A behind-the-scenes effort to both protect Harpers Ferry National Historical Park from neighboring development and obtain land for a Museum of the National Park Service has been pulled off.
The complicated deal involved the purchase of 15 parcels of land encompassing 564 acres. The dollar-amount of the deal was not immediately announced, although details are expected to be forthcoming in the new few weeks.
In recent months there had been great concern that the so-called Old Standard Quarry property adjoining the park would be turned into a sprawling commercial center. However, this purchase effectively eliminates the current development proposals for not just the Old Standard Quarry property, but also for the Buglar’s Rest, Allstadt Corners, and Benview tracts.
Engineering the land deal was Concord Eastridge, a national player in putting together public-private partnerships. One of the company's affiliates, Stonewall Heights, LLC, consummated the purchases.
Under the deal, not only will much of the land that was purchased be protected by a conservation easement, but some will be set aside for the Museum of the National Park Service with an adjoining hotel and conference center.
"This is a fantastic ending to what could easily have been a catastrophe for one of the most picturesque national parks in the country," says Civil War Preservation Trust President Jim Lighthizer. "My hat is off to the development group that has made this win-win solution possible. It is further evidence that preservation and development are not mutually exclusive, especially when both sides communicate in good faith."
The Museum of the National Park Service had been recommended to be a keystone of the Bush administration's National Park Centennial Initiative. While it was absent from a list of 201 "eligible" centennial protects released back in August, there were rumblings that efforts were being made to see this facility materialize in time for the Park Service's centennial in 2016.
According to this week's announcement, the museum should be ready to open in 2009. It will house significant artifacts drawn from national parks and is expected to become the preeminent venue for the public to experience the diversity of America’s historic and scenic resources. Those familiar with the project say state-of-the-art multimedia and virtual reality displays could attract upwards to a million visitors a year.
The purchase comes after many months of sensitive negotiations between the consortium and local developers. Numerous local officials facilitated these discussions and endorsed the ultimate outcome as a major win-win for all parties and especially for Jefferson County, West Virginia.
Comments
A museum dedicated to a federal bureaucracy? Will it be filled with life-sized photos of noted NPS bureaucrats? I wonder if space will allow for images of giant sequoias, grizzly bears, waterfalls, and exploding volcanos? Perhaps not, now that such concepts are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
During earlier dialog about the NPS, I believe it was Beamis who mentioned one of the agency's greatest evils: the tradition of employees rapidly moving from one park to the next for career advancement. The latest mantra is that career advancement allows an employee to embrace "new challenges." This has become the accepted group-think, much to the detriment of the parks and their visitors.
I know, I know...I've heard it before. "If the parks aren't frequently infused with 'new blood,' there won't be any new ideas." But many, many other avenues exist to introduce new idieas to an organization. Inter-park trainings and conferences are obvious ones (so long as they're about ideas and don't simply serve as junkets for bored employees). Reading a book or checking a website are others. Sitting down and thinking for an hour or so is yet another (but you'll have to turn off your cell phone or blackberry first). And never forget that old ideas are often the best. Try the NPS Mission, for starters.
At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think the career climbing tradition and the seeking of "new challenges" is incredibly selfish, especially when an employee leaves a park after only the typical three-odd years. The national parks deserve employees who will devote quality time to learning their place of employment...and growing to love it. Sorry, but employees need to care more about the parks and the public than their petty careers and soon-to-be-forgotten legacies. It's not about using one's career to bounce from park to park: that's what vacations are for.
Ever hear of a Seagull Manager? It's someone who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poops all over everything, and then leaves.
Simple Proposal #7: Be an Eagle, Not a Seagull
Has everyone seen the demotivational posters and calendars at despair.com? They're hilarious and they poke fun at those beautiful posters with inspirational messages. There's one with a picture of an eagle soaring above some snow-capped mountains and the caption at the bottom reads:
"Leaders are like eagles. We don't have either of them here."
If you've never seen this site before, bring your hanky and be prepared to cry from laughing so hard.
Thanks, Frank, for you positive feedback. Back at ya!
Good to hear you had an independent thinking supervisor at Zion. Truthfully, I believe most NPS employees know the difference between logic and absurdity...but we exist in a culture where daring to speak common sense, for some obscure reason, seems "dangerous" and "revolutionary".
This will be the topic of a future Simple Proposal.
Bart
You're dead on target Jon. Any reader of those captions would be hard pressed to find even one that didn't apply across the board to what we're discussing on most every issue. Kurt should feature a link......
Plans revealed for museum near Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
By DAVE McMILLION [email protected]
CHARLES TOWN, W.VA
OK, so you have a four-part, $250 million museum you want to build on a high hill near Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Park officials, however, are aghast over how it will impact the historic area.
What’s an architect to do?
Rip off the top of the hill.
“Our proposal is to take the four components, scrape the top of the hill off, build the components and then put the hill back over the building,” Douglas Carter of Davis Carter Scott Architecture told the Jefferson County Commission on Thursday.
If that doesn’t impress you, maybe how the building’s designers plan to heat and cool it will.
Given its hilltop location and breezy conditions, wind turbines will be used to generate power and a “wind chimney” at the top of the building will draw naturally cool air from “cooling wells” within the ground, Carter said.
Rest of the article at: http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=178203&format=html
Kurt:
No one seems to know WHO Stonewall Heights, LLC is. Names are not being revealed. What's the big secret and how is their hotel and conference center different from what was just fought off with the last group of developers? They were building on their own land, too. The same property.
Thanks.
Sorry about the bad link -- try this one:
http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=178213&format=p...
Harper's Ferry already uses shuttle buses to get people into the town proper. There's a nearby flea market (a real eyesore) that wouldn't look any worse as a parking lot. Not that I'm in favor of parking lots...
Of course it's going up in West Virginia. Senator Byrd is the King of Pork! Some enterprising reporter or blogger should follow the money. Somehow it leads into Byrd's campaign coffers.