By Brian Trompeter
Astoria McLean, a proposed mixed-use project with 130 residential units, is poised to become the first major redevelopment considered under the Fairfax County government’s new comprehensive-plan guidelines for McLean’s Community Business Center (CBC).
JAG Partners LLC has filed a rezoning application with Fairfax County to redevelop the 2-acre site at 6858 Old Dominion Drive.
“It’s exciting stuff to be bringing this forward,” said land-use attorney Michelle Rosati during an April 19 presentation to the Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce. “We really are trying to be an implementation of the comprehensive plan and play our part in being a catalyst for revitalizing McLean.”
The long, narrow parcel is bounded by Old Dominion Drive and Elm Street and now is home to a medical building and Moby Dick House of Kabob.
The developer’s proposed J-shaped building would have two sections with different architectural treatments so as not to give a monolithic impression, Rosati said. The roof lines also would be varied, rising either six or seven stories.
There would be a mid-block pedestrian connection, consisting of an 8-foot-wide multi-use trail, which would be placed within a public-access easement between Elm Street and Old Dominion Drive.
“When we designed this building, we actually started with the sidewalk,” Rosati said.
Rosati was among those who participated in the rewriting of the McLean CBC’s comprehensive plan, the new version of which the Board of Supervisors approved in June 2021.
“The plan is really driving at a revitalized downtown McLean that’s walkable, interesting, [with] activities, environmentally sound, with a tiered intensity as you get out closer toward the edges of the CBC,” she said. “That’s quite a tall order. We are hopeful and believe that what we have submitted checks all those boxes and will be a kind of redevelopment that we want to be a model for in downtown McLean.”
Astoria McLean would be located in the center bonus zone of the CBC, which allows the highest development intensity with seven-story buildings rising a maximum of 92 feet tall. (One development will be allowed to go up to 10 stories, provided that it supplies a significant park or community meeting space.)
The project would feature roof terraces, some for individual residences and others for use by all residents, “which is something I think will be a lot of fun,” Rosati said.
The building also would have retail fronting on Elm Street and office space on the Old Dominion Drive side. There would be a bollard-protected porte cochere along the Old Dominion Drive frontage, where vehicles could drop off and pick up people at that entrance of the building.
The site would have 32 percent open space, which is far more than the comprehensive plan’s minimum of 20 percent, and its tree canopy would exceed requirements as well, Rosati said.
Another significant benefit would be installation of modern stormwater-management facilities at the site, which would reduce runoff by 40 percent during a major storm, she said.
The developer plans to provide 259 underground parking spaces instead of the 227 required.
The applicant also has agreed to proffer $50,000 worth of public art, which would be obtained in coordination with the McLean Planning Committee and McLean Project for the Arts, Rosati said.
County officials tentatively expect to hold public hearings concerning the project on July 19 before the Planning Commission and Sept. 12 at the Board of Supervisors.
“We would really like Supervisor [John] Foust to be able to act on this while he’s still in office,” Rosati said. Foust is not seeking re-election in November and will retire at year’s end.
An audience member during Rosati’s presentation worried about the future of small retail outlets in McLean. Rosati said mixed-use developments such as Astoria McLean would aid those businesses.
“Honestly, what really will support small businesses is having people living downtown and wanting to walk to a restaurant or walk to a little store,” she said. “That’s a lifestyle that we haven’t quite gotten our arms around yet, but I think that’s the goal.”
