By Brian Trompeter
The current trend of office-to-residential conversions continued June 27 when Fairfax County supervisors approved Madison Investment Portfolio LLC’s request to rezone 8.5 acres and repurpose two existing office buildings for residential uses.
The buildings formerly served as the headquarters for Inova’s hospital system. One, located at 8110 Gatehouse Road, now has a 245,000-square-foot office building and five-story, above-grade parking garage. The other, located at 2990 Telestar Court, has an 89,000-square-foot office building surrounded by surface parking.
Madison Investment Portfolio LLC will repurpose those buildings into affordable dwellings and “live-work” units, which may be used for work or residential space, or a combination of both. The Gatehouse Road building will be converted into up to 240 live-work units and the Telestar Court structure into 82 affordable units, with one or two bedrooms each.
Madison Investment Portfolio LLC will preserve existing mature vegetation, add new landscaping around the sites and provide three publicly accessible park spaces and three common open-space areas for residents. The public areas will include a game-table community park, a community play zone and “Woof Park” for dogs.
There also will be bicycle parking and electric-vehicle-charging facilities.
The developer will enhance existing sidewalks and create new pedestrian connections, county staff said. The applicant will build a new, 6-foot-wide sidewalk along the frontage of both properties, plus a new inter-parcel vehicular-and-pedestrian connection.
“We [will] take what was an exclusively automobile-oriented place and introduce a new range of new public spaces,” said Gregory Riegle, the applicant’s attorney. “This site can start to be a focal point for community engagement, gathering and connectivity.”
The development also will advance the county’s affordable-housing policies and provide residents with ready access to jobs, transit and Merrifield’s amenities, he said.
The Gatehouse Road building will retain its existing glass façade, but have new metal features at its northern and southern entrances. The Telestar Court building’s glass exterior will be replaced with clear glazing, which will permit installation of operable windows and panels. Wood paneling will soften the building’s ground-floor entrance.
The site’s parking availability is higher than county zoning standards, but still conservative, with the live-work units having parking sufficient for office uses, Riegle said. The applicant is open to a possible future parking reduction at the site, he said.
Charles Rimbach, who lives along Gatehouse Road, asked supervisors to press for vehicle and pedestrian-safety improvements on that street and Telestar Court. Gatehouse Road has become a popular shortcut for drivers seeking to skirt Merrifield’s Mosaic District, he said.
Rimbach asked for a traffic study of the vicinity that included private roads as well as public ones.
Anne Sweetser of the Jefferson Park Residential Association did not object to the buildings’ conversion or to the park areas that would be provided, but said parking already is tight in the area. She urged supervisors to require the applicant to consult with neighboring residential boards before seeking any parking reductions.
Riegle said the application would reduce the number of vehicular trips, especially those during peak traffic periods, compared with the site’s current uses. Parking demands at other live-work sites have been lower than projected amounts, he said.
“I think we’ve got a decent cushion,” Riegle said.
The development represents an opportunity to repurpose office space and add affordable housing, said Supervisor Dalia Palchik (D-Providence).
“I’m excited about turning some of the parking-lot space that is currently impervious into some community-use space,” she said.
The affordable-housing units will serve households earning between 30 and 80 percent of Area Median Income, Palchik added. (Fairfax County’s AMI now is $152,100 for a family of four).
Supervisors approved the application on an 8-0 vote. Supervisors Penelope Gross (D-Mason) and James Walkinshaw (D-Braddock) recused themselves from the discussion and vote, citing conflicts related to their work with Inova Health System Foundation’s board.
Supervisors immediately afterward voted to declare the Telestar Court site a revitalization area, which will make the project eligible for additional points under Virginia Housing’s evaluation process for Virginia Housing Opportunity Tax Credits.
