A missing piece that would complete Discovery Square’s transformation from planned office park into a mixed-use, residential development in the Sully District is nearing the final stages of approval from Fairfax County.
The proposal, which calls for 108 multifamily units and about 31,400 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail on an 8-acre site in the northwest quadrant of Centreville Road and Wall Road, obtained a key endorsement from the Fairfax County Planning Commission earlier this month.
The commissioners voted unanimously on Sept. 9 to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve an amendment to the county’s comprehensive plan — which lays out a general vision for the area — that clears the way for the mixed-use development.
Changing market needs led the property owner, an affiliate of Texas-based Lincoln Property Company, to seek a change in zoning from office to residential uses, according to a representative for the prospective developers, Potomac Land Ventures and Pulte Homes.
“It is approved for retail and office development, and as we know, office is not something that is really attractive for development these days,” Walsh Colucci land use attorney Lynne Strobel told the planning commission. “And this is a lot of retail that would be on one parcel. There’s a real question as to whether that could be sustained on this property.”
“So, there has been discussion for the last several years about making this more of a mixed use [site], adding the residential component and eliminating the office,” she added.
The retail spaces would be focused on “neighborhood-serving” shops and restaurants, according to a staff report. The site is served by Fairfax Connector bus routes that link up to the Fairfax County Government Center, Dulles International Airport and Metrorail.
The development would be served by the new Skyview High School, Rachel Carson Middle School and Flores Elementary School.
A public hearing for the comprehensive plan amendment will take place at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Oct. 13 at 4 p.m.
However, even if the supervisors vote to approve the amendment, there is still work to do before the development can proceed: a companion rezoning application to actually implement a specific development on the site known as Discovery Square South will have to go through its own approval process.
The planning commission is currently scheduled to hold a public hearing on the rezoning application, which was filed with the county back in October 2023, on Nov. 4.
Located just east of Dulles Airport and Route 28 (Sully Road), the Discovery Square development was originally approved by Fairfax County in 2007. The plan anticipated up to 1,159 multi-family residential units, 107,350 square feet of retail and 650,600 square feet of office use across 66.9 acres.
The development plan was later revised in 2015 to replace three office buildings with townhomes and what would become the Sully Community Center.
