Fairfax County’s overall retail environment is booming, but county leaders say targeted support is needed to assist some lagging areas.
Despite predictions even before Covid that in-person sales would be supplanted by online commerce, the brick-and-mortar retail sector remains strong across Fairfax County, according to new data presented last week to the county’s Board of Supervisors.
“The private sector is very good at adapting,” Rebecca Moudry, director of the county government’s Department of Economic Initiatives, said at the Dec. 10 briefing.
Fairfax County’s vacancy rate for retail space currently sits at 3.5%, below both the state (3.8%) and national (4.1%) averages and in the middle of the pack among Virginia’s 10 metropolitan areas.
The overall health of the sector “was a real surprise to me,” said Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck, who chairs the board’s economic initiatives committee.
“Does anyone have a good sense what happened?” he asked, referring to the doom-and-gloom predictions about brick-and-mortar in recent years.
Moudry suggested that the desire for shared common experiences have kept many people shopping at local venues.
“We cannot underestimate the power of community,” she said. “We still want to go out. That is just kind of a human experience.”
But as has been the case in the commercial office sector, the retail world has seen a “flight to quality,” according to Kelly Atkinson, director of the planning division in the county’s Department of Planning and Development.
As a result, areas like the Mosaic District, Reston Town Center and Springfield Town Center are thriving, but older strip malls and car-centric properties “have been struggling a little bit,” Atkinson said.
To address challenges, the county government needs to “be flexible enough to be responsive to what’s actually happening in the market,” Board Chairman Jeff McKay said, arguing for a proactive approach rather than a reactive one.
“A center that is struggling or that seems outdated, behind the times, has an effect on the residential communities around them,” McKay said.
The county has about 230 shopping centers, according to data shared by county staff.
Supervisors and staff said the county’s recent overhaul of its zoning code — a years-long effort known as zMOD — aided property owners wishing to make changes. While much of the debate around the rewrite centered on residential issues, such as rules for accessory living units and flag heights, some commercial regulations were also added, eased and streamlined.
Food trucks, for instance, can now operate in residential districts for nonresidential purposes, such as a private school event, and the county gave properties in commercial revitalization district more flexibility for building heights.
Now, as part of a Plan Forward initiative to update the county’s comprehensive plan, particularly sections related to land use policies, staff are taking steps to look at repurposing distressed retail areas, Atkinson said. Options for future use could range from housing to recreation centers.
At the committee meeting, county leaders were cautioned about forcing a retail component into new development projects where it might not work.
That was the case for years in Arlington, where leaders insisted on ground-floor retail for new residential and commercial buildings along urban corridors, only to wind up with mixed results.
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn pressed for more pop-up retail spaces, which could occupy vacant sites for a few months and would benefit start-ups and non-traditional retailers.
Providing more short-term opportunities “has really helped bring in activity” where it has been tried, Alcorn said.
Staying on top of the entire retail situation is the key to future success, since market dynamics are fluid, Atkinson noted.
“Retail trends evolve faster than building lifespans,” she said.
