Plans to build a modern fire station to serve the Tysons area took a key step forward on Wednesday night (Feb. 5).
The Fairfax County Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve a number of zoning changes for a 4.05-acre site in the 8300 block of Jones Branch Drive that will serve as the future home of firefighters and paramedics of Fire Station 29.
The zoning changes will permit the new, seven-bay fire station to be colocated with the existing Tysons West*Park transit station, immediately east of Spring Hill Road and directly south of the Dulles Access Road.
The current Fire Station 29, a three-bay facility located at 1560 Spring Hill Road, will remain in operation until the new station opens.
Commission members discussed issues ranging from stormwater to the interior road network of the site, but raised no major objections to forwarding the package to the Board of Supervisors.
The project is “reflective of the urban-design standards of Tysons,” said Providence District Commissioner Jeremy Hancock, whose district includes the targeted site. He called the effort “a well-designed project, well-coordinated.”
The new facility will be a major step up from the smaller, current Fire Station 29, fire officials said.
“The existing facility we have is really a dated facility across the board,” said John Walser, an assistant chief with the Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department.
“The living facilities simply do not meet the needs of our large workforce, and we don’t have any expansion capability in the current fire station,” he told the commission.
Last November, voters approved a $126 million county public-safety bond referendum by a more than two-to-one margin. The package included $25 million for the fire station, even as other projects were deferred.
The overall floor-area ratio (FAR) on the new Tysons site will be 0.13, below the maximum permitted 0.2. FAR takes the total interior square footage of buildings on a site and divides them by the square footage of the parcel.
The fire station proposal includes environmental features including rooftop solar panels, two bioretention facilities, an infiltration vault and pervious pavement, county staff said.
About the only reservation noted by planning commission members was a proposed road connector that could wend its way through the site to provide entry to the Dulles Access Road.
Several commissioners said having a direct link to the access road would be a positive for the fire department, but voiced concern that opening the ramp to the driving public might affect traffic flow on the parcel.
“I don’t see how this makes any sense,” Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina said.
“It does seem out of place,” agreed commission chair Phil Niedzielski-Eichner, an at-large member.
County staff said the road connection is a separate project not directly connected to fire station construction.
Niedzielski-Eichner also asked about the possibility of moving to electric-powered fire and rescue vehicles. Walser replied that, for now, they’re too pricey for the county government, and the technology needs time to mature.
