Isaac Newton Square development to kick off with plans for first apartment building

The first piece of the massive redevelopment of Isaac Newton Square will be the construction of a seven-story, 345-unit apartment building.

Peter Lawrence Cos. and MRP Realty filed plans with Fairfax County to begin the redevelopment of the 32-acre office park and parking lots with a 360,000-square-foot building on the northern part of the property, setting into motion more than 2.8 million square feet of planned redevelopment on the site.

The current plan covers roughly seven acres of the property, one of 10 buildable blocks planned on the site.

The proposal favors ground-floor units with direct access to a walkway instead of the more typical model used to activate apartment buildings: ground-floor retail.

A little over 13% of the units will be set aside as workforce dwelling units (WDUs), according to the plan.

Since the proposed building is slightly larger than previously anticipated, the developer plans to shuffle over density from later phases to ensure the project doesn’t exceed maximum allowable densities. Specifically, the proposal shifts 20,000 square feet of residential area and 55 units from a future application.

A wrapped parking garage with 415 parking spaces is also planned.

The application was discussed by the Reston Planning and Zoning Committee last summer. Overall, 2,100 residential units, 300 hotels rooms, 260,000 square feet of office space, and roughly 69,000 square feet of retail are planned on the site near the Wiehle-Reston East Metro Station.

The low-rise office buildings on the site were recently demolished.