Fairfax County will sell bonds to finance the Tysons Community Center planned as part of the Dominion Square West housing project.
The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority was authorized by the Board of Supervisors last Tuesday (Oct. 10) to sell up to $43 million in facilities bonds to fund the community center, which has an estimated cost of $41 million.
The bond financing will also partially cover the county’s share of infrastructure costs, including the 75 parking garage spaces that will be designated for community center workers and visitors.
“This is a big step in this project,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said Tuesday. “This community center was really important to attracting the funding from Amazon for this project. It’s going to be a really useful asset to the broader community, to that area. It’s certainly going to help make it a great place to live for future residents.”
Designed and built by the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), the 30,000-square-foot, two-level community center will be located in one of two residential high-rises that the nonprofit developer is building at 1592 Spring Hill Road.
Planned amenities include a full-size gym, sensory and recreational spaces, meeting rooms, fitness rooms, a kitchen and a 1,900-square-foot outdoor courtyard. The center will be open to the general public as well as future Dominion Square West residents.
Replacing a parking lot next to the Jaguar and Land Rover dealership near the Spring Hill Metro station, APAH’s development will provide 516 residential units for households earning 30% to 70% of the area median income, which is currently $152,100 for a family of four in Fairfax County.
Funds for the project’s housing components and construction are coming from a range of sources, including a $55 million grant from Amazon, American Rescue Plan Act funds, developer contributions, and $10 million from the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA).
According to a staff memo, the Department of Housing and Community Development expects to close on all project requirements, including housing bond financing, by mid-December.
As of this summer, APAH anticipated starting construction this December and completing the project in November 2027.
County staff said the community center will “provide social, recreational, health and wellness activities for older adults and youth” that are currently lacking in Tysons. Since July, the county has been offering some programs for teens and families through its Community Services Room at Tysons Corner Center.
(Updated at 4:40 p.m. on 6/29/2023) Tysons could have a community center all of its own within the decade.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement yesterday (Tuesday) committing the nonprofit Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) to building the future Tysons Community Center as part of its Dominion Square West housing development near the Spring Hill Metro station.
Located at the base of one of two planned residential high-rises at 1592 Spring Hill Road, the community center will feature a “full-size gymnasium, sensory and recreational spaces, multigenerational and community meeting rooms, fitness rooms, a kitchen, and administrative offices,” along with an outdoor courtyard, county staff said in a summary for the board (page 664).
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, whose district includes the southwestern quadrant of Tysons, trumpted the center as “a big deal” not for future Dominion Square residents, but for the whole area, which he said has “a dearth of public facilities.”
“It’s going to be a major asset,” Alcorn said before the board voted on the agreement. “…I know NCS has been engaging with other communities in the area about programming and how the community center’s going to be a benefit to the broader community, which is just fantastic. I’m a little bit over the moon on this one.”
Under the agreement, APAH will develop the 33,000-square-foot, two-level community center. The property will be owned by the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority and operated by the county’s Neighborhood and Community Services.
Replacing an auto dealership parking lot, the Dominion Square development will provide 516 units to residents earning 30% to 70% of the area median income. Fairfax County’s AMI for a family of four in 2023 is $152,100, per county staff.
APAH intends to construct both 20-story buildings concurrently, thanks to a $55 million grant from Amazon, which was secured in part by the community center’s inclusion, Alcorn said.
APAH says it anticipates simultaneously starting construction on the northern Building 6 and Building 5 to the south — which contains the community center — in December 2023, putting the overall project on track to be completed in November 2027, as shown in a schedule submitted to the county.
(This article previously cited incorrect dates for the beginning of construction.)
The agreement notes that the schedule is “preliminary and subject to change.” An APAH spokesperson confirmed that the construction timeline hasn’t changed since the schedule was developed on June 6.
Conditions for the community center include a ground-floor entrance at the corner of Boone Blvd and Spring Hill Road separate from the access for residents, along with a designated drop-off area and a courtyard.
It will also get 75 parking spaces reserved for employees and visitors in a planned below-grade garage with 427 spaces total — 65 of them available to either community center users or residents.
During yesterday’s meeting, the board approved a 17.2% reduction from the 516 parking spaces that the county’s zoning ordinance requires for the development.
