A divided Fairfax City Council narrowly approved a major redevelopment plan at its July 22 meeting that will see a century-old home replaced with up to 276 apartment units, plus ground-floor commercial and retail space, on a key parcel in Old Town Fairfax.
The 4-3 vote to support the staff recommendation for redevelopment marked the conclusion of a nearly decade-old process to determine the future of the 2.7-acre site at 4131 Chain Bridge Road.
Acknowledging that some concerns remain, with the Fairfax City Planning Commission and some local residents expressing opposition, Councilmember Billy Bates said the development plan nonetheless is worthy of acceptance.
“This is a much more efficient use of the site,” Bates said, comparing the proposal to both its current use and the options available to the property owner under the existing zoning.
A joint effort of Paradigm Companies and the Davies family, which has owned the site for more than a century, the newly approved plan calls for the razing of the circa-1916 single-family home on the parcel and replacing it with two buildings:
- Building A, closest to Chain Bridge Road, would be five stories with 114 apartment units and the office/retail component
- Building B, closer to University Drive, would be a four-story structure with 162 apartment units and a courtyard/pool area
The two buildings would be bisected by an at-grade pedestrian pathway connection Chain Bridge Road and University Drive.
Previous proposals to develop the site had been rejected, and some residents turned out for the July 22 public hearing asking for the same result for this incarnation.
Despite improvements from past plans, “it’s still an awfully big development in a very small space,” nearby resident Susan McCloskey said.
She voiced concerns about the potential impact on parking and traffic in surrounding neighborhoods.
Not all speakers voiced opposition, however.
Jim Gillespie, another city resident, said additional housing is desperately needed. He pointed to the 17 apartment units that would be reserved for those earning less than 70% of area median income as a key selling point.
“Some of those folks are working in our downtown right now, in our retail establishments, and would have the opportunity to live in our city,” Gillespie told council members.
More housing could also attract new residents to shop in downtown businesses, he said.
“We need customers,” Gillespie said.
Critics, both in the community and on the council dais, questioned city staff’s analysis of the project’s possible economic benefits. The evaluation showed a modest net benefit when comparing anticipated tax revenue to city services provided.
After the public testimony, Mayor Catherine Read said she believes the plan is a forward-looking effort that would benefit the city over the long term.
“Yes, there is an impact to the people currently living in the surrounding neighborhoods. We do understand that,” she said. “But we have to build for the people who will also live here in the future.”
Read also said:
“We have to think about the people who will live here, who will choose our city because we have the right mix of housing, because we have walkability, multimodal transit, our geographic location in the center of the region, the fact that we have a vibrant downtown and jobs available for people.”
In the weeks between the planning commission and city council meetings, the development team agreed to try and find ways to increase overall tree canopy on the site from an initially planned 10.3% coverage to about 11.9%.
“I hope [that] can somewhat alleviate the concerns expressed about landscaping and tree canopy,” said Bates, who successfully moved a series of council actions paving the way for redevelopment.
Bates, Read, and council members Stacey Hardy-Chandler and Anthony Amos voted to support the project. Council members Stacy Hall, Rachel McQuillen and Thomas Peterson opposed it.
Earlier in the month, the city’s planning commission voted 4-2 to oppose the project. While there was general consensus that it was an improvement from previous incarnations, a majority felt it did not go far enough to address a variety of concerns.
“I would still like it to be better,” Planning Commissioner Paul Cunningham said at that meeting.
Despite her opposition to the plan, resident McCloskey told councilmembers that improvements in the overall development package indicate that critics were effective in stating their case over the years, she said.
“A lot of that opposition has been respectful, careful and thoughtful,” McCloskey said. “I hope that it has resulted in moving [the plan] closer to being a reasonable one.”
According to a 2024 historic analysis, the current home at 4131 Chain Bridge Road — known as “The Hill” — was constructed circa 1916 for attorney Marshall Hall and his wife Martha Grigg Hall.
In 1920, the Halls sold the property to state Sen. Richard Ewell Thornton and his wife, Sue. After Sue Thornton’s death in 1954, it passed to her great-nephew, attorney Bankhead Davies, and his wife, Hope “Dixie” Davies.
The couple occupied their home until their deaths in 2013. It has been vacant since then, but both the building and the grounds have been well-maintained in the interim, city officials said.
