
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 4, 1995                   TAG: 9506050026
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CULPEPER                                LENGTH: Short

BATTLEFIELD OFFER REJECTED

A developer planning to build an auto racetrack atop the Brandy Station battlefield has rejected a Civil War preservation group's $2.1 million offer to buy the land.

Benton Ventures Inc. rejected the offer Friday for the 425-acre site of its planned Formula One racetrack, saying $2.1 million didn't compensate the company for site work, engineering costs and other money invested in the land.

The offer, made Thursday by the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites Inc. of Fredericksburg, is equivalent to the amount the racetrack developer paid Elkwood Downs Limited Partnership for the land last year.

Benton Ventures president James Lazor, in a letter to preservation group president Dennis Frye, also said any offer should remunerate the company for legal fees incurred in its fight with preservationists.

Brandy Station Foundation member Mike Green said the preservation group's offer was fair.

He compared Lazor's development costs to digging an unsuccessful oil well: While money may be invested in a piece of land, he said, it didn't necessarily raise the land's value.

by CNB