PATRIOT BOYS BASKETBALL STAYS HOT: Pioneers survive Gainesville, 68-60. PAGE 13
January 26, 2023 | Vol. 22, No. 4 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | $1.00 Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
HGTV deems Manassas home ‘ugliest in America’ Local family wins $150K in renovations from national reality TV show
By Aileen M. Streng Malcolm and Valerie Merideth, along with their son Alex, didn’t think their Manassas home was ugly when they bought it in late 2021. The family, to include daughter Sheree, were living elsewhere in the metropolitan D.C. area when they decided they wanted to find a home where all four adults could live to-
“I never thought the house was ugly, or we wouldn’t have bought it.” VALERIE MERIDETH
gether and work from home. They found that home on Mercedes Drive in the City of Manassas. The décor wasn’t to their liking. There were angels and cherubs everywhere: in statues, carved into the fireplace mantel, featured in a large, stained-glass window over the front door, etched into the medallion of a chandelier hanging over the master bathroom bathtub, on ceramic tiles in the kitchen. Everywhere. There was also a lot of texture: Wallpaper and tin ceiling tiles adorned many of the rooms along with random columns. And there was a 150-gallon fish tank in the basement. “I figured it needed some cosmetic work, and we could take care of it, but
PHOTO BY DOUG STROUD
Ugly no more: From left, The Merideths, including, from left, mom Valerie, dad Malcolm, and their adult children, Alex and Sheree Merideth, in front of their renovated Manassas home, which was recently featured on HGTV’s “Ugliest House in America.” The show dubbed their home “the house of the gilded angel.” no,” said Alex Merideth on HGTV’s “Ugliest House in America” show, which featured the Merideths’ home in an episode that began airing in January. The Merideths’ home was named the winner of the show’s “ugliest
house in America” contest and received a $150,000 makeover for what the show dubbed “The House of the Gilded Angel.” See UGLIEST, page 2
Loudoun County draws ‘a hard line’ on data centers in rural land Loudoun’s economic chief discusses the effort to rein in data centers after a decade of growth
Buddy Rizer is director of the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development.
By Christopher Stern
Piedmont Journalism Foundation
Buddy Rizer, executive director for the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development, has spent 15 years promoting Loudoun as the data center capital of the world. The effort has been successful by most measures. Since 2008, not a single day has gone by without a data center being under construction somewhere in Loudoun, according to Rizer. The industry has been a huge boon to Loudoun County, which expects to bring in $576.2 million in related tax revenue this year – approximately one-third of its local tax income. But after years of growth, Loudoun is running out of room for data centers, which some say dominate the landscape in the eastern part of the county. Some residents in Virginia’s fastest-growing county complain that the data centers are a noisy
TIMES STAFF PHOTO/ROBIN EARL
eyesore. Last year, Loudoun’s Board of Supervisors limited construction in some neighborhoods and added new environmental and design requirements. Those restraints came on top of Dominion Energy’s surprise announcement last summer that it faced a capacity shortage in eastern Loudoun – data centers consume enormous amounts of energy – putting a potential damper on construction through at least 2025. With the Rural Policy Area in the western Loudoun off-limits to data centers, developers have shifted their focus to Prince William County, but also have their eyes on Stafford and FauLooking Back: President Taft’s tumultuous 1911 trip to Manassas, page 8
“We have drawn a hard line in western Loudoun County – we have made a conscious decision that we are not going to build data centers there.” BUDDY RIZER Loudoun County economic development director
quier counties, according to Rizer. “If the data center industry itself is in the second or third inning, Loudoun County is probably in inning seven or eight for multiple reasons: the energy reasons and the land reasons, and because we want to make sure that we have land remaining for other types of businesses,” Rizer said. As developers turn to nearby counties to meet demand, the Piedmont Journalism Foundation sat down with Rizer to hear his point of view on the future of data centers in the region. See DATA CENTERS, page 4
Local documentarian presents: ‘Thoughts on Foxhunting,’ page 9
88 DULLES, VA
It’s all about people . . . and always will be. www.vnb.com