More commercial development in Fairfax County could soon give way to housing after the Board of Supervisors approved that option for a pair of office properties in the Fair Oaks area.
The board voted unanimously at its Nov. 18 meeting to amend the county’s comprehensive plan and allow the Fair Oaks Business Park and nearby High Ridge office building to be redeveloped with more than 800 new homes.
Fair Oaks Business Park owner Peterson Companies has proposed razing the 11 office buildings currently on the 22-acre site near the intersection of Waples Mill Road and Pender Drive. In their place would rise two multifamily apartment buildings totaling 420 units and 286 stacked townhomes.
Dubbed “Fairfax Crossing,” the neighborhood would include 140 affordable dwelling units for those earning 60% of the area median income, and up to 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail or amenity space would be provided in the multifamily buildings.
Peterson Companies has also committed to providing 5.5 acres of open space, including a 1.6-acre central park, and upgrading a sanitary sewer pump station that serves the area so it can accommodate all future development, Holland & Knight land use attorney David Schneider told the Board of Supervisors.
“This is an exciting opportunity, because we think our nomination is crucial to unlocking the potential” of the area, Schneider said, reporting that the developer hadn’t received any “negative feedback” from the “numerous” community meetings it hosted on the project.
The High Ridge office redevelopment, however, proved more contentious.
Time Equities, which owns the four-story office building at 3877 Fairfax Ridge Road, is seeking to replace it with a 400-unit multifamily residential building supported by 5,500 square feet of retail space, a podium parking garage, and park space featuring an 8-foot-wide trail along Fairfax Ridge and Waples Mill Road.
“We’re going to end up having over an acre of active and passive recreation that’s going to surround kind of an oddly shaped triangular parcel that has some topography challenges, but we have made it work,” said Walsh Colucci Lubeley Walsh attorney Lynne Strobel, who represented the property owner at the public hearing.
However, multiple residents of the Fairfax Ridge Condominiums across the street expressed concern about the new building potentially exacerbating an already tight parking situation and called for assurances that the developer will try to limit noise and congestion during construction as much as possible.
“We recognize that the proposed development of Fairfax Ridge Road is a very attractive and beautiful development. It is very promising, but we have several points of concerns,” Isabelle Ramos Toral, treasurer for the condominium’s board, said. “… We are anticipating a nightmare with the parking situation. Also, we are very much concerned that [with the] noise and other inconveniences … our residents that live in front of Fairfax Ridge Road will have a very tough time, especially the senior people during the demolition process up to final construction.”
Josh Smith, who said he previously served on the Fairfax Ridge condo board, testified that the scramble for parking stems in part from residents at the nearby Radiant Fairfax Ridge Apartments parking on the street instead of using their garage, which charges additional fees.
Similar parking issues have cropped up at a couple of apartment buildings in the Hunter Mill District as well, Supervisor Walter Alcorn observed.
“It’s an apartment building, they charge for parking, and frankly, they’re pouring out onto the public streets and affecting their neighbors,” Alcorn said. “… For Hunter Mill cases, we’re going to try to get a handle on that going forward, because we’re creating some problems allowing that kind of thing.”
According to Strobel, Time Equities will establish a construction plan and provide parking “in excess of zoning ordinance requirements,” but both concerns will be addressed in more detail with a rezoning application that’s scheduled to go before the Fairfax County Planning Commission on Feb. 25, 2026.
A separate rezoning application for the Fair Oaks Business Park development is slated for a planning commission public hearing on March 11.
Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, who represents the area, noted that both sites are part of an ongoing Fairfax Center study.
Now focused on a core area that includes Fair Oaks Mall and the Fairfax County Government Center for its third phase, the study will solidify an updated vision for how Fairfax Center should develop and the infrastructure needed to support future residents, workers and visitors.
Public hearings on that comprehensive plan amendment can be expected in the first half of 2026, according to Herrity.
“I look forward to continuing these talks, because it is going to be an amazing project,” Herrity said. “This was a commercial area that’s not going to be a commercial area. I-66 and the improvements on I-66 has opened this up to residential [development] so people can get to and from our core work areas, Tysons Corner, the urban core, D.C. in a reliable manner.”
The spelling of David Schneider’s name, initially written as “David Snyder,” has been corrected.
