Park Service and Interior Negotiations

Aside from Mott's letter to Seefeldt, the National Park Service delayed taking a formal position on the mall issue until the end of April. As the Save the Battlefield Coalition gathered national attention, the NPS quietly reviewed the situation and determined that mall traffic through the battlefield park at the Stone House intersection represented the most serious threat to the historical integrity of the park. To accommodate the expected surge in vehicular traffic, Prince William County officials favored widening the two crossroads—Lee Highway and Route 234. This proposed widening would destroy whatever historic presence the intersection still had. The park would be effectively divided into quadrants, and interpretive efforts would suffer because visitors would be constantly crisscrossing the intersection to get to the historic park areas. The proximity of this traffic to the Stone House would also severely endanger its structural integrity. [21]

Map. 2. Interior Department officials proposed a compromise to the William Center mall controversy by supporting the Route 234 bypass, which they argued would funnel traffic out of the battlefield park and allow the National Park Service to close the roads inside the park. (Map by Dave Cook. © 1991, The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission) (click for a larger image)

Director Mott presented this information to Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel and asked for his assistance in reopening communication with the county and the developer. Mott rightly believed that the Park Service had to continue negotiations with the interested parties to ensure protection of the battlefield park. The NPS's active negotiations with Hazel/Peterson during the 1986 William Center rezoning had set the tone of the agency's involvement and made it difficult for the Service to stay on the sidelines with regard to the mall proposal. The neutral stance taken during the 1973 Marriott theme park proposal had been replaced by discussion and cooperation. Mott and Hodel sat down and discussed the mall situation with Prince William County representatives, Hazel/Peterson, the Virginia state highway authorities, the state historic preservation officer, congressional representatives, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. These initial meetings resulted in a compromise that Hodel and Mott announced on 28 April 1988. [22]

At the April press conference, Hodel and Mott noted that the proposed widening of the Stone House intersection would destroy the historical integrity of the battlefield park. As an alternative, they described how mall traffic could be rerouted. The compromise, which they emphasized was still a general concept and not an accomplished fact, involved relocating the mall to a lower elevation, thus making it less visible from the park. Deciduous trees would help screen the development from the road, at least during the warmer months. The Park Service would provide text for Stuart's Hill interpretive displays, to be placed prominently near the buildings, to assist visitors in understanding its significance to Second Manassas. Hazel/Peterson would build two-story office buildings on the remainder of Stuart's Hill. The NPS would support efforts to route traffic out of the park, including building the Route 234 bypass, with a major interchange at the William Center tract, to accommodate north-south traffic, and widening Interstate 66, to remove east-west traffic from Lee Highway. Lee Highway and Route 234 would then be closed to through traffic and returned to gravel as they existed during the Civil War. [23]

The compromise plan excluded a key interest group, the Save the Battlefield Coalition. Prince William County officials accepted the offer for further negotiations, with Seefeldt commenting that "positive suggestions" had been made. Hazel/Peterson supported the proposed plan because it kept the mall and offered a solution to the traffic problem. Park Service officials agreed that the park's historical integrity would be best preserved by closing the roads, on which the compromise focused. Snyder and the Save the Battlefield Coalition, though, were outraged that Interior and the Park Service had not asked the preservationists, who had brought national attention to the issue, to the negotiating table. This affront seemed especially curious since the compromise plan implied that Stuart's Hill was of sufficient historic significance to warrant moving the mall and placing interpretive displays on the hill. Bolstered by this indirect admission, the Save the Battlefield Coalition rallied more attention to its cause. [24]

Wanting to reach an agreement acceptable to everyone, including the Save the Battlefield Coalition, the Park Service and Interior invited the involved parties to a series of task force meetings. The first conference ended with the hope that the compromise could be implemented, but subsequent meetings deteriorated as it became clear that the federal government could not force a negotiated compromise. Several factors influenced this deadlock. The Department of the Interior and the Park Service had no trump to bring the opposing parties into line. Their delay in responding to Hazel/Peterson's proposal, waiting until the SBC had attracted national attention to the mall, impaired the federal government's ability to take control of the situation. This situation worsened on 19 May when the Save the Battlefield Coalition irretrievably divorced itself from Interior's compromise plan and at a national press conference announced its continued opposition to the mall. The historical significance of the tract became a key issue, with former park historian John Hennessy arguing that Lee's planning on Stuart's Hill was critical to the outcome of Second Manassas. [25]

Fig. 14. Northern Virginia developer John T. ("Til") Hazel, whose motto was "never give up," had construction crews working twenty-four hours a day on his William Center shopping mall-residential-office complex next to Manassas National Battlefield Park, despite protests from preservationists. (Photo by James A. Parcell. © 1988, The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission)

Other reasons contributed to the deadlock over the Park Service's compromise plan. Hazel/Peterson exercised its legal right to proceed with construction on the site, twenty-four hours a day, seemingly bypassing any agreements that may have been made in the recent meetings. Coalition supporters wondered how the developer and Interior could be committed to reaching a compromise if Hazel's construction crews continued working at the site. And although everyone, including the SBC, agreed that closing Lee Highway and Route 234 was necessary to the long-term health of the park, they also recognized the high costs involved. Hefty financial commitments by state and federal highway authorities were needed, which SBC lawyer Boasberg acknowledged publicly during the 19 May press conference, and this increased skepticism about the feasibility of the Park Service's compromise plan. Finally, members of Congress became involved, effectively removing the mall issue from the control of the Interior Department and the Park Service. [26]

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