Look inside: We spent $64 million turning an old Virginia prison into an apartment complex— ‘it’s important to preserve history’

From 1910 to 2001, the Liberty Crest Apartments were known as the Lorton Reformatory, a prison in Lorton, Virginia that housed inmates from Washington, D.C.

It is more widely known as the site where many suffragists were held after the Silent Sentinels pickets at the White House in 1917. And according to the Library of Congress, November 14, 1917 is known as the “Night of Terror” because of how the suffragist prisoners were mistreated at the prison.

The 2,324-acre property, which included a farm, shut down in 2001. The following year, Fairfax County bought the site for $4.2 million. Under the county’s ownership, the old prison and grounds became a park, a golf course, three schools, and an arts center.

In 2008, the county started working with the Alexander Company, a Wisconsin developer with a history of historic preservation and adaptive reuse. The developer set out to convert the campus into 165 apartments.

“The Lorton Reformatory was a good set of buildings to be converted into residential because it was a reform-era prison,” David Vos, a development project manager with the Alexander Company, tells CNBC Make It.

“So, unlike most prisons that tend to be large footprint dark buildings without very many windows, these actually had an abundance of light and had quite a bit of character to them, so they laid out very nicely for apartments.”

The Liberty Crest Apartments have 165 units — 44 of which are designated affordable, low-income housing. There are 84 one-bedroom and 81 two-bedroom apartments and monthly rent ranges from $1,372 to $2,700. Each apartment is equipped with an in-unit washer and dryer.

Renovations took almost two years and roughly $64 million to complete.

A majority of the project’s funding came from historic tax credits, bond financing, and low-income housing tax credits. Virginia Housing provided the first mortgage for the project and payments are about $125,000 a month.

The apartments opened in June 2017 and Vos says all the available units were leased in just a matter of months. The complex has been at full occupancy ever since.

“The reaction from the community varied quite a bit. A lot of people really felt it was important to preserve that history. However, there were people that really focused on the later years of the prison when prisoners were mistreated,” he says.

“But from our standpoint, we really felt that it’s important to preserve history so you can learn from the past so that you don’t make those mistakes again in the future.”

Some remnants of the old prison include signs telling visitors and inmates how to behave on the property.

“There’s a number of reminders as you walk around the campus that remind you of the fact that this used to be a reformatory or prison,” Vos says.

The name Liberty Crest Apartments is an homage to the property’s history: “The reason we chose Liberty for the name was we really felt that we were liberating these buildings from its more recent dark past.”

The old prison’s cafeteria was converted into a community space for residents. Other amenities include a yoga studio, gym, community pool, and two playgrounds.

There is also a field on campus with the original grandstand that was made by the prisoners themselves from bricks. Today, the space is used as an all-purpose area for the residents.

The Liberty Crest property also has a preschool, dental office, restaurants, and retail shops.

The apartments have been open for almost nine years now and construction on the property is mostly complete. Vos and the Alexander Company are currently focused on converting a power plant that sits on the site into 10 additional apartments. There are plans to transforming the former guard quarters, too.

“The community has very warmly embraced the Liberty project. Everyone’s very proud of what we did here and were very pleased with the results,” Vos says.

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