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Our heritage for sale?
The newspapers have begun calling it “The Third Battle of Manassas."
The Hazel Peterson Company's plan to build “William Center," a 1.2 million square foot shopping mall next to the Manassas Battlefield Park just north of 1-66, has outraged preservationists, history buffs and everyone with a concern for the character and heritage of Piedmont Virginia.
It began two years ago as a 600-acre business and residential development, including 120,000 square feet of retail space. Opponents were assured that the project would be low-profile and well-screened from the 5,000-acre battlefield park which lies near the site. Based on the stated conditions, the National Park Service and Prince William County approved the proposal.
Then, in January, the plan changed with the announcement by HazeLPeterson Company that a larger. &00-shop mall would be built cm the battlefield, rather than adjacent to it, although the land is not part of the battlefield park. And, the project doesn’t stop with the mall; 560 houses and another two milium square feet of commercial space are already in the planning stages.
Leaving aside the question of whether Manassas really needs another mall, this proposal has focused debate on what is, unfortunately, an all-too-common occurrence: the destruction of important pieces of our history by development. It happens when our common heritage is subordinated to selfish interests; when greed replaces pnde and honor in our national character.
What message do we send our children when a member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors remarks that the battlefield is “a place for dead people”? How can we expect them to grow up with pride in their American heritage when their elected officials, by their actions, teach them that historical monuments are nothing more than another piece of feal estate — to be sacrificed for development when the right bundle of bucks comes along? * The saddest and most disturbing element of thi3 controversy is that the Manassas proposal is not an anomaly. It has captured the attention of the news media, and therefore has received a lot of exposure in the press.
But the same things are happening all around us. Look at the Rt. 3 corridor just west of Fredericksburg, where the highway passes through the Chancellorsville battlefield. On Rt. 20, just down the road from Chancellors ville, developers threaten the W’ildemess battlefield as well; and nearby, the Spotsylvania battlefield Ls under attack too.
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