State Department of Historic Resources Considering Application For "Fall Hill Medical Historic District"
Proposed historic district would include the old Mary Washington Hospital building and three others in the area, but not the 1960 J.J. Ballentine Public Health building, which is set to be demolished.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
The Virginia Department of Historic Resources is considering an application to add the area surrounding the old Mary Washington Hospital building in downtown Fredericksburg to the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.
Adjacent property owners received letters from DHR this week about the proposed Fall Hill Avenue Medical Historic District, which would encompass 10.99 acres between Hunter and Bridgewater streets along Fall Hill Avenue.
It would include four buildings—the old Mary Washington Hospital at 2300 Fall Hill Avenue, built 1949-51; the Medical Arts Building at 2301 Fall Hill Avenue, built in 1958; the PNC Bank building at 2403 Fall Hill Avenue, built in 1975; and the doctor’s offices at 2501 Fall Hill Avenue, built in 1958.
The nomination packet was prepared by Victoria Leonard and Lena McDonald with Commonwealth Preservation Group and submitted to DHR in November.
Kate Schwartz, Fredericksburg’s historic resources planner, received the draft nomination packet earlier this month, but said planning staff have corresponded with Commonwealth Preservation Group over the past year, “providing some additional support and research in their efforts.”
Because the proposed district is located in the city, the Architectural Review Board is entitled to a 60-day review period, during which it can relay comments and concerns to DHR.
Schwartz said in an email to the Advance that the National Register listing “recognizes the significant historic value of these resources and opens the door to incentives for redevelopment.”
“Most significantly, the state and federal Historic Tax Credit programs, which provide 20-25% tax credits for qualified project costs that meet preservation standards,” she wrote. “No local regulatory requirements are linked to National Register listing. The City identified these historic buildings as ‘character structures’ in the Small Area 6 Plan and, recognizing their unique architectural and historic significance, the Fall Hill Avenue Medical Historic District is an important step forward in supporting the adaptive reuse.”
Listing in the national and state registries does not obligate property owners to restore or maintain their properties to a specific standard, according to information sent by DHR.
The Fall Hill Avenue Medical Historic District “represents Fredericksburg’s growth and vitality during the post-World War II era” and is being recognized as locally significant in the area of health and medicine, according to the draft nomination.
“The district is comprised of three contributing budlings and one non-contributing building [the PNC bank building] associated with the Modern Movement,” the nomination states. “Modern Movement styles are rare elsewhere in the City due to a preference for traditional one-story and two-story 19th and early 20th century Main Street Commercial and Colonial Revival buildings, which appealed to heritage tourists during the mid-20th century. The district retains integrity of location and setting, as the buildings, their immediate sites, and the surrounding neighborhood appear much as they did in the mid-to late-twentieth century.”
The old hospital building has been owned by Medicorp, a company under Mary Washington Healthcare. It was listed for sale in 2023 and has been under contract. According to Ben Keddie, vice president and managing broker with listing agent Coldwell Banker Commercial Elite, the contract should be finalized “later in the year.”
The 1958 Medical Arts Building is owned by Medical Arts Building FXBG, a limited liability company with the same registered agent—Mark Doherty—as Mary’s Landing, LLC.
Mary’s Landing, LLC, is the owner of the parking lots across Fall Hill Avenue from the old hospital building. Work has already begun on plans to develop these lots into lots into 63 townhomes.
These plans include demolishing the brick building at 435 Hunter Street, which was built in 1960—during the 1949-1971 period of significance identified in the nomination for the Fall Hill Avenue Medical Historic District—by architect and preservationist J. J. Ballentine as the city’s first public health building.
This building is not included in the proposed historic district.
DHR staff will host a public meeting on the proposed historic district on February 13, at 6 p.m., at the Dorothy Hart Community Center in Fredericksburg. Staff will explain the nomination process, take public comment, and answer questions.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”