HIGH SCHOOL GOLF: A look at some Prince William County squads. SPORTS, PAGES 11, 13
August 11, 2022 | Vol. 21, No. 32 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | $1.00 Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
Board OKs water quality study — with a catch
Supervisors won’t wait for results before vote on rural data centers By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
PHOTO BY MIKE BEATY
The Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Commonwealth History Fund, supported by Dominion Energy, awarded the Manassas Museum a $25,000 grant, which Mayor Michelle Davis-Younger, right, announced at the July 28 groundbreaking. Holding the check is Vice Mayor Pam Sebesky, left.
Manassas Museum breaks ground on long-awaited expansion By Cher Muzyk
Times Staff Writer
After years of planning, the long-awaited renovation and expansion of the Manassas Museum is underway. City officials gathered for a July 28 groundbreaking ceremony to kick off construction on the project, which is expected to take about a year to complete. The 6,500-square-foot museum opened in its current location 30 years ago in 1992. The expansion will add 4,800 square feet of new space, including a 2,300-square-foot special exhibition hall and 1,650 square feet of new collection space. The addition will feature soaring glass walls that will open to an outdoor courtyard. “The special exhibition hall is going to be a space that can function in multiple ways. … We can use it for exhibitions; the public can rent the space for events; and the way it is designed, it can be used for just indoor or both indoor and outdoor functions,” said Manassas Museum curator Mary Helen Dellinger.
Staff worked with architects GWWO of Baltimore to design a special exhibition hall that can be used separately from the other side of the museum for maximum flexibility, Dellinger said. Additional public amenities including updated restrooms, a family bathroom and a space for nursing mothers are included in the expansion plans. The City of Manassas will spend about $1 million in general funds and will borrow about $4.5 million in bonds to pay for the project. The remaining $1.2 million will come from other sources, including private donations. The museum first opened in 1974 as a small assortment of artifacts housed in a building that once served as The National Bank on Main Street in Old Town. Dellinger said that when she was hired as curator in 2012, plans for renovating the current building were being discussed but were repeatedly delayed. See MUSEUM, page 2
Craftworx Taphouse invites you to pour your own, page 7
The Prince William Board of County Supervisors’ Democratic majority will ask the Northern Virginia Regional Commission to conduct a comprehensive study of how three major – and controversial – land-use changes could impact water quality in the Occoquan Reservoir, a source of drinking water for more than 800,000 Northern Virginia residents. But the supervisors won’t necessarily wait on the results of that study before moving ahead with those landuse votes – a position that has once again sparked criticism from conservation groups and residents fiercely opposed to opening the protected “rural crescent” to data centers. “Prince William County sits on 43% of the Occoquan watershed and has an outsized responsibility to ensure its preservation and protection from the effects of illconceived development activity,” said Kathy Kulick, a leader of the recently formed HOA Roundtable of Prince William County, a coalition representing multiple homeowners’ associations that oppose the PW Digital Gateway for its possible impacts on the adjacent Manassas National Battlefield Park, water quality in the Occoquan See WATER, page 4
FILE PHOTO
Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, R-Brentsville, opposes opening the rural crescent to data centers and pushed the board to wait for a study of the developments’ impact on water quality before their vote, which is expected sometime this fall.
The Prince William County Fair returns Aug. 12-20. Upcoming Events, page 8
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