A local developer is planning to build additional office and warehouse space in the Bowman Center Industrial Park.
Hunter Greenlaw, a partner with G.L.M.G. general contractors, is buying three pieces of land in the Spotsylvania County development, located off State Route 2. He plans to close on the property this spring.
Greenlaw said he will build "upscale" offices and warehouses there.
Greenlaw is buying the property from Spotsylvania County, which bought the land when the FMC plant closed in the 1980s. At that time, the cellophane manufacturer was one of the area's largest employers. It closed due to a decline in demand for cellophane.
The county has since then gradually sold off the 230 acres it bought. Greenlaw is purchasing the last of the property there.
He plans to break ground next year, and finish his project by 2006.
The Bowman Center, so named for one of the first major purchasers--A. Smith Bowman Distillery--currently houses many businesses and industrial companies, including Mid-Atlantic Foam and Western Wood products.
One of Greenlaw's parcels is zoned commercial. He plans to build six two-story, brick office buildings there. That portion will have a separate access from State Route 2 and not be connected to the center's main entrance at Joseph Mills Drive.
The other two parcels he is buying--located inside the park on Joseph Mills Drive--are zoned for industrial development. Greenlaw said he will build 218,500 square feet of warehouse space there.
Greenlaw helped develop the nearby Deer Run business park, located beside the Bowman Center. He says his plans for the commercial property will be a continuation of that development.
"The look will all be the same, and it will flow down very nicely," he said.
Greenlaw said he already has buyers for two of the industrial buildings and four of the commercial buildings. His company, G.L.M.G., will take one of the office spaces.
He said some of the businesses will be newcomers to Spotsylvania County. But he declined to name them until contracts are signed.
"We have a number of folks who are going to be putting shovels in the ground," said Gary Partridge, Spotsylvania's economic development director.
Partridge has been working with Greenlaw for two years on the deal. They spent that time deciding what to build, what kind of tenants to bring in and how it would look when completed.
"[Greenlaw's purchase] brings closure to the purchase of that property," Partridge said. "The Board of Supervisors has successfully taken an industrial dinosaur and morphed it into many productive uses."
Supervisor Emmitt Marshall, who has served on the county board for about 27 years, said they wanted to buy the land to keep Fredericksburg from getting it. At the time, he said, the city had annexed other county land, such as the property where Central Park is located.
Purchasing the Bowman Center property, he says, has kept a lot of tax dollars and jobs in Spotsylvania.
"It was a good investment and it turned out well." Marshall said.
Spotsylvania County paid $6 million for the property in 1982. After Greenlaw's deal goes through, the county will have sold all if its holdings there for more than $8 million.
That figure doesn't include the portion that the county retained to develop a wastewater treatment plant.
Greenlaw is paying $714,852 for the three parcels.
