Several million square feet of data center space will find its home amongst the hardwoods on a land that is meant to buffer the Loudoun of the east from the Loudoun of the west.

Stonewall Secure Business Park will spring up on the 194 acres east of Sycolin Road and north of the Dulles Greenway near Leesburg, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors decided July 19 by a 6-3 vote with Supervisors Andrea McGimsey (D-Sugarland Run), Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg) and Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) dissenting.

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, will develop the area into a secure business park that will eventually house 2.9 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 $50 million, according to Stonewall Creek’s managing partner, John Andrews.

In order to develop the land into a secure, data center business park, the supervisors approved a rezoning of the area from a transitional residential area into a planned development-industrial park.

Before the vote, McGimsey cautioned that if the board approved the rezoning, it sends the message to the people who worked on the comprehensive plan that the board knows better than they do. She said she was embarrassed and apologized to all the people who had asked the board not to approve the amendment.

Burton said the board risks setting a precedent by passing a rezoning amendment before changing the comprehensive plan amendment, or CPAM, which he likened to closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.

“It seems that if the plan is inconvenient, the board just ignores it, passes a rezoning for whatever reason, and then proceeds to change the plan so as to make the statement publicly that this time we really mean it and hopefully no one will go against it again in the future,” he said.

Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) said that although he agreed with Burton, the board is “stuck with a monumental problem in this county of trying to figure out how to [un]burden residential taxpayers, when the tools we have in which to tackle that problem are as woefully inadequate as they are.”

He added that its very hard to say no to an applicant that wants to add to an area that is already in the process of being developed, who has shown a willingness to collaborate with county staff and the community, and wants to contributed tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the county per year.

Stonewall’s proposal was rejected by the county’s Planning Commission in May, and was not supported by the department of planning staff because of its density and scale.

“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,” said Judi Birkitt, the project manager with the Loudoun County Department of Planning during a June 12 Board of Supervisors public hearing.

The transition area is 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 at the time.

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. Additionally, it has agreed to reforest areas that may be effected during construction. Stonewall Creek has also agreed to relocate any existing colonies of wood turtles.

Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Sterling) said the comprehensive plan was out of date and approval of the rezoning is not decimating the transition area.

“It brings in tax revenue, that is very positive,” she said.

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

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

Tareq and Michaele Salahi pleaded the fifth during a Congressional hearing where they were charged with crashing a White House state party in 2009.

Today, the Warren County couple remained silent again by not showing up at an 8:30 a.m. court hearing July 18. The Salahis were on the docket for a Loudoun County District Court hearing with Judge Frank Buttery.

Loudoun resident Emily McCallum claims she paid the couple for a wine tour in celebration of her graduation. The couple did not follow through on an agreement and McCallum claims she was not refunded any money.

Tareq Salahi’s family owns Oasis Winery in Hume and their website offers tours of the site as well as tours of other establishments for as much as $300.

Neither the couple nor their lawyer were present at the hearing.  Buttery said the court had not received a return of service from the Salahis, so he was unsure of whether they knew of their court date today. The court case has been continued to Aug. 3.

First published by Hannah Hager on LoudounTimes.com.

The Tasting Room, a wine shop owned by the Virginia Wine Factory in Brambleton, is now open. A quick Google search didn’t show a website for the business, but The Tasting Room joins the ranks of Parallel Wine Bistro in Ashburn and The Wine Kitchen in Leesburg. Photo Courtesy of Brambleton Town Center.

Sexual violence knows no gender. Women and men can both fall victim to its misfortune, and both men and women should protect themselves as much as they can against it.

Yet, it’s sexual discrimination that’s behind Sterling resident and father of three Ed Meyers, who is suing Loudoun County Sheriff Steve Simpson in U.S. District Court. Meyers believes the county’s women-only self-defense workshops are in violation of his civil rights.

In 2010, there were 46 reported rapes in Loudoun. Many of the victims knew their assailants – they were their husbands, boyfriends or someone in their circle of friends, said Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kraig Troxell. Forty-three rapes were reported in 2009.

The county hosts crime prevention classes in different communities that are meant to be educational in nature and work to heighten sexual assault and rape awareness. The women learn how to handle themselves in threatening situations, including how to behave if they’re being attacked from different angles and what they can do to protect themselves, Troxell said. The courses, which are held at the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy in Ashburn, teach hand-to-hand combat skills.

Meyers registered his wife for a May 2010 class, but when she couldn’t go, he showed up in her stead. He was denied at the door because of his gender and was denied several more times until Simpson met Meyers at the academy April 26 with a note of trespass and a plea – the women, some of which might have been raped, would be uncomfortable with men in the classroom.

Meyers did not understand this reasoning because, he contends, if the women were uncomfortable with him learning self-defense tactics alongside them in the course, they would also be uncomfortable passing him on the street or at a shopping mall.

In his complaint, filed May 20 in the district court in Alexandria, Meyers said he was not the only man present that evening—Simpson, two male police officers in uniform, the presenter and another male, who was accompanying his wife and daughter, were also in attendance. In a conversation with the Times-Mirror, Meyers hinted that a man in a uniform is still a man, citing an officer in Ashburn who Meyers thought allegedly accepted a sexual bribe for dropping a drug charge.

