I am an urban designer working in and around the City of Fredericksburg, where I live with my wife and daughter. I believe in Fredericksburg’s ability to lead the region through the challenges it will face in the twenty-first century.
There is an opportunity in the City of Fredericksburg to produce 473,582 kilowatt hours of solar power per day if its citizens are bold enough to envision new markets. The key to this opportunity lies in the City’s twentieth-century infrastructure, the markets growing out of that infrastructure, and the global forces that have erupted since Fredericksburg’s last Comprehensive Update in 2007.
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America experienced an unprecedented economic expansion during the twentieth-century. One of the root causes of that expansion was the decision to continuously add capacity to roads and power grids.
In Fredericksburg, for example, U.S. Route 1 wound into town one hundred years ago on two lanes. By mid-century it moved out past the University and grew to four lanes. The interstate running through the City was originally called the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway, built in 1941, and had five lanes – two in each direction plus a reversible bus lane . Now I-95 is six lanes and we are debating bringing two additional H.O.T. lanes down to our City.
Fredericksburg’s electrical history began in the late nineteenth-century when the Rappahannock Electric Light Company and the City owned Direct Current Plant rose out of the waters of the publically formed Fredericksburg Water Power Company. These plants blasted a few homes and provide arc-street light. They were absorbed in the early twentieth century the Spotsylvania Power Company. A few decades later that local Company was absorbed by the powerhouse from the Richmond market, the Virginia Electric and Power Company. Post-merger VEPCO boasted 14 generating plants serving 5,000 square miles. VEPCO is now Dominion Power whose domain stretches to California.
The investment in tons of asphalt and miles of conductors physically changed Fredericksburg’s retail market. Five “mid-20th century” shopping centers were built in Fredericksburg between 1963 and 1985 – The Park and Shop, the Westwood, the Greenbrier, the Gateway Village, and the Old Fredericksburg. The buildings in those shopping centers averaged 130,000 square feet (sf) and were surrounded by an average of 260,000 sf of flat graded parking lots.
Wider roads meant more cars could go to the same place and the more power in the grid meant that retailers could fit more products under one roof. The Lowe’s, built in 1996, by itself has more building square footage and over twice the amount of parking lot than the old Westwood Shopping Center and it is one of many similarly sized anchors in Central Park.
Fredericksburg Health Care. Chart by Michael Craig.
The Fredericksburg Healthcare market also expanded in relation to the capacity added to the City’s twentieth-century infrastructure. The original Mary Washington Hospital at Sophia and Fauquier Streets was built in 1899. In 1928 a 2-story building replaced it on the same lot. The hospital physically grew by a factor of 100 when it moved to the Fall Hill location in 1949 and more than doubled again when it expanded into its current location in 1993. The hospital again doubled in size between 1993 and 2014 and now stretches from Rte 1 to Cowan Boulevard as seen in the chart to the right. At the end of a centuries worth of expansion Mary Washington Healthcare is currently our largest employer.
It is unclear what impact new technology will have on these twentieth-century markets. Internet age retailers, like Amazon, who built two 21st century “fulfillment centers” in Virginia in 2012, are now in direct competition with the late-20th century “stores.” Companies like Amazon use American road capacity to send trucks out instead of pulling cars in and uses the capacity in our electric grid to concentrate a previously inconceivable diversity of products under a contiguous 1,000,000 sf roof!
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Since the mid-nineties (at least) the City of Fredericksburg took on risk to expand its local markets. By 2007, buoyed by the early success of this program, City citizens envisioned a continued aggressive deployment of public resources in their Comprehensive Plan.
The debate over using municipal bonds to build Cowan Boulevard – which would add capacity to both the City’s major retail and healthcare markets – started as early as 1997. During that debate a consensus believed if Central Park grew, taxes would shrink. In 2001 the City Council sold $2.2 million in bonds for the project and the real estate tax rate was $1.13. The rate went as low as $0.53 in 2008.
The City’s Comprehensive Plan sets its corporate vision. The 2007 Comprehensive Plan stated that Central Park and Celebrate Virginia needed to “remain economically viable for the long-term future” and that the City should “collaborate with the developer(s) of Celebrate Virginia South to ensure the successful development and promotion of that tourism and retail campus”. The 2007 Plan also declared Medicorp – the parent company of the Mary Washingotn Hospital – an “institutional partnership” and called for “collaborative initiatives” and coordinated regional planning to ensure its success.
The City implemented this vision in two ways: it aggressively added capacity to infrastructure these markets grew out of and also provided new means of financing aimed at market players themselves. For example, in 2009 the Wegmans, a 150,762 sf grocery “store”, received a $1.7 million incentives package from the City . In 2011 a finance package that revolved around $25 million in Economic Development Authority bonds was put together to attract the Kalahari Resort . In 2013 the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority approved $101,000,000 worth of bond capacity for Medicorp. Again in 2013 the first iteration of the proposed stadium revolved around $30 million in municipal bonds . The City Council opted instead to offer $7 million worth of parking capacity for the stadium on-site and that is the deal that still sits on the table.
The City was not the only public corporation investing in market players. The state used $4.35 million in grants , after all, to help build the Amazon fulfillment centers in 2012.