The county had explored allowing a 29.3% reduction, bringing the number of spaces down to 365, but none of the potential nearby, off-site parking options “penciled out,” according to Alcorn.
“In this part of Tysons anyway, we have the interesting conundrum of an over-abundance of parking, but it’s privately owned and wrapped up in development approvals and sometimes other uses that aren’t fully using those parking spaces,” he said, adding that he and supervisors John Foust (Dranesville) and Dalia Palchik (Providence) are pursuing “some longer-term leads for public parking” in the area.
According to a provided budget, the community center will cost an estimated $38.8 million, over $34 million of which is for construction.
If everything goes according to plan, the all-affordable housing complex planned near the Spring Hill Metro station in Tysons could break ground this December.
The Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority will issue up to $99 million in tax-exempt bonds to support construction of half of the Dominion Square project, which will deliver over 500 apartments for households earning 60% or less of the area median income (AMI).
The bonds were formally authorized yesterday (Tuesday) by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a vote that county staff said was needed to keep the project on track to close financing in December.
“This is not the last time we’re going to see this project,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said. “As it comes through the process, there are a number of issues that are being worked out, and hopefully, we can keep this on schedule and get these units built and occupied as soon as possible.”
The county is currently reviewing a site plan after the planning commission approved the project on Feb. 15. Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), the nonprofit developer, will also likely seek a parking reduction next, according to Alcorn’s office.
Part of a larger financing package for the development that includes $55 million from Amazon, proceeds from the newly authorized bond sales will specifically fund a 265-unit multifamily residential building now known as the “North Four Building.”
The North Four is one of two 21-story buildings that APAH will build to replace an auto dealership parking lot at 1592 Spring Hill Road. The other building — dubbed the “South Four” — will have 251 units with a community center on its ground floor.
According to a county staff summary, all 516 units will be priced at rates affordable to residents earning between 30 and 60% AMI. Based on fiscal year 2022 income levels, rents would range from $801 to $2,486, depending on the AMI and number of bedrooms.
In addition to the community center, which will be managed by the county, expected amenities include an outdoor courtyard, playground, business center, bicycle storage, a meeting room, and support services for residents — potentially including emergency cash support and legal, financial and medical assistance.
APAH says it has a total of $153.9 million for North Four and $144.1 million for South Four, per a financing plan. The nonprofit will lease the land from the county housing authority for 85 years.
“Dominion Square represents APAH’s commitment to meet the need of affordable housing across the region,” APAH said in a statement. “We are thankful to the Fairfax County Board for their support and authorization of bond financing. This critical step ensures Dominion Square receives the funding necessary to get this building built and provide opportunity for the residents that will call it home.”
The all-affordable residential high-rises planned at Dominion Square West are officially moving forward.
During its meeting on Feb. 15, the Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously approved the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing’s (APAH) project, which will replace parking lots currently used by auto dealerships with two 21-story buildings.
In addition to providing 516 units for people earning 60% of the area median income or less, the development will contain private and publicly accessible open spaces and a 33,500-square-foot, two-story community center, all of it supported by a five-story underground parking garage.
“I think this is great,” Dranesville District Commissioner John Ulfelder said. “It fits what we agreed to earlier, it’s going to be a terrific opportunity, and that it’s going to be all affordable is amazing.”
Early in 2022, the commission approved a 175-unit building at 1592 Spring Hill Road that was intended as the first phase of development for the 2-acre parcel.
However, a $55 million investment from Amazon enabled APAH to tackle both phases of the project at the same time. The developer filed a new plan with the county last summer.
“We really think that getting these units online quicker, getting the community center online quicker and the significant increase in the number of units really is a great thing for the county, a great thing for the Tysons area,” said Scott Adams, a McGuireWoods land-use attorney representing APAH.
The community center will be operated by Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services and feature a full-size gym, meeting spaces, multi-purpose rooms, kitchen, administrative offices, and flexible classroom spaces, according to a county staff memo.
It will also have a 1,900-square-foot skypark — the second level of a courtyard with play equipment, outdoor seating, grilling stations and other private amenities for residents. The skypark will be open to the public when not being used by the community center.
Public forums held last year confirmed there’s “a distinct need” for a community center to serve both residents of the new development and Tysons in general, Adams said.
