The cost of Metrorail may derail its own existence, inevitably causing the project to unravel under its own financial weight, according to local business leaders.

Representatives from several of Northern Virginia’s business organizations and task forces – ranging from local chambers of commerce to the Washington Airports Task Force and the Associated Builders and Contractors Virginia Chapter – released a joint letter July 23 decrying Phase II of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project because of its exorbitant costs, among other things. The total cost of the project is estimated to be around $3.5 billion.

The representatives called for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s Board of Directors to make significant cost reductions in Phase II of the project that includes the Silver line extension that will terminate in Ashburn. MWAA’s Board of Directors is holding its own meetings concerning Phase II of the project this week.

At a press conference in front of the soon-to-be constructed Wiehle Avenue Metro station in Reston on Thursday, Kurt Krause of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance spoke on behalf of a group of nearly 20 businessmen and women who co-signed the letter to MWAA.

Ninety percent of the Metrorail construction will be funded by real estate taxes, business license taxes and tolls, Krause said.

“Our collective stake in completing Phase II could not be greater,” he said.

Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce President Tony Howard, Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce President Jim Corcoran, Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce President Eileen Curtis and Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce President Mark Ingrao detailed five areas they believe MWAA could make cost reductions resulting in nearly $1 billion in savings.

The first is a call for MWAA to eliminate its requirement that the primary contractor for the project implement a mandatory Project Labor Agreement on Phase II. The enforcement of a PLA would discourage bidding on the project, thereby potentially increasing the overall cost 12 to 15 percent, according to Howard.

“It will prevent a significant number of Virginia’s construction workforce, of which 96 percent is non-union, from working on this project,” he said. “Since this project is being overwhelmingly funded by Virginia’s taxpayers and businesses, that would be an outrage.”

Curtis spoke against MWAA’s recent decision to build an underground instead of the originial above-ground Metro station at Dulles International Airport, which increased the project’s overall cost by $300 million.

“The decision to construct an underground station is not only more expensive … it will reduce the Authority’s capacity to support the funding and construction of its tier-2 midfield terminal, which is essential to Dulles Airport’s growth as an international gateway and our region’s link to world markets,” she said.

The group also requested MWAA reduce the scope of its rail yard at Dulles Airport and seek ways to finance it separately or in conjunction with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which could save between $50-$100 million. The business leaders also would like to see Fairfax and Loudoun counties assume responsibility for funding and construction of the parking structures, which is similar to the public-private partnership at the Wiehle Avenue station. Lastly, the group asks that the Authority seek additional financial aide from Virginia and the Federal Government.

“By allowing Fairfax and Loudoun County to engage in public-private partnerships to construct the parking garages, altering the configuration of the Dulles Airport rail yard … the project costs for Phase II can be reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars,” Corcoran said.

The co-signers of the letter to MWAA have yet to receive a response from the Authority.

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

This article was first published by Hannah Hager on LoudounTimes.com.

It’s a battle between the east and the west over an area of land that is meant to marry the two.

The land in question is 194 acres east of Sycolin Road and north of the Dulles Greenway near Leesburg.

Presently, the plot is heavily evergreen: housing 150-foot tall electric transmission lines, an underground natural gas line, an expanse of forest comprising hardwoods and evergreens and a colony of wood turtles.

But, Stonewall Creek LLC hopes to develop the area into a 4.9 million square foot secure business park. The land could potentially be home to 3.9 million square feet of data centers as well as another 1 million square feet of non-data center uses including; office space, warehousing, health and fitness centers, a carry-out restaurant and a firearm range, among other uses.

The county’s potential direct tax revenue per year at full build out of Stonewall Creek is projected to be more than $51 million, according to Stonewall Creek’s managing partner, John Andrews.

In order to develop the land into a secure, data center business park, the land needs to be rezoned from a transitional residential area into a planned development-industrial park.

The proposal was rejected by the county’s Planning Commission May 11, and is not supported by the department of planning staff because Stonewall Creek’s proffers do not guarantee that the property would develop as a data center park.

Judi Birkitt, the project manager with the Loudoun County Department of Planning, said Stonewall Creek’s proposal is “too intense, too much square footage.”

“What the land use policies for the county say is that this transition area is supposed to be open space, a green area, a transition between western Loudoun County, which is very rural and eastern Loudoun that is very suburban,” Burkitt said.

