Housing will soon rise on a vacant lot in Merrifield where an office building had stood for over four decades.
Elm Street Development broke ground at the end of 2025 on its upcoming apartment building at 2722 Merrilee Drive, nearly five years after the project was approved to replace the 1980s-era Dunn Loring Center.
Now demolished, Dunn Loring Center was a three-story office building constructed in 1984, but it had been vacant since its remaining tenants’ leases expired in spring 2023.
Viewed by Fairfax County officials as an “exciting revitalization opportunity” when it was going through the rezoning process, Elm Street’s redevelopment will deliver 239 apartments and approximately 3,875 square feet of ground-floor retail in a seven-story building.
As shown in a site plan approved by county staff last July, the project will come with 302 garage parking spaces, 30 of them reserved for retail visitors. Planned publicly accessible amenities will include a plaza with public art outside the retail entrance, a dog park along Merrilee Drive, an outdoor fitness area with exercise stations, a gaming area, and outdoor seating for dining and gathering.
“Elms Dunn Loring should finish up in Fall 2027,” Elm Street Vice President Nicholas Flanagan told FFXnow when asked about the construction timeline.
No tenants for the retail space have been identified yet, according to Flanagan, who says that “will likely happen later” in the construction process.
Apartments also coming to Woodlawn
The developer is also behind a new apartment community in Woodlawn that began construction last fall.
Expected to be completed in spring or summer 2027, Elms Mount Vernon will bring 280 units, including 29 workforce dwelling units, to a 5.4-acre site at 3505 Buckman Road near Richmond Highway (Route 1). No retail is planned in the five-story building, but the future residents will have access to a fitness center, lounge, interior courtyard and swimming pool.
Some outdoor amenities will be available to the general public as well as residents, including a dog park, playground, green lawn, exercise station and grilling area, according to the development plan.
Consolidating several smaller parcels previously occupied by single-family houses, the project was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in April 2022 as the first phase of a larger, 17-acre Mount Vernon Gateway development that had been on the books since 2005 but wasn’t implemented “due to various reasons including market considerations,” Elm Street said in its application.
A proposal for another piece of the Gateway was submitted to Fairfax County last October by the homebuilder K. Hovnanian, which pitched 144 townhouses in place of 14 single-family homes at 8115 Janna Lee Avenue, just west of the Elm Street project. The rezoning application is currently under review by county staff with a planning commission public hearing set for July 15.
View this post on Instagram
