Updated 9/16 — City of Fairfax officials said the project was not slowed by leadership changes. According to a spokesperson for the City:
The land use application for the City Center West project has been deemed inactive, as your article states, but the same status exists for the “Block A” proposal. Attached is the July 4, 2025, letter notifying Ox Hill that the City Center West site plan application was void and closed due to inactivity.
The City Center West site plan is an administrative review; no City Council action is required, so Mr. Smith’s claim that their project has been slowed by city leadership changes is an inaccurate portrayal of the situation.
Earlier: More than a year after clearing most of the site, Ox Hill Companies has yet to start construction on its City Centre West development in Fairfax City.
The developer says it’s now on track to break ground in 2026 — the year that the Ox Hill Residences condominium building at the center of the project was previously expected to open to residents.
“At this stage, our priority is relocating the businesses currently on the project site to new locations within the city in preparation for construction,” Ox Hill Director of Marketing and Sales Abby Smith said.
Approved by the Fairfax City Council in July 2023, City Centre West will replace an office building at 10523 Main Street and nearby, vacant bank and restaurant buildings in Old Town Fairfax with the 79-unit condo complex, over 18,000 square feet of office space, and a 7,731 square feet of retail space. The development will include a restaurant and a new regional Truist bank branch.
The former Wells Fargo bank at 10501 Main Street and former Oud Resto & Hall at 10515 Main Street were demolished in spring 2024, and most of the office building’s tenants, including Ox Hill, have temporarily relocated to 4031 University Drive.
The last business in the building — Infinite Technologies Orthotics and Prosthetics — is expected to join the others on University Drive “in the next few months,” Smith told FFXnow in late August.
According to Smith, both City Centre West and a second project that Ox Hill is working on in Fairfax City, known as The Ox, have been slowed down by significant turnover among the city’s leaders this year.
“We’ve been working with new council members to bridge the loss of institutional knowledge around the projects,” she said. “These conversations are vital to regaining the momentum we built in 2024.”
Voters elected an almost entirely new city council last year, with only Mayor Catherine Read and Billy Bates returning in 2025. The council’s new makeup has resulted in sharp divisions on some major projects, including the long-planned Pickett Road Connector Trail and proposed redevelopments.
In addition, the city welcomed new police and human resources heads this summer, and a search for a new city manager is still ongoing. Fairfax City Economic Development CEO and Director Christopher Bruno also stepped down in August after nine years, leaving a vacancy that’s currently being filled on an interim basis by City Director of Community Development and Planning Brooke Hardin.
Smith says Ox Hill Companies has been using this transition period to rethink its approach to The Ox, which could bring a major performing arts center to a 3.58-acre site in the heart of the city’s historic downtown.
Along with the performing arts center, which would’ve featured a 2,400-seat concert hall and 100-seat black box theater, the developer had proposed a 169-room hotel, a conference center, an art gallery in the former bank building at 4029 Chain Bridge Road, about 6,000 square feet of office space, and over 27,800 square feet of retail, according to plans presented to the community last September.
However, the project application was designated as “inactive” on Aug. 29 by Fairfax City, which says it now considers the file “closed.”
That suggests Ox Hill’s reconfiguration of its plans might be substantial enough to require a new application. According to Smith:
For The Ox/Block A, we’ve been using this time to revisit the design and reconsider the project’s size and scale in response to concerns raised by Fairfax City. We are also incorporating the findings from the recent report on the city’s public parking completed by Walker Consultants, which identified underutilized lots and opportunities for special event-night parking. The redesign will focus on determining the appropriate capacity size and optimizing traffic flow to minimize impacts on nearby neighborhoods while continuing to attract visitors to Old Town.
“Once the revised design is complete, we look forward to sharing it,” she added.
