Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 27, 1995 TAG: 9507270077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium
It's true what they say about selling real estate - location, location, location. And if the location is the site of an enormous and widely publicized oil spill, selling can be tough.
The Mantua neighborhood features large, comfortable homes, old trees, swimming pools and other attractions. But for many potential homebuyers, the 30-year-old subdivision is synonymous with the 1990 underground oil spill that eventually forced evacuations and a multimillion-dollar cleanup that is still going on.
Texaco Inc., whose storage tanks a few hundred yards from the edge of the neighborhood were identified as the source of the problem, ended up buying 91 homes from angry or fearful residents.
``If you only know Mantua from the problem, you don't know the whole story,'' said Dan McGinn, the advertising executive hired to market the entire 1,500-home development.
Texaco is footing the bill for glossy ads, four-color brochures, bumper stickers, T-shirts and other gimmicks.
The company has rented out the houses it bought in an agreement that settled a neighborhood lawsuit. In May, Texaco sold the first of the houses, and hopes to sell the rest with the help of the new ad campaign.
The 175,000-gallon oil spill came to rest under several houses in a section of the neighborhood called Stockbridge. The area, which is closest to the tank farm, contains most of the Texaco-owned houses. Houses on higher ground in the Mantua Hills area were unaffected.
``They are advertising Mantua as a great community, and nobody has any disagreement with that,'' said Allen Vejdani, spokesman for Citizens for a Healthy Fairfax, a group dedicated to closing the tank farm.
``What they are saying in this ad is correct, but then they come along and sell Stockbridge. It's like me advertising a Cadillac and selling a Chevrolet.''
If John and Karen Moore bought a Chevrolet, they're happy with it. They were the first family to buy one of the Texaco houses, a three-bedroom with a finished basement for $240,000. Texaco had paid $307,000 for the property in 1992.
``Texaco was very upfront'' about the spill, Moore said. He is a mechanical engineer with a background in risk assessment and thought he had a good grasp of what he was buying.
``I know what tends to drive people in a situation like this is a great deal of fear,'' Moore said. ``I really feel the health risks were very low.''
A state Health Department study is under way, but the Environmental Protection Agency has said the houses are safe to live in.
Sally Ormsby, president of the Mantua Citizens' Association, said the campaign will benefit the entire subdivision.
``The perception among the public at large was that this crisis affected the entire community, which it did not,'' she said.
One brochure advertising Mantua homes was sent to nearly 3,000 real estate agents. It features a pop-up house and text listing phone numbers for the citizens' association and an information center set up by Texaco.
Another brochure pitches the community elementary school, which received $600,000 for high-tech equipment from Texaco as part of the settlement.
by CNB