Not only is the transition area meant to serve as a buffer between the higher-intensity uses in the east and the low density, open-space and farmland in the west, it is also meant to serve as a visual buffer, Burkitt said.

A threat to the visual buffer would be the proposed height of the buildings. Currently, the area’s zoning permits 40-foot tall buildings, but Stonewall Creek hopes to construct buildings as tall as 100 feet. Andrews said they have revised their plans to have a height maximum of 75 feet.

The county staff envisions that passersby would not be able to see any buildings from the Dulles Greenway, but 100-foot tall buildings would be hard to miss, Burkitt said.

In addition to the request to rezone the area, Stonewall Creek LLC has submitted six special exception applications including; office uses that do not meet its current criteria, an increase in the allowable floor area ratio for office and data center uses, a water storage tank, a water treatment plant, a utility substation and an indoor firearm range.

Burkitt said county staff is concerned that there would be 500,000 square feet of non-data center uses on the site – which would be three times the size of the County Government Building – before the data centers were even built.

“We’re worried that there could be a trickle in effect on the rest of the transition area,” she said.

At the Board of Supervisors public hearing June 13, Andrews said they have revised the plan so that the non-data center development will be limited to 500,000 square feet until at least 500,000 square feet of data center have been developed. He added that only 69 acres of the 194-acre plot are developable, which meets the minimum requirement of 51 percent of open space for the area.

In addition, Stonewall Creek has created a 75-foot buffer area between the business park and the surrounding community, allowed for a double row of pine trees, sewer and water lines, a security fence, paid its residential tap fees and made several cash contributions for connecting trails to the W&OD trail and for fire and rescue purposes. Stonewall Creek has also agreed to relocate any existing colonies of wood turtles.

Supervisor Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg) said she was concerned that promises were being made to neighboring residents “that they feel are now being reneged on.”

Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Broad Run) inquired what the demand has been in Loudoun for data centers relative to office, saying that the development is something the county “could really market in the sense of having a secure market.”

Speaking to the department of planning staff, Chairman Scott York (I-At Large) said, “You have issues with these few uses, even in a secure business park, because you’re concerned of the uniqueness of the project and the transition area what was created in order to reduce the overall residential impact to help with the budget of Loudoun County for future years. I find that interesting and I hope at the end of the day we can work this out.”

Ed Gorski, the Loudoun County land use officer with the Piedmont Environmental Council, called the proposal “highly speculative,” saying that it “does not offer any assurances that this site will be developed as a secure business park.”

Businessman Michael Cohen told the supervisors that he has had to travel to Pennsylvania and Ohio to work in such high-tech, secure, data centers. He said having a secure data center park would attract affluent information technology employees.

In the end, the supervisors voted to revisit the proposal in a committee of the whole meeting in July.
Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

This article was first published by Hannah Hager on LoudounTimes.com.

Get up, drink an entire glass of water. Eat complex carbohydrates during the day and when you get home, eat only proteins and vegetables. Tell your pantry to shut up.

Sound like an extreme weight loss regime? That’s because it is. Bob Harper from the famed TV show, Biggest Loser, stopped by the Verizon campus in Ashburn for the Employee Health and Fitness Day May 18.

Donning a black, long-sleeved shirt and black exercise pants and sneakers, Harper sipped on water as he told a crowd of more than 100 Verizon employees the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle … and diet soda drinks.

Sipping on diet soda, while it does not increase your caloric intake, it does increases the body’s desire for more sugar therefore facilitating sugar consumption. It goes without saying that he frowns upon regular soda.

Harper reiterated his mantra that diet is 80 percent of every weight loss regimen. Although he’s a fitness instructor, he said it all starts with what you put in your mouth. No one controls what you consume except for you.

Start small and work your way up – avoid fried foods or mindless eating in front of the TV. It’s nothing no one has never heard before. But, coming from a Biggest Loser celebrity trainer, it somehow seems more credible.

He also imparted bits of wisdom that listeners devoured.

A six-pack isn’t obtained solely through a thousand sit-ups like Britney Spears did in her heyday. It starts with your diet, then cardio and then doing a thousand sit-ups. Harper also maintained that morning workouts are no better than evening workouts because its all about maintaining your metabolism. If you drink a full glass of water immediately after waking and then eat breakfast within 30 to 45 minutes, your metabolism will already be jump-started. Therefore, as your metabolism slows throughout the day, an afternoon workout will restart your tumbling metabolism.

