Business owners and residents alike in eastern Loudoun are experiencing yet another kind of pressure: incredible traffic. Before the boom in Loudoun and neighboring Fairfax County, traffic used to flow into the District of Columbia in the mornings and out in the evenings. But now, Fox says, there's no such thing as a reverse commute. "When you look at the traffic," he says, "it's deep in both directions." Making matters worse is the lack of public transportation. The county still doesn't have a connection to the Metro rail system in the D.C. area.
To ease the pressure in the east, families and business owners are looking west. Land in western Loudoun County is already zoned for residential use, and "we have 69,729 dwelling units in the pipeline," Towe says (adding that there are 94,690 planned for eastern Loudoun). "They just haven't been built yet." But as housing developments, office parks, and traffic congestion move west toward Leesburg, on Route 15, so does the tension.
Downtown Leesburg still boasts original stone structures and a traditional town center with brick sidewalks and row houses. Gone are most of the small retail and general stores that used to line the town square. In their place are high-end antiques and gift shops. Sure, some original businesses remain: the Leesburg Restaurant, the town's greasy spoon; and Caulkins, the local jewelry store. But there's also a brand-new county office building that stands as a glaring symbol of change. And on the edge of town are growing clusters of new houses and a giant outlet mall.
The future of eastern Loudoun seems more certain than that of traditional Loudoun. The old businesses that do survive are those that are skillfully adapting to the changing climate. Loudoun County Department of Economic Development director Larry Rosenstrauch says his office has a few ideas about how to strike a balance between the tensions of east and west. He and his staff are encouraging the growth of businesses that won't add new residents within Loudoun's borders. "Every job in Loudoun isn't necessarily a rooftop in Loudoun," he asserts. He and other officials in his office are trying to understand the relationships between business and residential growth, but they're doing that, he says, "as we're riding the tiger."
What Rosenstrauch knows is that some forms of new business development don't necessarily threaten the aspects of Loudoun County that many citizens are so vigorously trying to save. He suggests luring data centers, secure-network-access centers that store Internet servers but don't require scores of people to operate.
Some high-tech business owners, like Ed Leonard, CEO of Electronic Scriptorium, are trying to find ways for the two Loudoun cultures to coexist peacefully. His company, which enlists monks to catalog digital images, is housed in a small brick building near downtown Leesburg. Leonard says it's hard to lure tech employees west from the Dulles Corridor, so he offers recruits flextime, the option of working from home, and what he calls the more "humane" pace of western Loudoun.
Rosenstrauch says that the county is also looking at ways to conserve its agricultural heritage, which has declined by 21,613 acres of farmland from 1987 to 1997. Chic wineries are springing up in western Loudoun, and Rosenstrauch is hoping to capitalize on what he calls "entertainment farming" -- chintzy farmers markets for the city folk from out East. Then there's what's known as pharming -- the relatively new practice of using genetically altered livestock to produce proteins used in pharmaceuticals. Rosenstrauch says he's beginning to work with Virginia Tech's lauded agricultural department to encourage such high-tech farming in parts of Loudoun.
The Eleanore Towes of the county are hoping to keep Loudoun from being "Fairfaxed," a reference to the seemingly endless development sprawl of neighboring Fairfax County. "I'm trying to help the folks who deserve to remain in Loudoun and benefit from its prosperity," Towe says.
Those businesses that adapt stand the best chance of survival. Ed Nichols's 86-year-old family-owned $1-million store, Nichols Hardware, has thrived while making only subtle adjustments. For Nichols, who does every transaction by hand and has yet to purchase a computer for the business, one of the biggest changes is that the store now opens on Sundays.
Nichols Hardware, situated in the historic downtown section of Purcellville on a pretty, quiet street, sells everything from nails and wrenches to salad spinners. Over the years Nichols has expanded the store's size and adapted to the needs of the locals, old and new, by adding a new line of furniture, among other new products. For longtime Purcellville residents, the Thom Seeley chairs and tables may be a tad on the pricey side. But not everyone feels that way. "Our computer friends don't blink an eye at a $2,000 dinette set," Nichols says.
Those "computer people," as he often calls them, are the new residents who have recently started to trickle into the small town. They're a far cry from Nichols's old customers, mostly locals from the formerly thriving agricultural community. Those old customers, along with some of the merchants that once supported them, have started to disappear. "The area used to have more than 100 dairy farms, now it has 2," Nichols says.
Before the developers started buying up land, "we weren't booming," he says of the local economy. He's been admittedly lucky so far, despite the Home Depot just a 13-mile drive away, in Leesburg. Nichols believes he's managed to compete by offering personal touches that some chain stores may not. "We can tell you how to use the items," Nichols says. "I've gone into Wal-Mart, and nobody knows what to do sometimes."
But with the emergence of more developments -- the Nichols family recently sold its 127-year-old family farm to a developer, who has already built 60 houses on the 112 acres of land -- the promise of more commercial merchants looms large. Nichols has no idea what's in store for him or his business. "How this plays out is the $64-million question," he says. "Can you stop growth? It's hard to put the brakes on it once it's started."
Anne Marie Borrego is a reporter at Inc.
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