Civil Warz? Foes of putting Sheetz store on Virginia battlefield are taking fight to Pa. chain’s backyard

The proposed store will be located on part of the battlefield where the Battle of Cedar Creek took place.

• Charles Thompson/PennLive
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  Thompson has covered state government for The Patriot since 1999. Prior to that, he had covered various Cumberland County municipalities and school districts. Thompson lives in Carlisle with his wife, Beth, and their two children.

Modern-day convenience and Civil War history are on a collision course outside Middletown, Va., and one of Pennsylvania’s highest-profile companies is right in the middle of it.

The project itself is rather unremarkable, at least to anyone who’s been paying attention to the convenience store building booms of the last decade. Sheetz is proposing a 6,800-square-foot store with separate fuel islands for passenger cars and tractor-trailers, along the Exit 302 interchange of Interstate 81.

The kicker here is that this particular 20-acre tract is part of the core battlefield of the Battle of Cedar Creek, which it turns out was one of the more pivotal clashes in the latter stages of the Civil War. That, and a group of neighbors who are preparing to take their concerns to family-owned Sheetz Corp.’s hometown of Altoona, has the potential to make this a little more than the typical land-use battle.

Through a mass mailing that’s scheduled to blanket Altoona ZIP codes in the coming week, leaders of the Exit 302 Smart Development Coalition are working to tell their side of the story and see if they can enlist Sheetz’s closest neighbors and biggest fans in a pressure campaign to, at minimum, have the project customized for what they see as a historically significant site.

Their flyers are meant to pose a kind of hometown morality test for a battle being fought three states away: If asked, can Sheetz execs and family members look their neighbors in the eye and defend this project.

That is, of course, if the flyers even prompt anyone to ask in the first place.

But that’s the gamble that the coalition leaders have decided to take.

“It may not turn one single head… but it is about bringing the awareness to this.”

The company says the Frederick County project is just like new stores they are building alongside major highways throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. (If you aren’t aware, Sheetz has been on a major growth kick in recent years, and now ranks 7th in sales and 10th in store count among convenience store chains nationally.)

Frederick County Planner Wyatt Pearson said the proposed site has been zoned for commercial uses for more than 40 years, and the convenience store is a permitted use. When final site development plans are submitted, Pearson said, the review will become a very objective matter of whether the company has checked the boxes for lighting, stormwater runoff, highway safety, adequate parking and similar requirements.

But Clark and his neighbors say they are worried about a light-up-the-night-sky kind of project that will dramatically change the character of their more rural side of the highway.

And then there’s the history. Civil War historians have come to view The Battle of Cedar Creek, fought on Oct. 19, 1864, as bringing the end to the last significant Confederate resistance in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Its result is also widely seen as helping to bolster President Abraham Lincoln’s position as a candidate for re-election that fall.

Clark notes that the 20-acre tract in question — aside from his own nearby farm — is the last undeveloped piece of the battlefield on the east side of I-81.

It is not a part of the Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historic Park or an additional 600 acres that is owned by a local preservation group. But doesn’t mean, historians say, that it’s not historically significant. For one thing, the historic parks in the Shenandoah Valley were set up decades after some of the larger Civil War military parks, such as Gettysburg, and boundaries were drawn in part with an eye to preserving the land that was most at risk at that time.

Those pressures have only intensified in the years since it opened in 2002.

Keven Walker, CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, said all the battlefields in that section of Virginia are under immense development pressure as relatively low land prices and a passable proximity to the Washington D.C. area has created a new exurbia — not unlike what south central Pennsylvania has seen in portions of York and Adams counties.

“Right now, it feels like we are at risk of losing the character-defining features of our landscape to the point where the potential for heritage tourism and outside learning is greatly reduced,” Walker said.

His foundation, Walker said, is currently focused on completing a $1.4 million effort to preserve a 72-acre site to the south of the Exit 302 interchange that includes the land where the Battle of Cedar Creek started. That will open public access to hundreds of adjacent acres.

Still, he added, “I wouldn’t say it’s of more import than this one (at Exit 302). It’s just the one that started first.”

So Walker said he’s pleased to see the citizen’s group showing its concern, and he said that if Sheetz shows a willingness to engage in discussions about the site, the foundation would happily work to find a resolution that all sides can live with, whether that’s selecting another site or proceeding with the project in a way that also enhances the historic profile of the tract.

On the latter front, Walker said, the hypothetical range of possibilities could include an archeological dig, with any relics turned over to the military park or a museum; development of a walking trail with educational markers through undeveloped portions of the site; or even an agreement to dedicate a portion of sales from the store to a fund to support other preservation efforts in the valley.

Charles Harbaugh IV, the mayor of nearby Middletown, which sits on the opposite side of the interstate and has been asked to provide water and sewer service to the proposed store said he gets the Exit 302 neighbors’ concerns, to a point.

Frederick is the fastest-growing county in Virginia, Harbaugh said, and Middletown is feeling the effects of it as a series of major residential subdvisions approved just before the 2008-09 recession are all coming to life right now.

“This is not controlled growth,” Harbaugh conceded.

He said he and the current town council are doing their part to try to tamp down the rate of development going forward, including the rejection of some recent rezoning requests that would have paved the way for additional projects, and hiking residential water and sewer connection fees to try to steer some of the new construction pressure elsewhere.

But, weighed against those concerns, Harbaugh said, a Sheetz at the interstate exit is something he can live with.

“The reality is, it’s a commercial piece of property and I am not comfortable with telling someone what to do with 20 acres of their own land,” the mayor said.

Sheetz declined an interview about its Middletown project.

But in an emailed statement, the company’s public relations manager Nick Ruffner said:

“Even though it is too early to comment on this specific store, I can say that it would be around the same size as a typical new store – and that many of our newest stores do offer truck diesel fueling. Sheetz seeks to be the best neighbor we can be in every community where our stores are located. We look forward to a continued dialogue with the community as this process continues.”

Asked in a follow-up if Sheetz has tailored any of its previous projects to local preservationists’ concerns, Ruffner added:

“Sheetz has certainly worked with local jurisdictions in the past to address development concerns and regulations. Each and every site is unique, so there isn’t a direct example, but what’s most important is that Sheetz is committed to each community it serves.”

Clark said he hopes that statement is sincere, but he has noted that his coalition did reach out to Sheetz in November, and has yet to receive a response.

In the meantime, he’s going to do what he can to keep the pressure on from three states away. The flyers are expected to settle in Altoona mailboxes this week.

“I realize that I could spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this, and end up with a truck stop down there. But if you don’t do it, end you end up with a truck stop, then you sit here every day going, ‘I wonder if…’” Clark said.