Fairfax County supervisors gave their blessing on Tuesday (Feb. 3) to a new Flagship Carwash express location near the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Dranesville Road north of Herndon.
“I’m very happy to see this coming through,” Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman said after the 9-0 vote.
While Flagship already has eight locations in Fairfax County, including two in the Herndon area, Bierman observed that “there’s definitely a lot of demand [for car-wash facilities] in the area.”
A 4,160-square-foot car-wash building and 22 self-serve vacuum bays will be built on the 1.04-acre site at 1013 Dranesville Road. About 40% of the parcel will remain open space, and Flagship has agreed to clean up debris currently found on an adjacent Fairfax County Park Authority site.
Some of the water used in the car wash’s operations will be recycled, while the remainder will be discharged into the county’s wastewater system.
Vehicles will access the car wash via a Dranesville Road service road. There is room on the parcel for up to 10 cars to queue while waiting to enter the drive-through car wash.
Shane Murphy, an attorney with Miles & Stockbridge representing Flagship, said the company expects the location to draw clientele from Herndon, Reston, Sterling and Great Falls.
“Business has flourished,” he said. “Flagship is a fast-growing company.”
The site currently is home to a restaurant and a dry-cleaner, which will close. Those with long memories will remember those buildings as once housing a Pizza Hut and Kinney Shoes store, Murphy told supervisors.
Bierman praised the amount of open space and tree canopy on the site before requesting support from his colleagues for approval of a rezoning application, proffered-condition amendments and a special exception allowing the specialty use.
The proposal won the planning commission’s support in early January, along with that of county planning staff. There were no speakers for or against the application at the supervisors’ hearing.
The application was initially filed with the county government in late 2024.
