New owner will continue to farm the land

Front Royal — The 121 acres of land along the North Fork of the Shenandoah River that attracted national attention to Warren County after a controversial rezoning to allow a proposed Wal-Mart Superstore has been sold.

Warren County farmer and sometime developer Larry Andrews bought the land — known as the Richards tract and also referred to as the Wal-Mart property — for $2.3 million.

The sale was completed on Aug. 6.

In August 2002, Wal-Mart applied to the town of Front Royal to rezone the land from R-1 residential to commercial. Town Council approved the rezoning in 2003, but Wal-Mart eventually decided to build in the Riverton Commons site north of Interstate 66.

Wal-Mart is slated to open in December.

Representatives of Save Our Gateway (SOG), a grass roots organization, sought to keep the land undeveloped.

SOG president Craig Laird said in a statement that "the Richards Trust did not wish to work with us or other preservation groups. We are certain that the new owner Mr. Andrews, as a long-term resident of Warren County, will take into account the sensitivities and scenic charms that this community feels for that property, and perhaps even work toward long-term or permanent preservation for future generations. We believe we can work with Larry to accomplish this goal to everyone’s satisfaction."

"[Bill Richards] asked me to seek out a private sale," real estate agent Mike Silek said. "It was very controversial and he didn’t want to raise ire, or create a distraction."

Silek said that Save Our Gateway had as much right to buy the land as anyone.

"I would have been happy to sell it to them, we just didn’t want it to become a three ring circus," Silek said.

Andrews, who has been leasing the land and farming it for hay for 19 years, said he "loved farming, but you have to inherit the land to farm or take a lot of government subsidies to make it work. I bought this because it’s a farm I’ve been working all these years and I knew it was good farmland."

He tried to buy the land after Wal-Mart pulled out, but said the price was too high.

The town’s new slope ordinance, which limits development on land with a slope of more than 15 percent, diminished the value, Andrews said.

"They told me 35 percent of the usable land is ruled out by that ordinance," Andrews said.

Four-fifths, or about 97 acres, of the land is in the flood plain of the Shenandoah River.

Though he said he hasn’t really looked at the development potential in detail, he did have Greenway Engineering look at the topography in relation to the slope ordinance.

Andrews, 58, said he will continue to farm the land as long as he is able.

Contacted for comment on the sale, Councilman Stan Brooks, who had been active with Save Our Gateway and was elected in May 2004 — along with Mayor Jim Eastham, Councilwoman Eileen Grady, and Vice Mayor Tim Darr — in a wave of opposition to a Wal-Mart at the Riverton site, said, "I haven’t heard anything about that."Former Councilman Joe McDaniel who, along with Hollis Tharpe and Dusty McIntosh, voted in favor of the rezoning for Wal-Mart, said he thought if the store had been built, "people wouldn’t even know it was there now.""Deep in my heart I still think it’s the right place for Wal-Mart, especially with all the improvements they were going to do to the intersection."