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This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted 7-0 on Tuesday to approve the final design to widen 1.2 miles of Balls Ford Road to four lanes from Doane Drive to Ashton Avenue.
Republican At-large Chair Corey Stewart was absent from the meeting on Tuesday.
The $67.4 million project in the Gainesville district includes $52.4 million for construction, $5.4 million for engineering, surveying, design and management, and $9.6 million for right of way and utilities relocation.
This fall, the county is set to begin acquiring right of way. Utility relocation is projected to begin in spring 2020. The county is set to advertise for construction in fall 2020 and the project is set to be completed by fall 2022.
The project is set to widen the 1.2 miles of Balls Ford Road to four lanes with a divided median, a sidewalk and a shared use path.
The project is slated to improve access to I-66, decrease traffic and improve safety, according to the county agenda documents.
A signal will be added at the intersection of Notes Drive and Century Park Drive, and the existing signal at Ashton Avenue will be modified for the project.
Prince William County’s transportation department is administering the project, and it is funded by state dollars from Transform 66 Outside the Beltway contract and development proffers.
Potomac Shores
The board also voted 7-0 on Tuesday to approve a special use permit for a Potomac Shores Town Center.
The permit applicant is Harbor Station Communities LLC and Potomac Shores Residential Association Inc. Potomac Shores is a community on more than 1,885 acres and currently has more than 800 homes. The board approved a rezoning application in 2013 which allowed for 3.7 million square feet of office and commercial space and nearly 4,000 residential units in the community dubbed Potomac Shores.
The special use permit approved on Tuesday does not increase commercial space or the number of residences in the community, according to a representative of the applicant. The permit solidifies the location of some commercial space, allows for a mixed-use building, hammers down a the location of a proposed hotel, expands the river walk, adds a park and a new site to be deeded to the county for an elementary school, according to the applicant’s representative. The new elementary school is slated to be open in 2023.
The applicant previously has deeded two sites to the county for schools. The Covington-Harper Elementary School opened in 2017 and a middle school site, which currently is under construction and slated to open in 2021.
The new VRE station near the Potomac River in the Potomac Shores community is set to be completed by 2022, said Supervisor Maureen Caddigan, R-Potomac. The station was originally set to open in 2017. The VRE station will be along the river walk, which will be more than half a mile in length and west of the Potomac River.
The applicant is set to build a 500-space parking garage that will be free for VRE riders and the general public.
“This is unique and as you can see, it’s beautiful,” Caddigan said. “It is magnificent. I wanted to say the developers [California-based SunCal] are the most generous developers I’ve ever worked with.”