Still, Meyers didn’t necessarily want to attend the courses to learn self-defense tactics for himself, rather he “wanted to review the course material and possibly criticize it.”

His concerns over the educational course material and syllabus were compounded when Audra Vogel, the course’s coordinator, allegedly refused to hand him the course material for review. He also alleges that Vogel “vaguely threatened that any further contact would be considered harassment and appropriate action would be taken,” according to his complaint.

Meyers said he was interested in the techniques being taught in the courses since the classes are funded with his tax dollars. He said he does not believe in “teaching violent attacks as the self-defense mechanism.”

“I’m always concerned about what the government is doing in terms of my educational dollars,” he said, adding that he hoped “the threat of having their educational funds cut off would have the sheriff change his mind about having a discriminatory educational policy.”

While Meyers would not go into detail about what defense moves he was most concerned about, he did say he hoped the attendees were being taught how to defend themselves if attacked, not to act on offense before being attacked.

“It’s a timing thing, if you’re trained to do that when you see a potential threat, that’s offensive, as opposed to actually being attacked,” he said.

When Simpson met Meyers at the door that April evening, Meyers said he was refused entrance to the class because it was for women only. He said he “pushed back a little bit but not to the point of getting arrested.”
Meyers put up a legal fight because he believes it is unlawful to host a gender-specific course in a government-funded facility. He contends that he is a victim of discrimination based on his sex.

He also alleges that the Sheriff’s Office is in violation of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs receiving federal financial assistance. In the complaint, Meyers goes on to say that the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is a recipient of Department of Justice grants, which also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin and religion.

This is not the first time Meyers has sued the Sheriff’s Office – he previously took exception to their uniforms because they did not technically conform to Virginia law.

Troxell said he cannot comment on ongoing lawsuits.

Meyers in 2005 also sued the Loudoun County School Board for requiring his children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in public school.

Although he believes women face sexual violence more than men based on statistics he’s seen, Meyers said the Sheriff’s Office should allow men to participate in self-defense courses if they so choose. Either that or charge for the courses, which are held at no charge to the women.

“I think its important to get the sheriff to believe in the rule of law. That civil rights are something that are important for Loudoun citizens, and if he doesn’t do that, then someone will hold him accountable for it,” he said.
Simpson has until June 20 to acknowledge the summons, Meyers said.

“If you think that we can reduce crime by attacking even the smallest infractions, I think we can reduce civil rights abuse by attacking even the smallest occurrence,” he said.

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

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

As the summer heat sizzles, the Loudoun real estate market is also heating up.

Loudoun’s median sales price increased 5 percent in June compared to May, reaching $388,995, according to RealEstate Business Intelligence. The median sales price is also up this year compared to the previous June by 5 percent.

Eastern Loudoun’s median of $390,000 in June was up from its May median of $361,000 – yet it still trailed Leesburg and western Loudoun’s median sales prices. Leesburg’s median increased from $410,000 in May to $420,000 in June, while western Loudoun led the pack with the highest median sales price – $440,000 in June, up from $435,000 in May, according to Loudoun housing analyst Rosemary deButts.

Despite the uptick in median home sales prices, however, the volume of homes sold year-to-date still floats below the averages of the previous six years, according to deButts.

The number of homes sold in June increased by 35 percent compared to May, but fell year-over-year by 7 percent. Last month, 546 homes were taken off the market compared to 404 the previous month and 586 in June 2010.

Although June had a strong sales rally compared to the previous months this year, the year-to-date sales in 2011 are still faltering. To put it into perspective, year-to-date sales in 2011 total 2,287 compared to 2,559 in 2008, 2,815 in 2007 and 2,782 in 2006.

So far this year, the largest share of the 2,287 new and existing homes sold so far in 2011 were priced between $200,000 and $399,999, totaling 44 percent, according to deButts. Again, May and June warmed up the market for high-priced homes. Nineteen homes priced higher than $1 million were sold those two months, which is unprecedented in recent history, according to deButts.

For the fifth consecutive month, the number of short sales and foreclosures declined. Distressed properties represented 20 percent of the 553 preliminary sales in June – a decrease from 28 percent in May and 30 percent in June 2010.

The Washington, D.C. market

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan market was the most active in June than it has been within the last six years, according to RealEstate Business Intelligence.

Throughout the region, buyers and sellers signed 5,124 contracts in June, the most for that month in six years. Pending sales also jumped 30 percent year-over-year due to last year’s sharp decline in activity immediately following the expiration of April 2010 federal homebuyer tax credit, according to RBI.

The metropolitan area’s median sales prices also reached its highest level in nearly three years. The area’s $379,990 median sales price was 7 percent higher than the $354,000 median sales price in June 2010 and 8 percent more than $353,606 in May.

Additionally, RBI reported that the number of days a home spent on the market fell to a 10-month low of 63 days, as buyer and seller negotiability stabilized. Days on the market is measured by the number of days between the original listing date and the contract date.

Contact the writer at hhager@timespapers.com.

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.