Downtown Waynesboro

The City of Waynesboro, VA is located in the southern portion of the scenic, historic Shenandoah Valley, along the South River. It is just 90 miles northwest of the state capital of Richmond and 125 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. While a relatively small city (population of 21,006 and 15 square miles in area), its centralized location on the Eastern Seaboard, major intersecting railroad lines, the nexus of the I-81 and I-64 highway corridors, and abundant spring water all helped the City become a major center for the chemical, telecom, and textile industries starting in the late 1800s. One signifier of the City’s historic industrial legacy is the former DuPont plant and its famous Benger Laboratory, where Lycra (Spandex) was invented. For the past several decades, the City’s industrial sector has contracted. Many of the factories and supporting businesses were located in the middle of the City and these sites are now underutilized or vacant. As a proactive effort to address lowering economic vitality and to spur private investment the City’s downtown areas, SGA was retained as the lead planning and landscape architecture firm to develop a master plan and site-specific site designs which focus on targeted mixed-use commercial and residential development along with the rebuilding of public parks, trails, streets and green infrastructure systems. The SGA master plan also recommends ways to meet Chesapeake Bay TMDL and EPA MS4 treatment and detention regulations for reducing stormwater and sewage impacts to the South River which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. The project includes extensive collaboration between community organizations, local residents, and Downtown business owners, with the goal of reducing blight and poverty while promoting investment, tourism and increasing residential density.