A national security contractor has received Fairfax County’s blessing to open a new campus in Herndon.
The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to approve the project for Peraton at its meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 28). No one spoke at a public hearing prior to the vote.
A national security and technology company started in 2017, Peraton plans to open the new campus at Woodland Pointe, the 6.77-acre office complex south of Dulles Toll Road.
The company needed the board to sign off on amendments to its conceptual and final development plans and revisions to previously approved conditions for development on the property.
The property is owned by Union Investment Real Estate, which will be adding an 89,000-square-foot, two-story building next to an existing 195,000-square-foot, six-story office building that previously served as Volkswagen’s North American headquarters.
The new building will replace the existing four-level parking garage on the property. It will be 85 feet tall and be supported by two levels of underground parking.
Peraton will occupy both the existing and the new building.
Bob Brant, an attorney with Walsh Colucci Lubeley and Walsh representing the company, called the proposal “an exceptional economic development opportunity.”
“At the end of the day,” he said, “I think we would all agree that adding office [space] to Woodland Park East is a major benefit.”
Peraton already occupies more than 800,000 square feet of office space in the county and plans to use the new building to consolidate operations. The company is expected to bring 550 to 600 workers to the site, slightly fewer than the 600 to 700 people who were employed at the existing building by Volkswagen.
Earlier this month, Peraton issued notices that it may lay off 92 employees at its Reston headquarters in December due to uncertainty around some of its federal contracts, but a spokesperson previously stated that the notices are precautionary and could be rescinded. The company also has a program that gives employees affected by a contract change “priority placement” for other internal positions.
Dranesville District Supervisor James Bierman, whose district includes the property, lauded the project.
“I’m very excited about this one — six hundred jobs staying right here in Fairfax County,” he said. “Keeping this building as an office building is a huge economic boon for us. … I am extremely happy to see this moving forward today.”
