A look at the 201-year old bones of the former Fredericksburg Visitor Center at 706 Caroline Street, currently undergoing renovation…
Records show the property was first purchased by George Washington’s half-brother Lawrence in 1739, but the parcel’s original structures were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1822, according to a press release last year from Jarrell Properties Director of Community Relations Jeh Hicks.
After it was rebuilt in 1824, Hicks writes that the nearly 6,000 square foot building served as Prisoners Headquarters before being it was a grocery store and confectionary (a sweets or candy store).
The building wouldn’t become the Fredericksburg Visitor Center until 1976 when it was purchased by the city to become the Bicentennial Visitor Center for the country’s 200th anniversary. Prior to serving as the Fredericksburg Visitor Center for nearly 50 years, the building was purchased by the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. as one of the first projects under their revolving fund initiative. That program purchased, rehabilitated and resold at-risk historic properties in the area during the 1960s and 70s.
After a 2016 public forum on regional tourism raised questions as to the city’s investment in its own efforts, the City Council voted unanimously to relocate the facility in February of 2020, eventually selling the building at 706 Caroline Street to the Fredericksburg EDA for $1.26 million in December of 2022. The EDA in turn sold the parcel (including the adjacent parking lot) to Jarrell Properties in May of 2024 for $1.337 million.
The city would open the doors to the newly-renovated “top-tier” Visitor Center on the first floor of Executive Plaza at 601 Caroline Street late last year.
According to a May report by the Fredericksburg Free Press (authored by former Fredericksburg Director of Economic Development and Tourism Bill Freehling), the main floor will soon be home to an Italian restaurant by local restauranteur Vinny Vitale. The second and third floors will add apartments, Freehling wrote.
Image 1: the inside of 706 Caroline Street from this week.
Image 2: the exterior of the former Visitor Center from February 2022.
