Developers will soon be asked to bid on a project to convert a former D.C. prison in Fairfax County to a village of homes and shops.
About 80 acres in the heart of the shuttered Lorton Correctional Facilities Complex, which sits near Interstate 95 in the Mount Vernon District, could become a mix of commercial space and “magnet” houses for teachers and public safety officers, said Chris Caperton, the coordinator for the project with the county’s Planning and Zoning department.
A plan for the venture — dubbed the Laurel Hill Project — calls for the reuse of many of the standing structures at the site, which was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places.
“The prison buildings have a very unique feel and scale about them that we want to preserve,” Caperton said.
The project would encompass about 50 structures, including the reformatory and maximum security prisons, he said.
A larger renewal effort is also under way on the 2,000-plus acre site with a golf course, arts center and park space, said Tim Sargeant, chairman of the citizens group overseeing the redevelopment.
The county will likely ask for proposals from developers next month, and hopes to sign a partnership with one by fall of next year, he said.
The last prisoners were transferred from Lorton in 2001, and the property was deeded to Fairfax County in 2002, according to the Planning and Zoning department.
Lorton Prison’s past
» Lorton Prison was originally commissioned under the Theodore Roosevelt administration. The facility grew over the decades, at one point housing more than 8,000 inmates, the last of whom were transferred in November 2001.
Source: Fairfax County Planning and Zoning department
