FRPD construction highlights dawn of west-side commercial rebirth

Two views of where the main entrance to the new FRPD headquarters will be at the east side of the main building. Photos/Roger Bianchini

Due to some extended periods of unfortunate and construction-delaying weather over the winter months – there may not have been much snow but there was a lot of rain and wind – the target completion date for the new Front Royal Police Department headquarters building off the Kendrick Lane-Monroe Avenue intersection has been moved back from November 1 to December 31.

Despite missing a photo op with Police Chief Kahle Magalis the morning of Tuesday, May 1 – that light agenda Board of Supervisors meeting and work session went on MUCH longer than anticipated – Royal Examiner was okayed for an early afternoon inside-the-perimeter photo-shoot meeting with Randy Atkins, who is overseeing the project for the town government.

Guest hard-hat in place – I tried to tell him I didn’t need one, my head’s hard enough as it is – Atkins showed the photographer first to what will be the front, main entrance to the new FRPD headquarters main building.

Architectural rendering of the main entrance

The two-building plan as viewed from above

We then did a walk along a temporary berm about midway down the length of the main building where Atkins pointed to the outer framing of the secondary, out building at the western end of the site. Finishing with a few shots of work at the back of what will be a nearly $11-million site work-construction-fitting-and-furnishing project, we turned in our hard hat (but not head) and exited the site.

Looking west down the front of the FRPD construction work

We later contacted Chief Magalis about his impressions of work on the new headquarters and departmental anticipation of the pending move.

“So after a bit of a slow start on the construction, we are very excited to see it coming up out of the ground. Once they began the work on the structural steel you could really see the building begin to take shape. All of the police department employees are excited about the progress.

We look forward to having a modern, functional facility that will serve the needs of the police department and the citizens of Front Royal for the next several decades. We are hopeful to move in around the first of the year,” Magalis, in his first year on the job after moving over from the WCSO to replace the retired Norman, Shiflett, replied.

No sneaking in – or out – of the FRPD headquarters back door

Across Kendrick Lane at the Royal Phoenix Business Park site work began in January on the first of three slated buildings to be constructed by ITFederal, an IT company with a past history of federal contracts. ITFederal is the 147-acre business park site’s first commercial client.

The Town of Front Royal has also approved construction of a centralized wastewater pumping station capable of serving an estimated seven commercial clients and 4200 people on the business park’s north side, as well as the new FRPD headquarters.

EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald told her board on April 27 that due to some issue with the location of electrical conduits at the ITFed site, work had temporarily been halted on the first commercial structure going up at Royal Phoenix.

However, the fact that there is building activity on both sides of Kendrick Lane now, even if sporadic at times, is a positive and very welcome sign 29 years after what had been one of the town’s major private-sector employers for decades, Avtex Fibers, was closed by the state government for myriad emissions and pollutant violations in 1989.

But now in 2018 the long-held municipal, state and federal dream of economic redevelopment on portions of the sprawling 467-acre, former federal Superfund site appears to be taking shape.

The ITFederal phase one site in early May (top) and early March (below).