By Brian Trompeter
Fairfax County supervisors on July 25 unanimously approved a developer’s request to build a multi-family residential building instead of an approved office tower at 8401 Greensboro Drive.
“You all are familiar with the state of the office market,” Lynne Strobel, attorney for applicant GCC 28 Owner LLC, told supervisors regarding the requested office-to-residential conversion.
The subject site is a 2.92-acre portion of Part E in the 31.62-acre Spring Hill Station Demonstration Project, approved earlier by county supervisors. Two 10-story office buildings in Part E, dubbed E1 and E2, have been built already atop a parking-garage podium.
Supervisors earlier had approved the as-yet-unbuilt Building E3 as a 22-story, 290-foot-tall (including 30-foot penthouse) structure with up to 420,000 square feet of office area and 7,000 square feet of retail/service space.
Following the board’s action July 25, the developer instead will be able to build City House, a 270-foot-tall residential structure with 350 to 410 multi-family rental units. The site is within a quarter-mile of the Spring Hill Metro station in Tysons.
Because the building’s footprint will be somewhat larger than that of the approved office building, the applicant also obtained a small footprint revision for Building E5, which supervisors had approved for either 16,000 square feet of retail/service space or 10 to 12 residential units covering 25,000 square feet of space.
The developer did not propose any changes to Building E5’s height, usage or gross floor area.
The applicant’s proposal calls for three new public parks totaling about 1 acre at the site, including two at ground level – Highline Plaza and Highline Square – plus Highline Park, which will be installed atop the existing parking structure for Buildings E1 and E2. Highline Park will include a stage area and active-recreation amenities, Strobel said.
“We spent a lot of time with staff to ensure that this project would be of the quality that you’ve come to expect in Tysons,” she said. “We’re optimistic that these improvements will ensure kind of a revitalization of this area, [which] has been slow to redevelop under the Tysons plan.”
Supervisors have approved several other developments in the vicinity, but some of them have not been built yet, she said.
“We’re hopeful that this will activate this part of Tysons,” she said.
William Lawson Jr., an attorney presenting board of directors of The Rotunda condominiums, said the group supported the application.
“We think it will be a terrific addition to the Tysons community,” he said.
Rotunda leaders also had hoped Broad Street would be built between this development and The Boro, but have learned that will have to wait until the future if developers are to construct it, Lawson said.
“Broad Street is an important component of the grid system,” he said. “We know from experience how a grid system can help relieve traffic in that community. The completion of Broad Street would, we believe, relieve a lot of traffic on Greensboro.”
Now a two-lane roadway, Broad Street eventually will be improved to a four-lane collector road, county staff said. Final extension of the street will depend on development of adjacent properties, they said.
“I do believe that we are seeing here a little bit of a shift in the office market, and so this brings an opportunity,” said Supervisor Dalia Palchik (D-Providence). “It’s wonderful to see this shift of space and being able to turn existing, less-useful space into urban space.”
The development’s amenities will be visible to, and accessible by, the public, Palchik said.
It’s important that the county be flexible, given the need for housing and less demand for office space, she added.
“I think this is a creative solution to move forward,” Palchik said.
