Revised plan shares more details of West Falls Church development

Plans for the massive development in the West Falls Church Metro station area were revised to provide new details on three of the project’s five buildings.

Known as FGCP-Metro LLC, developers EYA, Rushmark Properties, and Hoffman & Associates have partnered with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to build more than 1 million square feet of residential, office and retail space on 24 acres of land currently occupied by parking.

The developer group previously filed a plan with the county in December, but that was later withdrawn in favor of the new rezoning application, dated March 10.

“There are no material changes to the proposed application,” Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh attorney Andrew Painter, who represents the developers, told FFXnow. “It was refiled to incorporate the entirety of the site into a single Final Development Plan (rather than multiple Final Development Plans) for ease of administrative review.”

Envisioned as part of a 60-acre neighborhood that includes Falls Church City’s West Falls project and Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center campus, Metro’s development will have 900 residential units, a 110,000-square-foot office building, and up to 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

The new application includes three buildings that weren’t detailed in the previously submitted plan:

• Building A: A 120-foot-tall multifamily residential building with a maximum of 130,000 square feet of gross floor area and 210 residential units. It may include any remaining approved residential units not provided in other buildings.
• Building B: The office and retail space will be in this building, which will have a maximum height of 120 feet
• Building F: A 90-foot-tall multifamily residential building with up to 265,000 square feet of gross floor area and 280 residential units. It will face a proposed Metro Plaza and have a private, interior courtyard for residents as well as wayfinding elements for the Metro station.

Because these buildings haven’t been fully designed yet, the final development plan will need to be amended in the future, assuming it is approved, according to a statement of justification from Painter.

Elements of the project carried over from the December application include:

• Building D: a six-story, multifamily building with up to 320 housing units along Falls Church Drive. The 325,000-square-foot complex will have an outdoor terrace, interior courtyard, and ground-floor amenities for residents.
• Building E: up to 27 urban-style, four-story townhomes. The two rows of housing will look like a single building with a second-story outdoor deck space covering an alley to the rear-loaded garages.
• Block G: up to 17 three-story townhomes with an optional fourth-floor rooftop terrace
• Block H: up to 42 townhomes adjacent to the existing Villages at West Falls Church and Pavilion condominiums. These residences will also be three stories in height with an option for a fourth-floor rooftop terrace.

The designated Building C refers to the Metro station’s existing parking garage, which the developers say will be left intact with a new access point from Falls Church Drive.

The proposal also features a new grid of streets and about 2.1 acres of parks, including:

• A 20,600-square-foot community park
• A 33,300-square-foot Metro Plaza
• A 19,500-square-foot, fenced dog park at the corner of Haycock and Metro Access roads
• A 8,100-square-foot natural recreation space with a playground and boulders and tree stumps for climbing

“The Applicant’s proposal will transform the Property from a paved, suburban area into a walkable, connected mixed-use neighborhood,” Painter said in the application. “The proposed development will drive daytime demand for locally-serving office and retail uses, as well as Metrorail ridership, and provide much needed diverse housing opportunities to Fairfax County.”

The county planning department hasn’t accepted the new application for review yet.