The City of Falls Church has officially decided to reinvest in a 10-block commercial area that encompasses the largest Vietnamese shopping center on the East Coast.
On Monday, June 26, Falls Church City Council unanimously voted to approve the East End Small Area Plan, which proposes reinvestment into a series of commercial properties — including the historic Eden Center (6751-6799 Wilson Blvd) — between Wilson Blvd, East Broad Street and Hillwood Avenue.
The council’s vote comes after the planning commission endorsed the plan on June 7.
With the East End as the last of eight planning areas deemed “underutilized” and in need of reinvestment under the city’s Comprehensive Plan, the council’s vote serves as the long-awaited culmination of two years of dedicated community outreach and organizing.
After the plan was publicly launched in the fall of 2021, local Vietnamese organizers formed Viet Place Collective and worked extensively with the city to craft a plan that adequately represented the thriving Vietnamese community set to be the largest group affected by reinvestment initiatives.
The grassroots organization was lauded by council members for building an unprecedented model of community engagement in local public policymaking that the city hopes to continue.
VPC’s activism continued at Monday’s meeting, where they urged the council to rename the district currently known as the “East End” or Planning Opportunity 5 to “Little Saigon East” in future city planning.
Eden Senior Vice President and General Counsel Alan Frank objected that the name Little Saigon would take away from Eden’s unique, globally recognized branding and cause the shopping center to lose its name recognition in a country full of “Little Saigons.”
“You say that calling the area Little Saigon is not the same as renaming Eden Center, but we’re talking about the same piece of land, so I think that’s not really right,” Frank said. “If we’re going to market something, we need to market it under one name. We need to attract tenants there under one name, and it’s got to be Eden Center located in the city of Falls Church.”
In response, VPC Core Organizer Hoài Nam Nguyễn clarified that the Eden name would not be under threat of replacement.
The shopping center would keep its trademarked name but belong to a new jurisdiction titled Little Saigon that Fairfax County could promote and create signage for without crossing the line between public and private interests, Nguyễn says.
“We want to make sure that people understand that we’re advocating for a name of an area, so this is a greater neighborhood name, and the shopping centers in the area…have autonomy over their name,” Nguyễn said. “So, no one is believing that the Eden Center name will go away — it’s the opposite. We are believing that [the] Eden Center name will be promoted in conjunction with a Little Saigon name and vice versa. Little Saigon and Eden Center can be together and can work together.”
Nguyễn also acknowledged that the East End area is home to other cultures beyond the Vietnamese community but reaffirmed that the name Little Saigon is not meant to be “exclusive.”
“We feel like Little Saigon is a name that acknowledges the Vietnamese people…and Vietnamese businesses in the area but isn’t exclusive to only the Vietnamese,” Nguyễn said. “There’s plenty of other examples where you have a Little Saigon in other parts of the country where not all the businesses in there are Vietnamese either…So, our intent with the name is not to alienate other minorities or other cultures. It’s to pay tribute to and recognize Vietnamese culture, which is the most predominant one in the area.”
(Updated at 11:20 a.m.) A plan to redevelop 10 blocks of Falls Church, including the historic Eden Center, took a major step forward last week, even as existing community members fear getting pushed out.
The City of Falls Church Planning Commission voted Wednesday (June 7) to recommend that the Falls Church City Council adopt the latest draft of the East End Small Area Plan as a “guiding document” for future reinvestment in the area.
The last of eight Planning Opportunity Areas (POAs) that the city identified as in need of revitalization, the East End is dominated by commercial properties between Wilson Blvd, East Broad Street and Hillwood Avenue, just past the edge of Fairfax County’s limits. Most notable of the businesses to be affected is the Eden Center.
The largest Vietnamese shopping center on the East Coast with over 120 stores, Eden frequently attracts masses of visitors from across Northern Virginia — especially Fairfax County, where a large percentage of shop owners and regulars reside — and even across the country.
With many Vietnamese Americans and refugees depending upon Eden as a crucial source of community and connection to their roots, Eden has served as a meaningful cultural touchstone since its founding in 1984, the center’s website says.
“For my parents, who struggled to find home and belong in this country due to language barriers and cultural differences, Eden Center acted as an oasis where they could go to remember a home that they had to leave,” Khoi Duong, a self-described concerned community member, said during the commission meeting last Wednesday.
Local Vietnamese community members formed Viet Place Collective in early 2022 as a direct response to the reveal of the East End Small Area Plan in November 2021. In its current draft, the plan envisions the area as a mixed-use environment with housing, more concentrated retail on Wilson and Roosevelt Blvds, and more walkable streets, among other proposals.
According to its website, VPC “aims to uplift and uphold the legacy of Vietnamese culture community and identity in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area for the next generation.” A large majority of its members hail from Fairfax County.
Currently, the group is committed to preserving Eden against the threat of displacement and gentrification that its members believe the plan poses, serving as a key liaison between the largely Vietnamese-speaking shop owners, Eden’s corporate stakeholders and the local government.
Seeing a lack of Vietnamese representation in early discussions of the plan, the group aims to bridge language barriers and facilitate community outreach to represent the needs of the community that will be most affected by the plan — a collaboration that both organizers and city staff suggested could be replicated elsewhere in the region. Read More
