Building the Fairfax Campus

Construction of the new college began in 1962 with the clearing of the first forty wooded acres of the 150-acre parcel. On August 1, 1963 the college held the formal groundbreaking on the site on which the buildings were to be erected. The Gunston Ledger, the precursor to today’s student newspaper Broadside, recorded the scene:

A hot sun, and bare dusty ground failed to destroy the obvious pleasure felt by the university and college officials, Northern Virginia members of the General Assembly, and some forty spectators as Senator Charles R. Fenwick turned the first shovel of earth.

Also taking part in the ceremony were Director J.N.G. Finley, Fairfax Mayor John C. Wood, Clarence Steele, former Chairman of the Advisory Council, and Virginia Delegate C. Harrison Mann, Jr., UVa chose Eugene Simpson & Brother in the summer of 1963 to construct the campus designed by the architects, Saunders and Pearson. The selection was made on the basis of sealed bid proposals for the campus construction. Simpson & Brother’s bid

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