By Brian Trompeter
A mixed-use development with up to 810 multi-family dwelling units, 85 townhouses, 110,000 square feet of office space and 10,000 square feet of retail area will be built next to the West Falls Church Metrostation, following a June 27 rezoning approval by Fairfax County supervisors.
“This project has been born out of a spirit of cooperation between this county, the city of Falls Church, a major transportation agency, a major state university and the applicant, all of which have come together and sort of jointly envision a new community and attract new investment and boost rail ridership,” said Andrew Painter, attorney for the developer, FCGP-Metro Development LLC.
“This is a unique project [that] we think fires on all cylinders in terms of place-making, open space, transportation and mobility,” Painter said.
The 23.99-acre property, owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), is bounded to the south by the city of Falls Church and Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center and to the southeast by Haycock Road. The site now has two surface parking lots, a five-story WMATA parking garage, a kiss-and-ride parking lot, bus drop-off and stormwater-management pond.
The project will occur in four phases, with infrastructure being built first so as not to disrupt access to Metrorail and Metrobus services. The second phase will see construction of townhouse Blocks E, G and H; Building D with 320 multi-family units; and a park area along Haycock Road.
The third phase will include Building F with 280 multi-family dwellings and two centrally located parks. Finally, Phase 4 will include Buildings A and B – one residential, the other for offices – next to Interstate 66.
The initiative will complement a nearby development being done by West Falls Development and the city of Falls Church, plus a proposed project at Virginia Tech’s site, which is slated to come before the Board of Supervisors in July, Painter said.
The three developments would result in a 42-acre, multi-jurisdictional community that will “function together seamlessly and provide approximately 3.2 million square feet of office, retail, residential and hotel uses,” Painter said.
The development is designed to be a “lower-key, quieter residential neighborhood” that steps down in density as it approaches established residential communities, while bolstering demand for retail and office uses, both on its own site and toward the Virginia Tech/city of Falls Church developments, he said.
While the floor-area ratio for the site, which compares the gross square footage of the development with the site’s footprint, is 0.98, the neighboring Virginia Tech site will have a FAR of 2.5 and the city of Falls Church development to the south of that will have a 4.0 FAR, Painter said.
“It might be the only place in Fairfax County where we have a tapering down in density as you approach the Metrorail station site,” he said.
Because of the development’s proximity to transit, the applicant has designed it to encourage pedestrian and bicycle access to the Metro station. Most of the site’s roadways will feature single-lane travel aisles going in each direction. Those lanes will be on the narrow side, 10 and 13 feet wide, to help calm traffic and shorten pedestrian crossings, county staff said.
Garage entrances will be located in alleys, so as not to interfere with pedestrian walkways to the Metrorail station, officials said. The project also will feature wide sidewalks, shared-use paths and on-street bike facilities throughout the site, so as to encourage active modes of transportation.
Roadway improvements will include a westward extension of West Falls Station Boulevard through the nearby Virginia Tech site and to the Falls Church city boundary.
The developer also will adjust traffic-signal timing at several nearby intersections to improve traffic flow and provide an additional turn lane at Grove Avenue to lessen the delay of motorists turning right onto Haycock Road. The applicant also will build “significant” pedestrian improvements along Haycock Road between West Falls Station Boulevard and Turner Avenue on the opposite side of I-66.
The project will include a network of six publicly accessible parks, including a sport court, fenced dog park, civic plazas, pocket and linear parks, and children’s recreation park.
The applicant will retain WMATA’s garage to accommodate Metrorail riders and keep the site’s stormwater pond. Stormwater-management improvements, such as underground vaults and urban bio-retention facilities, will reduce by 40 percent the amount of water runoff that now exists at the site, Painter said.
Adrienne Whyte, president of the Ellison Heights/Mount Daniel Civic Association, said the group supported the development, provided its 17 desired conditions were met to protect the neighborhood.
“The WMATA parcel, combined with the Virginia Tech parcel and city of Falls Church parcel, make up a very dense urban development that is largely surrounded by stable residential neighborhoods like ours,” she said.
“The county has tried to freeze neighbors out of the land-use process with zMOD [the recently approved Modernized Zoning Ordinance] and I see that extending to rezoning and other applications that will change our neighborhoods forever,” Whyte said. “Giving civic associations only five minutes to testify on such a huge development [is] a great way to suppress civic input.”
Whyte called proposed parking reductions for the site’s multi-family buildings “ludicrous,” saying residents likely still would need vehicles to get around the county.
Supervisors postponed their decision on the parking reductions until July 11, citing details that still needed to be worked out.
Sonya Breehey, Northern Virginia advocacy manager with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said the project would transform acres of underutilized parking at the Metro station into an “inclusive, walkable, bike-friendly, transit-oriented community.”
“Some people do want to live a car-free lifestyle and this will be an opportunity for them,” she said. “And for those who still want to drive, there will be ample parking.”
Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville) said the development involved “uniquely good” outreach and was “improved dramatically” by that public input.
“I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way it evolved,” Foust said, adding, “I think it’s going to be a really great addition to our community.”
Sites adjacent to Metrorail stations are the “prime pieces of property in the county where we can accomplish so many goals, from workforce housing to parks to reduction of vehicle trips and encouraging people to use mass transit,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D).
