Liberty revising plans for Campbell County development

Development plans for the more-than-200-acre parcel owned by Liberty University at the intersection of U.S. 29 and U.S. 460 may have shifted yet again.

The university now is looking at combining two high-profile proposals on the Campbell County tract. While it intends to build some form of academic facility, including expanding the engineering school, LU Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said the university wants to save a portion of that land for future retail development.

“We’re still talking about it, but I think that’s where we’re going to end up,” Falwell said. “I’m 99 percent sure that’s going to be the final decision.”

Falwell said there are two phases for building the academic portion of the project. The first phase is an 8,000-square-foot welding facility for part of the engineering school, which is likely to be completed this year. The second phase, which will include “a main academic hall and a small research park, will depend on the success of fundraising efforts,” he said.

Under new plans, academic buildings would go where hundreds of multi-family residential units were planned. Changes were made more formal about two weeks ago, Falwell said.

Campbell County Administrator David Laurrell said new plans have not been submitted and nothing official has been settled, but he was aware of the changing proposals.

Two years ago, LU said it was working with developers to build a 900,000-square-foot shopping center, known as Crossroads Colonnade, and more than 600 residential units on the tract. Campbell County supervisors approved rezoning the parcel for the project, but retail developer AIG Baker pulled out because of poor economic conditions.

In October, LU told Campbell County supervisors of plans to instead use the land for an expanded engineering school and a new research park. Falwell said the school has already spent about $4 million for a railroad bridge and road improvements for Liberty Mountain Road in anticipation of whatever development may occur.

The tract is the last large undeveloped piece of land that is easily accessible to all the area’s major highways, Falwell said. Since the October announcement, Falwell said there have been meetings with school and local officials about the plans for the site.

“All feel like we need to keep some of that land near the intersection undeveloped until we find the highest and best use for it,” he said.

While retail growth brings in short-term tax revenue, Laurrell said, that money tends to be recirculated throughout the area’s economy and doesn’t always result in a net gain unless new businesses and jobs are brought to the area.

By expanding an engineering school that could focus on new technology, Laurrell said, additional growth through spin-off businesses would occur and that would have a much greater impact on long-term economic growth in the county as well as throughout the region.

“If you ask me, I would certainly rather have a school of engineering and an associated business park development in that area in terms of the long-term growth,” Laurrell said. “We support the expansion of the university. … We particularly like the idea of a more hard technological direction with the engineering school because it generates a broader and deeper wealth-generating capability than some of the more liberal arts.”