Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509180073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CULPEPER LENGTH: Short
Elkwood Downs L.P. President Lee Sammis said in a statement that his company was forced to foreclose because opposition to the racetrack made it impossible for Benton Ventures Inc. to make its payments on the land.
Benton Ventures' planned Formula One racetrack on the Brandy Station battlefield site has been besieged for more than a year and a half by local preservationists. The battlefield was the scene of the largest cavalry engagement of the Civil War.
The Culpeper-based Brandy Station Foundation filed a lawsuit in August against both Benton Ventures and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the regulatory agency that found the racetrack project would not destroy the land's historic resources or its federally protected wetlands.
Nearby landowners and other people also have sued Benton Ventures over the project.
Sammis suggested in his statement, released Friday, that Elkwood Downs would continue to try to develop the 500 acres. Sammis first tried to build on the property about seven years ago.
``Regardless of whether Benton Ventures proceeds, the land is zoned for industrial development, and that will continue,'' Sammis said. ``Elkwood Downs has proved over the years that it has the resources and the energy necessary to press legitimate development rights on the property.''
by CNB