A museum chronicling the 40 years of the Cold War could be built on the site of a shuttered prison in Fairfax County.
Negotiations between the Cold War Museum and Fairfax County park officials are under way to turn a 26-acre parcel on the south end of the former D.C. Department of Corrections facility at Lorton into the museum’s first permanent home. If talks are successful, the project would be the latest step in a massive effort to overhaul the sprawling, 2,000-plus-acre Lorton reservation.
“It’s unlikely that it will fall through; all indications point to the fact that we’ll get the site,” Cold War Museum Director Francis Gary Powers Jr. said. Powers, whose father was shot in a U-2 spy plane over Russia and tried as a spy, has been actively fund raising for several weeks. His father survived and died in the United States several years ago.
Park Authority spokeswoman Judy Pedersen would only confirm negotiations were ongoing.
Cold War Museum organizers have amassed more than $2.5 million worth of artifacts from the power struggle between the Soviet Union and United States; relics whose origin range from the attack on the USS Liberty to radar sites in Iceland, Powers said. The pieces are now held in storage throughout Fairfax County.
He expects to launch a fundraising drive once a permanent site is secured, anticipating a $40 million price tag for the entire project.
Fairfax County already has plans for the Lorton site that include an arts center and a mix of homes and shops. All of the projects involve the reuse of some of the buildings left after the last prisoners were transferred out in 2001. The property, deeded to Fairfax County the following year, is now home to a municipal golf course.
