News & Press

New Stafford Hospital Opens
For 110 years, the Fredericksburg area has been served by a single hospital. Today there are two. Stafford Hospital Center opened yesterday morning, and within minutes the first patient walked through the doors of the emergency room. Mary Grey, 75, arrived with her husband, Edward, and her son, Joseph. She was having abdominal pains, she told ER workers. Read More


Colonial Beach's growth spurt
AS HE WALKS along Irving Avenue in Colonial Beach from the new coffee shop to his condominium construction project, Steve Bassett watches as the operator of a front-end loader drops its large shovel through the porch roof of an older, yellow house nearby. "That was my house," said Bassett. "Yeah, that one." Read More


Panel likes Stafford hospital
MediCorp Health System was the winner yesterday in round two of the competition to build new hospitals in the Fredericksburg-area. A regional health planning agency endorsed MediCorp's proposed hospital and rejected the one offered by its rival, HCA Health Services of Virginia. Read More

Hand-in-hand plans for growth
A smart-growth specialist told Fredericksburg-area civic and business leaders yesterday that linkage of land-use planning and transportation is a key tool for managing the influx of people who will move into the region over the next 25 years. Gerrit J. Knapp, executive director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, also suggested that high-density development may help preserve the region's open space and historical lands. Read More

Defense contractor moving to Stafford
Stafford County is increasingly building its economy on the backs of the defense and national security sectors. It's a strategy economic development director Tim Baroody has emphasized since arriving three years ago, and one he said makes sense for a county that's home to a portion of Quantico Marine Corps Base, which not only houses Marines but includes a DEA training facility, an FBI training facility and the FBI's internationally known forensic lab. Read More