Diamond Pearson needed a new place to live and was looking for an industrial atmosphere. She was intrigued when the Liberty Clest Apartment in Fairfax County, Virginia appeared online.
“I checked it out and fell in love -bricks, concrete floors -it was very beautiful,” said 32 -year -old Pearson, who works at Fairfax County School. All units in the complex facility were unique and she liked it. Until she signed a lease agreement, someone said, “Did you know that this is an old prison?”
In fact, the development, which is now called Liberty, has lived as a previous life as a Lothon reform, a prison residential prisoner in Washington DC, built in 1910. Fait -After they picked outside the White House.
The prison was closed in 2001, and the following year, Fairfax County purchased a 2,400 -acres site. It included a farm and a labor area where prisoners could learn transactions such as metal processing and carpentry for $ 4.2 million. The county gradually changed the property to a park and a golf course, three schools, and a vast art center. In 2008, the county was Alexander Company, a developer in Wisconsin, who has historical preservation and adaptive reuse to convert previous cell blocks and other buildings to build a new structure. I started cooperating. Currently, the composite facilities include 165 apartments, of which 98 % are leases, and there are 157 town houses, 24 detached houses, and commercial spaces. In 2017, the tenant began to move. Many were attracted to pools, 24 -hour gyms, and amenities like yoga rounds.
Pearson said the first night in her new place was the most difficult. She has been in her apartment since 2022 with her son Britain and her dog Nike. This was actually a prison, but I adjusted it, “she said. “I love you. The architecture here all tells the story -All inches, all cracks.”
The Redevelopment Intity -Fairfax County, Alexander Company, and Elm Street Development -Development -Development -The Development of Elm Street worked closely with the community members during the planning process. Local residents promoted a mixed income house, and the developers guarantee that about one -quarter of units were affordable for those who accounted for 50 % of the median of the regional income. The two -bedroom apartment with a market rate is $ 1,600 to $ 2,500, almost average in this area.
The community members also wanted to maintain the character of the site. The revivalbill of prison colonies, built in a progressive emphasis in a progressive emphasis on rehabilitation, used bricks that prisoners made themselves on site while sleeping in the tent until the building was completed. Maintaining the character was also a priority for the developer himself to use the tax deduction given to the historic site.
Redeveloped sites include a part of the prison's original sign and a museum that records the past of property. The museum is named after the famous Sufflagist Lucy Burns, which was imprisoned in Rothon, and introduces agricultural technology and homemade weapons used by early prisoners.
“I think they did a pretty good job to maintain the original design, intentional historicality and completeness,” said the Fair Fax, chairman of the Fairfax Historical Committee when the county purchased real estate. Lin Gerbe Hodge, resident, said. “I am very satisfied with it.”
The redevelopment of Lorton Reformature is an example of cities nationwide, as the number of states that have chosen to close a part of prisons is increasing.
In the past few decades in the 20th century, the United States has experienced a prison construction boom. More than 1,000 facilities were built between 1970 and 2000. However, around 2010, the number of imprisoned people began to decline. This has begun to decline in part of the non -crime of some drug -related crimes. Almost 200 states and federal correction facilities were closed from 2000 to 2022.
In New York alone, inmates have declined more than 50 % since 1999. In November, the closure of Sullivan County and Washington County, two orthodontics facilities in New York, was closed. These institutions have been participating in 24 other prisons in the state, which have stopped their business in the past 13 years. Some of them are reused in a way to benefit their communities, but many are still vacant.
Success stories include a border of New Jersey, New York, which led the municipal government to change the mid -orange correction facilities to business campus and sports parks. In Manhattan, the former Lincoln orthodontic facility is set to become an affordable housing complex called Seneca. In Hudson Valley's fish kills, decorative Verrariy recently purchased a site of a downstate orthodontic facility, a 100 -acres real estate closed in 2022.
However, the freedom and complex in New York are all in the country with a small population. Most US prisons have not had a taker in many detention centers in rural areas built for the past half a century. These facilities were often required by local government officials who wanted prison to bring their work to this area. However, if these detention centers, sometimes many miles away from lively economic activities, are often not lined up to open their business there.
“There is a lack of perception that there is a lack of imagination about the future of a closed prison, and what can be transformed into a closed prison site.”・ Porter said. An organization that promotes the fairness of the criminal judicial system.
Porter's group who pushes to minimize imprisonment will support the reusing of the facility and will be able to use it again as a prison.
In many cases, old prisons are approaching the center of the city, so there is a candidate for redevelopment on the surface. However, some cities, such as Dallas, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Pittsburg, may be expensive to redevelop prison, so vast complex facilities are empty.
The prison wall is thick and costs money to renovate. Or the building may be full of asbestos, as in the case of Nashville's Tennessee Prison, a castle -like structure built by architect Samuel Patton in 1898.
And redevelopment of these sites, whether it is a private -owned composite or housing project, or the public and private sector efforts aimed at stimulating the local economy, many local residents' resources, including local residents. And need to be involved.
The involvement of the community may mean that some plans will never get off the ground, as in the case of the main state of the main state. I agree with the property option.
Despite the hurdles, the authorities know that the previously redeveloped prison site may be a community catalyst. In New York, Governor Cathy Hochulu established a prison redevelopment committee in 2022 and pushed his shutter site to reuse.
In Utah, a closed prison 600 -acres site has been redeveloped by Lincoln real estate companies and state governments in Dallas. Utah prison was built 70 years ago in a rural area of 20 miles south of Salt Lake City. This area has grown around it, and today is in the most population area in the state.
Almost 10 years ago, as economic research emphasized the strategic value of prison, the state established a new prison in the west of the city and established a land authority to improve old property.
Many of the sites have been destroyed. The plan is to change it into a huge and dense development called a point. The state owns the land, leads the process of building thousands of housing units, railway stations and bicycle paths, and connects to the rest of the area.
This property is a fast -growing technical department of universities and Utah. There is also an innovation area that aims to summarize research institutions and companies nearby. Governor Utah, Spench Circox, and legislative leaders have established their positions in December.
When a prison in Utah begins, a leader in Michigan, Indiana is watching. They also have a state prison that will be closed in a few years of important land. Next to the Indiana Dues National Park, about 1 mile from Lake Michigan, the redevelopment was able to release the new future of the town.
But first, the town needs to control property from the state. This is difficult. And there is a problem of prison history. “They will be executed on site. Michigan City's architect Doug Fur, who is supporting the plan, states:” Somewhere in this complex, chairs or such things. there is.”
Far said that it is difficult to come up with a way to respect the site where the execution was performed. But a few years ago the development ended, and he said, “We rely on time lags.” “Maybe people will leave their own memories by then.”
