View from Jefferson Rock in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (Marsha Wassel)

UPDATE: On July 20, 2007, Jefferson County commissioners voted 3-2 against a rezoning petition, but the site is still unprotected.

A West Virginia landscape that Thomas Jefferson said was "worth a voyage across the Atlantic" may lose its charm if planners allow a hotel and office complex next to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

The project includes a 60,000-square-foot office building, a 150-room hotel with a 22,500-square-foot conference center, and several other office buildings on the former Old Standard quarry, which is almost surrounded by the national park.

The land is the site of a battle on Sept. 14 and 15, 1862, the Siege of Harper's Ferry, which set the stage for Antietam.

"Everyone is absolutely appalled. This is in the center of a battlefield," says Scot M. Faulkner, president of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, a 19-year-old group. "The viewshed from numerous places in [the park] will be ruined forever, the viewshed from the Appalachian Trail will be ruined forever, and the traffic burden on the area will destroy the tourist experience. It's the wrong development in the wrong place."

Developers Gene Capriotti, Herb Jonkers, and Jim Gibson say their plan will benefit the local economy. "We need to create new employment centers," Jim Campbell, a Charles Town-based attorney representing one of the developers, told the Martinsville Journal.

In preparation for building on their 640-acre parcel, developers Gene Capriotti, Herb Jonkers, and Jim Gibson illegally bulldozed two 1,900-foot-long trenches through park land to install utility lines in August 2006.

While the issue is in court, the developers have moved forward without permits.

"Many of us are extremely frustrated that this matter has not moved quicker because the development has proceeded, with the laying additional pipe and sewer lines in those trenches," Faulkner says.

In April, after the Charles Town city council rejected the developers' proposal to annex and rezone the land for commercial use, they turned to Jefferson County for approval. County officials will rule on Old Standard's proposal to rezone 410 acres adjacent to the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to allow construction of two-million-square-foot office park and conference center

Every year about 300,000 people visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, which includes 3,745 protected acres, generating $32.7 million annually for the state and local economy.

The National Trust's Southern Field Office has written letters to the Charles Town planning commission and city council, asking them to stop the development. It also held a workshop on Mar. 16 for Jefferson County and Berkeley County leaders.

The only public hearing on the matter is scheduled for June 5, when the Jefferson County planning commission invites residents to comment on the rezoning of the Old Standard quarry.

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