Housing will soon rise on a vacant lot in Merrifield where an office building had stood for over four decades.
Elm Street Development broke ground at the end of 2025 on its upcoming apartment building at 2722 Merrilee Drive, nearly five years after the project was approved to replace the 1980s-era Dunn Loring Center.
While the Fairfax County has worked on boosting affordable housing, local officials are wary of state bills that would reduce local zoning authority over residential development in commercial zones.
HB 816 by Del. Dan Helmer (D-10) and SB 454 by state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-16) would require local zoning ordinances to permit by-right multifamily and mixed-use residential development on a portion of commercial or business zoning district land.
Apartment hunters across most of Fairfax County are seeing lower rental rates than they were at this time last year, but higher costs are likely come springtime, according to new data.
Six of seven Fairfax communities included in Apartment List’s March rental report for the D.C. area showed year-over-year declines in median asking rents during February.
A plan for mixed-use redevelopment on a small but key parcel in downtown McLean has won the support of the Fairfax County Planning Commission.
Commission members voted 10-1 yesterday (Wednesday) in support of Reston-based Cypress Real Estate Company’s plan to construct 56 residential units with 2,120 square feet of ground floor retail on a 0.56-acre parcel at the northwest corner of Beverly Road and Elm Street.
If Fairfax County approves the Prosperity Business Campus’ transformation into a residential neighborhood, townhomes will likely be the first element of the project to materialize.
PM Home Associates, an affiliate of the developer EYA, hopes to build 156 townhouses, including 20 affordable dwelling units, as the first phase of its overhaul of the 41-acre industrial office park in Merrifield, according to a final development plan submitted to Fairfax County on Feb. 20.
Fairfax County bucked a regional trend downward by recording higher year-over-year home sales in January.
A total of 568 properties went to closing for the month, according to figures reported Feb. 10 by MarketStats by Showing Time. That’s up slightly — 1.4% — from the 560 transactions in January 2025.
Fairfax County needs to take a more hands-on approach to helping owners repurpose aging commercial properties, one local government leader says.
“We know where they are. We have this information. Let’s identify the top 10, 15 opportunities and let’s go to them,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said at an Economic Initiatives Committee meeting on Tuesday (Feb. 10).
As the first homes constructed on the former Fannie Mae campus in Reston prepare to welcome residents, developer Wheelock Communities is clamoring to add over 100 more.
Wheelock hopes to construct up to 150 stacked townhomes in place of the remaining office building on the nearly 5-acre site at 11600 American Dream Way, according to a rezoning application submitted to Fairfax County on Feb. 3.
A proposal to build 120 units of affordable housing on a site now occupied by the Franconia Governmental Center has won the support of the Fairfax County Planning Commission.
Commission members voted without opposition on Feb. 4 to approve the plan by Franconia Development Partners, a consortium of several housing groups seeking to redevelop the 3.3 acres of leased county land at 6121 Franconia Road with a four-story apartment building.
Fairfax County officials are asking the Spanberger administration to make the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) more responsive to housing developments it must review.
In a letter to three new Virginia cabinet secretaries, Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay expressed concern that current VDOT review process for new housing has placed roadblocks in the way of adding both market-rate and committed-affordable units:
