Fairfax County officials are eager to build additional affordable housing adjacent to the Huntington Metro station.
However, a parking garage that has been closed since 2018 stands in their way.
“It seems like [the housing proposal] has not moved forward,” Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck said at the May 1 meeting of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) board of directors.
He made the comment to Metro General Manager Randy Clarke, who attended the meeting to brief NVTC members — including Storck — on the state of the transit agency.
The 885-space south parking garage for the Metro station at 2501 Huntington Avenue was constructed in 1983. Portions of the structure were placed off-limits in 2015 due to structural concerns, while the remaining 300 available spaces were closed off three years later.
At the time, the plan was to have the structure dismantled and carted away, but Covid and financial issues stalled that work.
“It’s all about money,” Clarke said in response to Storck. “The root cause [of the delay] is an abandoned old garage.”
Who would pay for razing the structure, and what the cost would be, remain questions without answers. But, Clarke said, it won’t be getting cheaper.
“If it was $15 million two years ago, it’s probably $24 million today and it’s going to be $30 million,” he said.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) partnered with the developer Stout & Teague in 2002 on an agreement that resulted in the Courts at Huntington Station apartments in 2011.
WMATA enlisted Stout & Teague again in 2019 for a plan to develop up to 12 acres around the station, including the south parking garage site, with housing, offices and retail. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a comprehensive plan amendment to allow the development in December 2022.
WMATA listed the Huntington station as one that it hoped to have under contract within the next 10 years in a strategic plan for joint development released in 2022, but the transit agency currently has no active solicitations.
At one point, Amazon had expressed interest in partnering on a housing project on the site, but Clarke was pessimistic that such a partnership is viable until the garage was gone.
“It’s just not feasible at the moment,” he said. “I don’t think that site right now is on their radar.”
Del. Mark Sickles (D-17), another NVTC board member, countered that without a housing plan in place, it would be difficult to convince state leaders to help pay the cost of garage removal.
Finger-pointing, though gently delivered, was evident as the discussion unfolded. Ultimately, Clarke said, a high-level conversation needed to be held.
“There’s been extensive conversations between our staff and county staff,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to get more people together on the same page.”
“The earlier we move on a decision on that, probably the better it is for everybody,” he added.
Travelers using the Huntington Metro station also have to contend with the temporary inaccessibility of the north garage, which was closed on Feb. 22 for structural repairs that could take months to complete.
When the central garage fills up, riders are being directed to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station as an alternative for parking.
The Board of Supervisors greenlit a residential building at Huntington Avenue and Metroview Parkway near the Metro station last year, but other plans for housing in the area have been put on hold in recent years, including a long-planned redevelopment of the Huntington Club condominiums.
