess for awhile, but the models make for a brighter
outlook." 
Originally planned as a sewer project, the undertaking grew when the city council
decided to put electric, gas, cable, and telephone cables underground for a prettier
downtown. A&A designed the utilities relocation, and construction is currently
underway.
Another big project in the 23,585-population city is an EPA Brownfields project at the former Virginia
Tech Fruit Tree Research Center on Route 11 near downtown. Ten years ago Tech moved
operations elsewhere, leaving behind deteriorating buildings and a tract whose possibility
of pesticide contamination scared off buyers. Using a brownfields development grant,
Winchester-Frederick County Director of Economic Development Jim Deskins arranged for the IDA to buy the
10-acre property for $700,000 and conducted an environmental assessment. Upon learning the
contamination was minimal, they cleaned it up for less than $5,000. A&A is currently
involved in the site engineering and planning for the development of a commerce park.
"So far we have contracts with three clients totaling about $2 million and 4 acres
still on the market," says Deskins. "We’ve put the property on the tax
rolls and made a profit doing it. This is a very successful project, a model for
brownfields redevelopment."
Another sign of Winchester’s progress is its ability to share knowledge. Since
March, Sanders and other officials have been offering ideas on park development,
recycling, and landfill management to Karlovo, Bulgaria, as part of an International Cities and Counties Management Association
exchange. The former Iron Curtain country is attempting to meet environmental standards so
it can join the European Union in 2007.
While the team has spent most of its time researching and consulting on Karlovo’s
problems, they have seen a few ideas they’d like to implement, such as a central room
in city hall where citizens handle all their transactions with city officials. "What
we’re doing really amounts to being ambassadors for the United States," Sanders
says. "It feels good to go over and share ideas." &
