The American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA) is no longer planning to transform its administrative offices in Reston into a new headquarters.
With its office needs declining, the member-owned nonprofit, which provides life insurance, mortgages and other financial services to members of the U.S. military community, has shifted its focus instead to housing, according to a rezoning application submitted to Fairfax County on June 24.
The newly proposed redevelopment would replace two existing office buildings at 1850 and 1856 Old Reston Avenue with up to 57 townhomes, while retaining the historic Bowman House as a single-family, detached home or a private club house for future residents.
EYA, the developer selected for the project by AAFMAA, prioritized preserving the 5.18-acre site’s historic elements, unique architectural features and views from Old Reston Avenue when crafting a design for the potential “boutique townhome community,” the application says.
“Together, these goals are intended to create a connection between the history of the Property and its future, and achieve a harmonious landscape for the Old Reston Avenue corridor,” land use attorney Andrew Painter wrote in a June 23 statement of justification.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission previously approved a plan in 2019 to redevelop the property with two brand-new, 50-foot-tall office buildings that AAFMAA envisioned turning into a future headquarters campus. The nonprofit’s base is currently at Fort Myers in Arlington.
Through a subsidiary named AP Reston Campus LLC, the association acquired the site for $16 million in 2009 and has been using the existing office buildings as administrative facilities since 2010, while leasing some space to other tenants.
Constructed in 1986, the office buildings would be too costly to renovate, AAFMAA contended when pursuing its headquarters project, anticipating a greater “return on investment” from a full rebuild and modernization.
That proposal included a commitment to preserve the Bowman House, which was originally built in 1899 and served as the family home of Fairfax Hunt Club founder and distillery owner A. Smith Bowman. Named Sunset Hills, the three-story manor is designated as a historic site by Fairfax County, but its interior was converted to office space in the 1980s.
Since the headquarters plan received the county’s approval, AAFMAA’s needs for office space “have substantially decreased,” rendering the project “infeasible,” Painter said in the new application.
As reported by the Washington Business Journal, an initial pitch outlining plans to pursue a townhouse development instead was reviewed by the Fairfax County Architectural Review Board in February.
Noting the property’s proximity to the former Fannie Mae campus on American Dream Way, where townhouses are now under construction, the rezoning application depicts four-story townhouses that will be around 55 feet tall with a minimum of three bedrooms each.
Most units will feature rear-loading garages, but 15 will have front-loading garages. Seven three-bedroom units will be reserved as affordable dwelling units (ADUs), though the planned income range isn’t specified.
“Many of the units will offer elevators to improve accessibility,” the application said. “The project would accommodate people of all ages, physical abilities, economic circumstances, and households of all sizes and stages of family life.”
The planned development will incorporate two publicly accessible urban parks that can be reached from Old Reston Avenue via a new, ADA-compliant sidewalk through an existing wall along the roadway, Painter wrote:
The first urban park, located along Old Reston Avenue and west of the Bowman House, is envisioned as a flexible open space, offering shaded lawn area under large, mature trees that are being preserved in the redevelopment. This area is suitable for free play and picnics. The second urban park, located west of the Bowman House, is designed as a garden with seating areas, intended to evoke the character of the gardens that historically existed on the Property in approximately the same location.
EYA has proposed adding crosswalks on Old Reston Avenue at its intersections with a private drive through the new community. The developer will also “promote cycling access” with secure on-site bicycle racks and a “sharrow” on Old Reston Avenue, the application says.
AAFMAA’s proposed redevelopment, which hasn’t been officially accepted for review by Fairfax County staff yet, isn’t the first attempt to bring new housing to the Bowman House site.
The county’s Board of Supervisors approved an application from the previous owner in 2006 that would’ve allowed 60 multifamily residential units and the conversion of the Bowman House into a six-room hotel. However, the “Boxwoods” project, as it was known, never came to fruition, with the developer instead selling the property to AAFMAA a few years later.