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Fredericksburg’s Potential Solar Market. Map by Michael Craig.
The City of Fredericksburg should take the energy it is investing in its twentieth-century markets and create a new twenty-first century energy market. The Solar Patches highlighted in yellow on the map of Fredericksburg share unique solarable characteristics. They have an abundance of sun soaked areas – shopping center style contiguous flat roofs or treeless flat graded parking lots – on which the City can roll out the tarp like solar panels of the next decade.
The old shopping centers on the Route 3 corridor alone have more than 1,816,000 solarable square feet (sf) that if coated in photovoltaics (which are today only converting 15% of the sun’s potential) could generate 113,500 kilowatt hours of electricity a day. Comparatively, that is how much electricity 113 homes would use in a month! With an infusion of power the oft-dismissed buildings within these centers could enjoy a renaissance . The buildings, after all, have distinct advantages – they are open plan warehouses that are easily reconfigured that could house a range of uses from commercial, office, technology, to light industrial. Plus, they have great truck access.
It is easy to get excited about what citizens and new corporations in the City could do with a new solar power market. Take a look at the chart (below) showing the potential kilowatt hours per day that could be generated in the City!
The Potential Solar Market data table by Michael Craig.
Photocells coating the roof of an old shopping center could power a warehouse packed with computer servers from which Fredericksburg could secure a portion of the internet. Solar power over top of treeless asphalt could power industrial equipment that will help us more efficiently feed and clothe ourselves. Solar power could serve as an incentive in place of perpetual tax subsidies for national retailers. The solar power systems themselves could be removable, mobile and reconfigurable (unlike power lines, water lines, sewer lines, roads, etc.). Most importantly, solar power production could become a self-sustaining enterprise fund and add a new leg to the City Budget.
Other municipalities throughout Virginia generate power every day. The Municipal Electric Power Association of Virginia boasts 16 municipal electric utilities throughout the state. MEPAV’s current members mostly operate older hydro-electric power stations but the push is now underway to create new sustainable municipal power companies.
The General Assembly, also, recently started to form new sustainable energy corporations. In 2010 the Virginia Offshore Wind Development Authority was created by the legislature. The chair is Bob Mathias, the “Assistant to the City Manager” of Virginia Beach.
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UMW/Eagle Village District map excerpts from Fredericksburg’s 2005 JumpStart! plan. Provided by Michael Craig.
A City solar market would be a departure from the established vision that has been in place since 2005. The 2005 JumpStart! plan (which was incorporated into the 2007 Comprehensive Plan as well) illustrated the complete demolition of older shopping centers and the subsequent redevelopment of the land they sit on into dense vertically mixed use centers . The JumpStart! vision was the origin of the new Eagle Village center.
Mixed use is a useful concept. However, the redevelopment of Eagle Village relied as much on the extension of the public corporation as did the most recent expansions of the City’s retail and health care markets. First, the 2007 Comprehensive Plan declared the University of Mary Washington an “institutional partner” then the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority gave the University (a twentieth-century institution founded in 1908) $80 million in EDA bond capacity . That money was used in part to add parking capacity via a parking deck on which the development is centered. Look closely at the Route 3 Mixed Use District. It too is predicated on twentieth-century parking capacity.
Adding capacity and subsidizing market players carries risk. These programs have not, after all, met with the immediate success that they did originally in Central Park. Currently, land in Celebrate Virginia faces auction to cover unpaid taxes that were supposed to pay for the bonds used there to expand road capacity . Also, Medicorp’s bond ratings fell in 2011 because of increased regional competition.
Route 3 Mixed Use map excerpts from Fredericksburg’s 2005 JumpStart! plan. Provided by Michael Craig.
Compounding this issue is that, globally, our twentieth-century infrastructure is cracking around the edges. In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2011 the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was hit by a tsunami triggering a Level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale .
Celebrate Virginia, Eagle Village, and the Mary Washington Hosptial – the City’s great twentieth-century markets – will be successful. Their success, however, appears to hinge on public reinvestment in aging technology. The City needs a different approach to other areas of the City so that new twenty-first century institutions – with whom the City may strategically partner in one hundred years – can grow.
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Era altering forces are not unique to our time. Since we took over this country, the City has used a strong vision to invest in infrastructure and create markets. As a result, the City has had to deal with aging infrastructure routinely throughout its history. During those times the City’s ability to envision new markets has kept itself strong.
The Rappahannock Canal was an ambitious attempt to tame the river via 50 miles of stone and lock canal from Fredericksburg west to Waterloo. The project was started in 1811 when the General Assembly authorized “a stock” worth $100,000 for its construction. The State of Virginia and the “Common Council of the Corporation of Fredericksburg” would be the majority investor in the project.
By 1846 the Canal was complete-ish and citizen Wellington Gordon had invested his fortune to take it over. That year a large storm and ensuing flood decimated the entire venture. Gordon and his fortune were out, the Company never escaped the red, and by 1852 the Common Council of the Corporation of Fredericksburg became the canal’s sole proprietor.
