Sheila Johnson's announcement that the long-awaited Salamander Inn and Spa would open in Middleburg in August of next year is welcome news for Middleburg, the region, and we're sure, for the Salamander organization as well.

Begun after years of careful negotiation and legal work, the project was blindsided (as were most of us) by the onset of the Great Recession and a truly worldwide decline in the resort business.

Johnson and her organization not only soldiered on, but prevailed.

In the process they saved Middleburg from a financial crisis of its own, while providing the village with world class water and sewer treatment facilities at a time when we would have been hard-pressed to afford repair, much less replacement, of our aging facilities and systems.

Many thanks and best wishes for a successful grand opening in 2013 from all of us.

And many thanks to the Mayors, Town Council members, Town Staff, and citizens who worked so hard to make this project possible.

It will be . . . transformative.

And because of all that hard work, transformative in the best senses of the word.