The closure of the D.C. Prison Complex is being accelerated, with the Bureau of Prisons transferring larger numbers of inmates into a diverse grouping of Federal, State and private prisons. GSA has announced its willingness to turn over ASAP to Fairfax scores of prison buildings and hundreds of acres for use as cultural, governmental, recreational, park land and natural resource areas. Local groups have filed letters of intent with the FCPA to adopt several former prison athletic facilities and put them into immediate use for the benefit of area youth.

Although negotiations continue between the Dept. of Interior and the Lynch Family for a land swap, Fairfax County recently made an offer which could dramatically accelerate both the Mason Neck Land Swap and the redevelopment of the 235 residentially-planned acres on the northern portion of the Laurel Hill Complex. Also on target for a spring 2001 completion are the identification/preservation activities required by the National Historic Preservation Act and the $13 million toxic waste re-mediation and clean-up programs ordered by the last two Congresses.

In the meantime, elsewhere in Greater Lorton the pace of actual or planned public and private infrastructure reconstruction and expansion has also picked up. In addition to the 17 residential communities with 2,500 units in active construction or site development, there are another 10 subdivisions containing 1,360 homes awaiting site planning or rezoning approval. The citizen-demanded $12,000,000 odor-control/elimination program at the Lorton Sewage Treatment Plant has finally started in earnest and should be completed by late 2001; the concurrent $185 million plant expansion will take a little longer. The $8,000,000 modernization and pollution-control programs at the I-95 Regional Waste-to-Energy Incinerator were recently inaugurated. The massive new $110,000,000 County Water Treatment Facility on Route 123 is well underway and should be done by 2003. Land for four new public schools (one middle, one high and two elementary schools) to accommodate the new students being generated by the 7,000 new Lorton Area homes expected to join the 11,000 existing ones over the course of this decade has been scheduled for no-cost transfer to the County. Although full funding for their construction has yet to be authorized, a myriad of schemes to "creatively finance" their expeditious activation are under review. Both a new Fire/Rescue Station and a new Post Office are also being pursued.

The first Lorton office park (Gunston Commerce Center at Route 1/Furnace Road) will soon open its initial building, the D.E.A. Training Academy, with 6 more buildings planned for later delivery. This venture is to be followed by KSI's two new commercial campuses within the Lorton Town Center Complex; by Zimmer Development Co.'s Crosspointe Shopping Center (on Route 123); and somewhat later this decade by Fort Belvoir's planned massive new South West Administrative Park (on Route 1, just north of Old Colchester Road and the Historic Pohick Episcopal Church).

And finally, several major transportation projects have been or will soon be initiated so that all the above public-private residential/commercial developments will have a reasonable chance of moving their residents, staff and visitors in and out of the area. Telegraph Road, Pohick Road-East, Lorton Railroad Underpass and Alban/Rolling Road Intersection are in reconstruction with improvements to Richmond Highway, Route 123, I-95 (both the regular and the HOV lanes), Rolling Road, Hooes Road, Pohick Road-West and Lorton Road funded and scheduled for construction over the next two-three years. And all of these events --- and more --- will hopefully soon be heralded by Greater Lorton's very own new privately published news-monthly, "The Lorton Valley Star".

It's obviously not your father's Lorton anymore!