The Canal was effectively dead as a transportation improvement but its new life as a power source was just beginning. That same year, 1852, the state formed the “Fredericksburg Water Power Company” via “Act of the Legislature” . The FWPC bought out the canal company, slammed a “crib dam” across the Rappahannock, and turned the failed boatway into a flume selling horsepower by the gallon.
The Fredericksburg Water Power Company produced two things. First, it spawned an industrial boom made of new local corporations that produced food, wool jackets, silk, paper and other commodities out of the new mechanical power . Second, the waters of the Fredericksburg Water Power Company birthed and incubated Fredericksburg’s then brand new electricity market. The Rappahannock Electric Light Company, the Spottsylvania Power Company, and even VEPCO (whom generated electricity using water power from the canal through the 1960’s) all grew from the strong public vision and political will that created the Fredericksburg Water Power Company.
The City of Fredericksburg is rich in older shopping centers with unique solarable characteristics. Mid to late twentieth century retail centers are facing headwinds as we move further into the twenty-first century. The first iPhone was sold in 2007, for example, and now people carry silicon enhanced neo-cortices around that stream nearly unimpeded from brain to device to a state funded “fulfillment centers” that have everything from books to random yard flags to computers.
The City of Fredericksburg has a strong retail and health care market. The City has a new mixed use center adjacent to the University. Now, it is time to envision a new solar energy market in the City.
Footnotes:
[1] “Fixing FXBG’s Traffic.” www.willmackintosh.org
[2]Sylvanius Jackson Quinn. The History of Fredericksburg. 1910.
[3]“Spottsylvania Power Company Spends $106,000.00 to Perfect Power Situation.” The Daily Star. June 5th, 1923.
[4]King, Heidi Tyline. Dominion’s First Century, a Legacy of Service. CorporateHistory.net. 2010.
[5]FRED GIS. http://fredericksburgva.gov/index.aspx?NID=515
[6]Scott, De’Onne. Fredericksburg. Arcadia Publishing. 2006.
[7]FRED GIS. http://fredericksburgva.gov/index.aspx?NID=515
[8]“Major Employers.” http://www.fredericksburgva.com/DoingBusiness/CommunityProfile/MajorEmployers/
[9]“Amazon.com to Open 2 Virginia Distribution Centers.” http://www.wric.com/story/16376680/amazon-to-open-2-richmond-area-distribution-centers
[10] “New tax on Central Park?” The Free Lance Star. November 24th, 1997.
[11]“The Cowan Question.” The Free Lance Star. August 26th, 2001.
[12]Fredericksburg Comprehensive Plan. September 25, 2007.
[13]Fredericksburg Comprehensive Plan. September 25, 2007.
[14]“Incentive Packages Become Routine.” The Free Lance Star. January 13th, 2008.
[15] “$25M for Kalahari – Kalahari Gets Help from the State.” The Free Lance Star. January 16th, 2010.
[16]Economic Development Authority Minutes. August 12, 2013. http://va-fredericksburg.civicplus.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/398?fileID=365
[17] Dooley, Kathleen – City Attorney. ITEM #11E RE: Multi-purpose Minor League Baseball Stadium. June 6th, 2013.
[18]“Financing Found for New Stadium.” The Free Lance Star. November 26th, 2013.
[19]“Amazon.com to Open 2 Virginia Distribution Centers.” http://www.wric.com/story/16376680/amazon-to-open-2-richmond-area-distribution-centers
[20]KWH estimates calculated from http://americanenergyindependence.com/
[21]“Solar for All.” Sierra. January/February 2013.
[22] “MEPAV Kept Busy as Renewable Energy Issues Surface in Legislature.” Virginia Town & City, October 2011.
[23] “Virginia Offshore Wind Development Authority.” http://wind.jmu.edu/offshore/vowda/
[24]Jumpstart! Plan. January, 2005. http://www.fredericksburgva.com/DoingBusiness/ReportsStudiesCodes/JumpstartPlan/
[25]Fredericksburg Comprehensive Plan. September 25, 2007.
[26]“UMW Foundation to refinance Eagle Village bonds.” The Free Lance Star. September 21st, 2009. http://news.fredericksburg.com/businessbrowser/2011/09/21/umw-foundation-to-refinance-eagle-village-bonds/
[27] “May 21 auction set for Celebrate Virginia North Land.” The Free Lance Star. Business Insider. April 21st, 2014.
[28] “Fitch Downgrades Mary Washington Healthcare (d/k/a Medicorp Health System) (VA) to ‘BBB+’”. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/11/idUS204267+11-Jul-2011+BW20110711
[29]“Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
[30] Calham, Daniel. The Rappahannock Canal. The American University. 1967.
[31]Calham, Daniel. The Rappahannock Canal. The American University. 1967.
[32]“FREDERICKSBURG a Review of the City and Its Industries…” Fred Star. May 14th, 1884.
[33]“Walk Through History…Mill Sites and Water Power.” http://www.librarypoint.org/walk_through_history_mill_sites_and_water_power
Fredericksburg.Today Editor’s Note: Op-Eds are printed as a service to the community and do not necessarily represent the views of the editor. They are published as submitted. The only editing is a run through spell check.
