The Augusta Correctional Center is under contract to be sold, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of General Services. No additional information — including the buyer and the sale price — will be released until after the sale is finalized.
An Augusta County spokesperson didn’t have further information to share.
At the end of his tenure, former Governor Glenn Youngkin wrote a memo directing the state to sell the 840-acre property to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. After taking office in January, Governor Abigail Spanberger rolled back the order.
The prison, which along with three other facilities was shuttered in 2024 “to enhance employee, inmate, and probationer safety,” is part of about 19,000 acres currently owned by the Virginia Department of Corrections. It’s also one of seven properties that sits unused.
The corrections department said it has plans for some of those sites, but in at least one other case, local officials have attempted to redevelop the land.
More than 15 years ago, then-Governor Tim Kaine’s budget cuts closed multiple VADOC facilities in a belt-tightening effort during the national housing crisis. The Brunswick Correctional Center in Lawrenceville was among those, its closure cutting more than 100 state jobs in the rural county.
Lawrenceville Mayor Douglas Pond said at the time that the economic impact was “unconscionable.”
During this year’s legislative session, Delegate H. Otto Wachsmann filed a proposal to transfer a portion of the 54-acre prison property to Brunswick County, potentially enabling redevelopment of the site. The Republican legislator said there was some confusion over language in the bill, resulting in it being left in a House subcommittee.
A fiscal impact statement indicated the transfer would have reduced general fund revenue by $400,000 a year: the corrections department uses a portion of the site for agribusiness, and two buildings on the property are used by the Brunswick Community Corrections Alternative Program and the Lawrenceville Correctional Center.
A VADOC spokesperson wrote in an email that the department didn’t have a position on the proposal.
As far back as 2011, state budget language directed the Brunswick property to be sold, estimating that about $11 million in proceeds would be deposited into the general fund. That earlier spending plan specified entities the land could be sold to, including the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, local government or a development authority.
More recently, in 2024, a representative of Ferganix — an agricultural company based in Norfolk — spoke to county supervisors about developing the site.
“It's my understanding that, I think, the county has had some people that were very interested in possibly using that property,” said Wachsmann. “But if somebody's got a business plan, they can only wait so long.”
The director of Brunswick’s Department of Economic Development is currently on leave and was not available for an interview.
Gerard Robinson, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, researches criminal justice reform. He noted potential lost tax revenue from the property, while also highlighting how the land could have contributed to some of VADOC’s educational and rehabilitative successes.
“Let's just say if [the property’s been] on the books this long, we've got to ask, could it be better utilized as an economic generator, could we use it for other good — what we call ‘government purpose’ use — or is there a role for the private sector to come in and do something else,” he said.
In addition to the Brunswick property, a VADOC spokesperson wrote in an email that Sussex II, just south of Petersburg, and the Haynesville Correctional Unit were “mothballed” for possible future use by the department. Land at the Powhatan Correctional Center, another closed facility, is currently being used by VADOC, and the department referred to 45 acres at Culpeper Correctional as “surplus.”
About 150 acres now being used by the Stafford Community Corrections Alternative Program is in the process of being transferred to the state transportation department, the spokesperson wrote.
“If in fact you have fewer people, you're going to need less space to put those people in. There may be opportunities for you to keep certain facilities open that are for job training, agricultural work or something else,” Robinson said, discussing the decline of people being held in Virginia prisons over the past several years. “Any conversation about ‘closure’ doesn't necessarily have to jump to, ‘Now our streets are going to be unsafe.’”