Lorton Prison Reformed Into Arts Center
Workhouse to Feature Studios, Galleries, Performance Space

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007; PW10

On a recent day as the sun blazed, a construction crew at the new arts center in Lorton drove a bulldozer straight toward one of the most visible reminders of this site's past: a forbidding fence that penned in prisoners when the buildings were part of the sprawling D.C. Correctional Facility.

For more than five years, a private arts foundation has worked to transform the prison's old workhouse off Ox Road into a gleaming arts center with studios, galleries and performance space. The $26 million Workhouse Arts Center will officially open next year, but in the coming weeks residents will glimpse the first major activity there since the foundation's members leased the property from Fairfax County last year.

The center has launched a schedule of painting, drawing and yoga classes in a borrowed space at a nearby shopping center; students and teachers will likely move into renovated classrooms on the 55-acre site later this fall. On Sept. 28, a black-tie fundraising gala will feature a performance by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, an early supporter.

"This is an opening celebration to cultivate people and show them this is what we're doing, and this is the level of quality for both emerging artists and professionals they can expect here," said Tina Leone, the foundation's executive officer.

The center is the second major public amenity to open at the former Lorton penal complex, which sprawled over more than 2,000 acres in southeastern Fairfax County and housed thousands of offenders before it was shuttered in 2001.

Since that time, the county's Park Authority has taken responsibility for most of that land, building a golf course, which has a waiting list for memberships. Park officials also hope to partner with private groups to build a sportsplex and barn for riding lessons. The arts center will be in brick buildings that used to house lower-risk prisoners, called the Occoquan Workhouse. The county has yet to find a developer for the most visually prominent acreage, the land on which the penitentiary building and looming watchtower still sits.

The closing of the penal complex and the region's overall development boom fostered a blossoming in Lorton, a part of the county some residents thought had long been neglected.

Signs up and down Ox Road now advertise new subdivisions of million-dollar houses near the area now called Laurel Hill.

"When we first started, we thought we were entering a depressed area. There weren't any houses out here at all," said Sharon Mason, the Workhouse Arts Center's executive arts director. "Now new homes nearby are selling from $1 to $2 million. We're taking a look at our programming with the mindset of . . . what does this community want?"

Responding to what they hear, they are planning more dance performances and children's classes to attract some of the neighborhood's newer families, Mason said.

The arts center will likely be one of the most high-profile amenities in Laurel Hill, where organizers envision not just studio spaces for artists but also two restaurants, a theater, an event center, music programming in a nearby barn, a museum and lofts where artists can live and work.

Many of those features are in the distant future, organizers say. For now, the Lorton Arts Foundation is finishing construction of the 10 brick buildings that will be artists' studios, office space and the exhibit gallery.

The gala will be in a former prison gym, where organizers dream of adding heating and air-conditioning and theater seats. For now the digs will remain rustic, although a dance floor was bought to protect Baryshnikov's toes.

The site was established in 1910 to house nonviolent and short-term prisoners from the District, after concerns grew about poor conditions in city jails. The red-brick buildings, designed by D.C. municipal architect Snowden Ashford, were built by inmates during the 1920s and are resonant of the quadrangle at the University of Virginia, with a central courtyard and airy arches. Over the years, prisoners from the workhouse -- including, in 1917, some famous suffragists -- cultivated fields, raised chickens and ran the prison's dairy.

The forbidding penitentiary buildings, concertina wire and towers came later, as Lorton grew into a crowded penal complex with more than 7,300 inmates by the mid-1990s.

Fairfax County, which bought the Lorton site from the federal government in 2001, is leasing the workhouse buildings to the arts foundation and approved the sale of $26 million in bonds to finance the initial redevelopment. It also gives the group a matching grant of $1 million yearly for maintenance of the buildings, for now.

Leone said that the foundation's goal is to be self-sustaining and that fundraising and fees from classes and programming would cover the bulk of the debt service on the $26 million bond, as well as operating costs.

Officials expect about 150,000 visitors in early years. In contrast, the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, which sits on a spot well-trafficked by tourists, draws 500,000 yearly visitors.

A 2005 analysis by Fairfax County budget staff concluded that the project would succeed only if the foundation "is successful in an on-going fundraising campaign" and that money from its programming and county contributions alone would not sustain it.

The foundation hopes to raise at least $1.9 million annually after the first five years, which would be more than half its total expenses, the report said. If it fails, the county could reassume control of the buildings at a cost of nearly $10 million, which would be offset by some operating income, the report said.

An audit last year showed that the foundation raised $618,595 in 2005 and $1,042,220 last year.

"We still have fundraising to do . . . but our goal is to be self-sustaining and keep it that way," Leone said. Once the center is open, she said, "I fully expect our fundraising to ramp up significantly."

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly called the arts center "a marvelous concept."

"Assuming it succeeds, it will really transform the former workhouse site into something very vibrant and creative and could create an artists colony to rival the Torpedo Factory in Old Town," he said.

Connolly said the county's matching grant for maintenance was only intended to jump-start the project. "They have to demonstrate a broadened effort at attracting donors for long-term financial stability," he said.

Some experts have privately expressed skepticism, noting that the foundation will not only have to compete with other organizations building arts facilities -- such as an endowment campaign by George Mason University, which is planning a $56 million performing arts center at its Prince William County campus -- but private groups searching for money for other Laurel Hill projects. One who is involved in a similar struggle said the task is not insurmountable but will be difficult.

"It's going to be hard, just like it's hard for us," said Brian Marcus, associate dean for development at George Mason's College of Visual and Performing Arts. Fundraisers for GMU and its local partners, Manassas and Prince William County, have raised $5 million of the planned $15 million for the opera center's endowment but are still seeking $4 million for construction.

"Fundraising is highly competitive right now, especially in an area like Northern Virginia with the construction industry the way it is right now," Marcus said. Developers used to be good targets for fundraisers, but "they're not feeling as comfortable making significant gifts right now, so the timing is not the greatest," Marcus said. "But this will shift. Fairfax is already arts-focused . . . the market is there. It's just about doing the hard work necessary to bring it home."

The market might be there, and there is room for growth in Fairfax County, where the arts are a $77.5 million industry, according to a recent study by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit advocacy group. Nationally, the average for communities with populations of more than a million is $267 million.

Jim Steele, a board member of the Arts Council of Fairfax County, said the southeastern end of the county has been underserved for a long time. The demand for reasonably priced studio and exhibit space in Northern Virginia remains high, he said. The Torpedo Factory has a long waiting list of artists wanting studio space.

The Workhouse recently launched its search for applications for 60 artists, whose work must be approved by a jury before they can rent space in the new center.

Watercolor artist Karen Ching, who lives a few minutes away in Fairfax Station, hopes to be one of them. When she and her family first moved to the area, she said, Lorton still housed prisoners.

Through the years she has watched the evolution of the area, from the golf course, to South County Secondary School to the arts center.

"It's amazing that much can happen in that amount of time," Ching said. "I feel fortunate we chose this end of town."