A weight loss plateau is non-existent to him. There’s no such thing. A plateau only means that you are not being honest with yourself about the changes you need to make, he said. Are you grabbing the chocolates that are sitting around at work? Keep track of mindless eating such as this through a food journal, which will point out the holes to you. It’s harder to lose weight the smaller you are, he said, so don’t let it demotivate you.

Weight loss is about a lifestyle change, he said. But you have to believe in yourself and trust the process.

“You’re gonna mess up. We all do,” he said. “But you get to start over.”

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com

This article was first published by Hannah Hager on LoudounTimes.com.

Instead of her friend’s knowing voice, Barbara Devries’ phone calls are being answered with static.

Sterling resident Devries has been trying to ring her pal Amelia who lives at the Wingler House retirement community in Ashburn, but to no avail.

“I think instead of using all these smartphones, we better go back to smoke signals,” Devries said.

Likewise, Cascades resident James Thompson’s home phone has also been acting up. But, instead of just static on the line, Thompson can also overhear a Chinese talk radio show in English on his home phone landline.

“I listened to it for awhile,” Thompson said. “I didn’t understand at first, but now I completely understand.”

The interference and static on the line stems from the increased wattage of the radio station formerly known as WAGE. The station now has new call letters, WCRW at the 1190 AM dial, as well as a ten-fold increase in its wattage to 50,000 watts. The station sounds out from its three 195-foot lattice-tower AM radio transmitters in Ashburn.

The Loudoun-based station returned to the air April 11 after going dark more than one year ago. Avid WAGE fans that listened to the station for five decades, however, immediately noticed a stunning difference coming through the airwaves – a significant change in the radio station’s programming that now includes entertainment news coming out of Pacific Rim countries.

Immediately after shutting down in 2009, Potomac Radio, the owner of WCRW now known as New World Radio, began searching for a site for its new 50,000-watt towers. The station’s towers landed at the intersection of Loudoun County Parkway and Gloucester Parkway in the Route 28 corridor. The towers cost New World Radio $2 million.

The station’s new programming has been jarring to some residents. But, the increased wattage has left many Loudoun residents in its sound wake.

“I couldn’t make a phone call [out] or a phone call in,” Thompson said.

He phoned the Federal Communications Commission. The commission, he said, gave him “a long diatribe about how it’s not their problem” because they do not get involved with issues of interference. They instead told him that AM static interference is a local disturbance problem. He tried calling the number he knew for the radio station. It rang static.

Alan Pendleton, president of New World Radio, is aware of and quite familiar with the interference issue, adding that it happens all the time.

“It’s important to know that most interference issues are a result of the malfunctioning consumer electronic equipment, or its a cause of the copper telephone lines that are becoming an antenna,” he said.

Pendleton said telecommunications providers are best able to doctor the problem, as it is their equipment that picks up the signal. When a house is wired for phone services, telecommunications companies put filters around the wires, but sometimes the filters are not strong enough, he said. Sometimes, an additional filter around phones within the household are required.

Thompson patched things up by doing just that. He had his telecommunications provider install an ion ferrite filter that clamps around his phone lines. The filter negates all interference.

Although Thompson remedied his problem, he and Devries still have unanswered questions.

What is the county was going to do about it? Thompson said the supervisors did not understand what the increased wattage was going to mean nor did they understand the technicalities of the FCC license.

“I don’t understand how this radio station is allowed to operate,” Devries said. Devries worries about her elderly friends who may not be able to make phone calls in case of an emergency. “That’s dangerous, especially for them that they get all this static on their phones.”

Sterling Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) had not yet heard of the phone interference, but called it “an emergency situation.” He was nonplussed that it was happening in Loudoun where the supervisors “work tirelessly on improving our communication abilities.”

Delgaudio said the issue requires investigation and a possible declaration of a state of emergency.

“They can’t call 9-1-1 or reverse 9-1-1. Doesn’t that defeat everything? I mean, really. It’s intolerable and we have to work on it right away,” he said.

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

This article was first published by Hannah Hager on LoudounTimes.com.