“There was a desire and a need for these types of facilities where they can have community meetings, where they can have CPR classes, where they have those recreational opportunities that really just don’t exist right now,” he said.
Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina said she prefers this location for a community center over The View, a mixed-use development planned at the Spring Hill Metro station that had proposed a similar facility.
With the community center going in Dominion Square, The View’s developer will likely provide support for a new athletic field instead, county staff recently told FFXnow.
As discussed at a Tysons Committee meeting last month, several commissioners suggested the county needs to be more “strategic” or thoughtful about what public facilities are needed in Tysons and where they should be located.
“While we’re concerned about community centers and having too many of them or having them in the right spot, schools I think is another thing for us to consider where they are,” Hunter Mill District Commissioner John Carter said. “We have one maybe committed. We’re probably going to need more in Tysons over time.”
According to a Dec. 27 letter, Fairfax County Public Schools projects Dominion Square West will result in 43 to 70 new students for the Marshall High School pyramid.
While that isn’t expected to push the schools over capacity, FCPS warns increased residential density “will necessarily increase [student membership], which may negatively impact the instructional program to the detriment of the students involved.”
Adams said the Tysons area should have more capacity by the time the development opens. Planning is underway to convert the Dunn Loring Center into an elementary school, though the boundaries won’t be determined until construction begins next year.
Tysons residents will soon get to shape the plan for Fairfax County’s community center in the upcoming Dominion Square West housing development.
The county’s Department of Neighborhood and Community Services (NCS) staff will host a trio of community engagement forums later this month to gather feedback on potential services, activities and programming for the new facility, which will fill 30,000 square feet at the base of a 20-story residential high-rise at 1592 Spring Hill Road.
“In advance of the center’s opening, the county is engaging the community to ensure the new facility meets their needs and interests,” NCS said in a news release on Tuesday (June 28).
Floor plans for the community center suggest it will have two levels and feature a 7,500-square-foot gymnasium, 2,100 square feet of administrative offices, a 675-square-foot kitchen, and multipurpose space.
Accoording to the county’s Department of Housing and Community Development, spaces labeled as multipurpose in the proposed layout will be more specifically defined based on the public’s suggestions for programs and services.
“It is our understanding that the overall square footage of the community center is fairly fixed,” the department said. “There may be some opportunities to refine sizes of the spaces within the community center to a certain extent based on feedback from the community.”
NCS is planning to discuss its vision for the center at two virtual forums — one in the morning, one in the evening — as well as an in-person meeting at the end of July:
- Session 1: Thursday, July 14, 10:30 a.m.-noon *This session will be held virtually via Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to you separately.*
- Session 2: Thursday, July 21, 6:30-8:30 p.m. *This session will be held virtually via Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed to you separately.*
- Session 3: Thursday, July 28, 6:30-8:30 p.m. *In-person session at the PARC at Tysons, 8508 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA 22182*
Advance registration is required through Eventbrite. Community members can sign up for more than one meeting, since “each session will build on the prior session,” the registration page says.
Made possible in part by a $55 million grant from Amazon, the Dominion Square project will deliver two 20-story buildings with a total of 516 apartments — all of them aimed at people who earn 60% or less of the area’s median income.
Located near the Spring Hill Metro station in Tysons West, the development will also have five levels of underground parking, with 140 spaces reserved for the community center. Proposed amenities include a 1,900-square-foot skypark for the community center.
Fairfax County is currently reviewing nonprofit developer Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing’s plan for Dominion Square, which was submitted in early June. Public hearing dates for the application haven’t been scheduled yet.
The Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) is scaling up its ambitions for Tysons.
The nonprofit has submitted a new plan to Fairfax County for its much-touted affordable housing project in Dominion Square West, the planned redevelopment of a strip of car dealerships on the west side of Spring Hill Road.
After getting the county’s approval in January for a 175-unit, nine-story residential building at 1592 Spring Hill Road, APAH wants to bump that up to 225 units and 20 stories in height in order to match a second tower that it can now construct, thanks to a $55 million investment from Amazon.
Collectively, the two buildings will deliver 516 units — all aimed at people earning 60% or less of the area’s median income, according to the application, which the county received on Thursday (June 2).
“This important project addresses a key objective for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors by providing significant affordable housing opportunities within close proximity to Metro,” Scott Adams, a McGuireWoods land-use attorney, wrote on APAH’s behalf in a statement of justification dated May 31.
Designated as C5 in the plan, the second building will allocate up to 33,500 square feet on its ground floor to a community center that will be operated by the Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services.
The community center will be much larger than the 15,000 square feet of retail currently allowed by the existing Dominion Square West plan. Despite the increase in units and height for the approved building C6, the developer says it’s proposing 69,000 fewer square feet of residential space than what it could have to compensate for the additional commercial use.
The buildings will be constructed on top of five levels of underground parking, which will provide one space for each housing unit as well as 140 spaces for the community center. There will be two loading spaces and 209 bicycle storage spaces, including 15 for the community center.
According to the submitted development plan, the buildings will abut each other, but they will have separate lobbies. Proposed amenities include:
- Private skyparks for both buildings, totaling 12,900 square feet, with swings, an outdoor kids’ play space, lawn games, a community garden, and movable tables and seating
- A 1,900-square-foot skypark for the community center
- A 14,800-square-foot interim park with publicly accessible seating on turfed areas along a planned Boone Boulevard that will extend west off of Spring Hill Road
The interim park will eventually become a 3,700-square-foot urban park once the property on the other side of Boone Boulevard is redeveloped, shifting the road’s final alignment.
APAH’s proposal covers two of the six buildings envisioned in the Dominion Square West conceptual plan that the county adopted in 2017. Final plans for the other four buildings — two office buildings and two residential — haven’t been submitted yet.
While the new application hasn’t been formally accepted yet, the county has previously said construction on the all-affordable housing project could begin by the fall of 2023.
(Updated at 8:30 p.m.) An infusion of funds from Amazon will help accelerate the construction of Tysons’ first entirely affordable housing project.
Officially announced at 2:30 p.m. today (Tuesday), the $55 million investment from the Amazon Housing Equity Fund will allow the nonprofit Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) to construct both of its Dominion Square West buildings instead of breaking the project up into phases.
Replacing a car dealership parking lot on Spring Hill Road, the multifamily residential buildings will collectively include more than 500 dwelling units, all of them priced for households that earn a low to moderate income, according to Fairfax County.
“We know that an investment in affordable housing is more than just a building,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said at a press conference. “It is an investment in what our residents will achieve given the firm foundation of a safe, livable, and affordable home.”
The Fairfax County Planning Commission approved the project’s first phase — a nine-story, 175-unit apartment building on the northern side of the 2-acre property — on Jan. 12. The units will be aimed at people who earn 30, 50, and 60% of the area’s median income, which was $127,866, as of 2020.
For the second building on the south side, designated C5, the conceptual development plan that the county adopted for Dominion Square West in 2017 allows two options:
- A 260-foot-tall high-rise with 16 to 25 floors and up to 320 units
- An 85-foot-tall building with six to eight floors and a maximum of 175 units
Both options allow for up to 15,000 square feet of retail space.
While the Amazon funds will cover construction, APAH still needs to get a final plan for the building approved by the county, Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development spokesperson Ben Boxer confirmed.
Officials announced today that the site will include a 30,000 square-foot community center with a gym, fitness room, senior and youth multi-purpose rooms, an art/maker space, sensory room, and more. The programs and resources will be provided by the county’s Department of Neighborhood and Community Services.
“As the planning process gets underway, NCS will solicit input from the community to consider programming and services that will meet the needs of the surrounding community,” the news release said.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors allocated $43 million in January to buy the Dominion Square West land and help APAH finance the first building in the project. The funds came from a variety of sources, including commercial developer contributions, federal COVID-19 relief money, and the county’s affordable housing fund.
The county also designated Dominion Square West a revitalization area in February to help APAH apply for Low Income Housing Tax Credits. While the nonprofit is developing the buildings, the property will be owned by the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
Launced in January 2021, Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund is intended to offset the soaring real estate prices that tend to follow the retail giant. However, the $750 million pledged in the D.C. area so far has mostly been aimed at the higher end of its 30-80% AMI target, The Washington Post reported last month.
Construction on the Dominion Square West project could potentially begin as early as the fall of 2023, the county says.
