EYA Opens New Home Community in Fairfax, VA: Townhomes at Mosaic District

Sponsored Announcement

Built to LEED-ND and LEED for Homes

Fairfax, VA– Next Saturday January 14, Washington-area building leader EYA will celebrate the grand opening of its 17th new home community in Northern Virginia at Townhomes at Mosaic District.

Mosaic District is a 31-acre mixed-use urban renewal project at the site of the former Merrifield Multiplex Cinema at Gallows Road and Lee Highway in Fairfax. Lead developer, Edens, has attracted Washington’s most iconic boutique retailers to anchor the neighborhood: Cava, Matchbox, Black Restaurant Group, Taylor Gourmet, MOM’s Organic Market, Angelika Film Center & Café, Neiman Marcus Studio, Dawn Price Baby, Lou Lou and more. Shops already open on site include Panera Bread, Chipotle, Four Sisters Vietnamese and Sea Pearl Restaurant.

The project will bring smart city living to Fairfax with exciting, quality shops and restaurants in a walkable, urban environment. A Metro shuttle will operate onsite from Mosaic District to
the Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station on the Orange line. The first shops are expected to open in October 2012. Alongside the 500,000 square feet of new retail, EYA will build 112 new townhomes in an urban architectural style to complement the neighborhood’s city-like setting. Brick exteriors will be accented by contemporary iron railing and Juliet balconies. Inside, the homes will be built to the nation’s most comprehensive green building program – LEED for Homes. ENERGY STAR features also contribute to energy savings and a more comfortable indoor environment for homeowners. New home buyers at Mosaic District will enjoy features like rooftop terraces, garage parking, and gourmet kitchens with stainless steel appliances. Home prices start at $577,400.

Townhomes at Mosaic District Grand Opening
Saturday, January 14, 2012
2951 Eskridge Road
Fairfax, VA 22031
(703) 385-4647
www.EYA.com

About: EYA is a smart growth developer, specializing in walkable new townhome communities and mixed-use developments. Since its founding in 1992, the company has built over 30 neighborhoods in the Washington Metropolitan area. EYA is currently selling three new home communities: Capitol Quarter and Chancellor’s Row in Washington, DC and Old Town Commons in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. For more information on the company or its neighborhoods, visit http://www.eya.com/.

Transforming Tysons?

Fairfax planners want to flip the image you have of Tysons Corner on its head, transforming a commercial district with acres of traffic, where cars are a must, into a pedestrian friendly, mixed-use residential zone with less congestion and more public transit. In the most recent Tysons Corner Urban Center Draft Plan, planners detail how they will accomplish this makeover, hoping to piggyback on the four planned metro stops on the Silver Line that will fall within the Tysons environs. The plans are ambitious, but then the County is giving itself a forty year time frame for implementing these new strategies.

Today's Tysons has over 100,000 jobs but only 17,000 residents, which translates into Tysons' ubiquitous traffic. Planners hope that encouraging high density mixed-use development within walking distance of future metro stations will mean 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs, or four jobs per household rather than the current ration of almost 6 to 1. Brian Worthy, Public Information Officer for Fairfax, said the goal is to "make [Tysons] a real place and not just a suburban office park."

The new proposed standards include maximum floor-area ratio (FAR) of 4.75 within one-eighth of a mile of the Metro stop and should be "developed primarily with multi-family housing." In the transit-oriented districts, planners recommend phasing the intensity, so developments from the one-eighth mark to the one-fourth mark will be allowed an FAR of 2.75 and those developments in the one-fourth to one-half mile mark a 2.0 FAR. The greater density closer to the metro would theoretically reduce car usage.

Slightly contentious elements of the draft plan are the proposed density bonuses for developers willing to build to LEED standards. Green bonuses come on top of more traditional bonuses for affordable housing or open public space. "For example, if a developer obtained a 20 percent density bonus for offering 20 percent affordable housing, the additional bonus for LEED certification would be for 10 percent of the resulting density cap, for a total bonus of 32 percent." Some think that's pretty dense - especially when you consider the initial 4.75 FAR. To put it in perspective in the"core area" of Tysons where you find Tysons Corner Center and Galleria at Tysons, the current FAR ranges from 1.0 to 1.65. But Worthy said "density really is the key incentive for development." Worthy added the community has been involved from the beginning in the vision and planning process; the public has had and will continue to have ample opportunity to give feedback on the plan.

To deal with the congestion and car-laden roads, planners suggest reworking superblocks to create a grid system with more streets and to improve connections to major transitways. The draft also recommends creating a new circulator system and local bus routes to serve the Tysons area. The plan suggests creating multi-modal hubs near the metro stations that offer car sharing, bike storage and bus service to allow residents to get to and from their destinations without cars. Just last month the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors authorized the Department of Transportation to apply for a grant from the Federal Transit Administration to support an Urban Circulator Program.

At next week's Planning Commission, Tysons Committee meeting staff will present the Draft Zoning Ordinance Amendment and the Tysons Task Force will provide comments on the Draft Plan Amendment. The public will have two opportunities to comment on the plan, on March 11th and 17th. Worthy said tentatively the Board of Supervisors could approve the plan as soon as this spring. From that point, "it's up to the developers and the market to take advantage of the opportunities" available in Tysons.

Tysons Corner real estate development news

Habitat Builds Condos in NOVA

Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia is completing a 9-unit condo project, its second multi-family project in Fairfax. Though the non-profit builder is known for its single-family homes, the Maple Ridge, just off Lee Highway, sits next to the 12-unit Westbrook Forest condo, which Habitat completed in 2007. Construction on Maple Ridge began in January 2009 and the dedication and handing over of keys will be on March 6th.

The occupants of both buildings are "partner families" who are selected prior to construction, and who then help in the construction of their new home. Families work with the non-profit to pay back their no-interest 20-30 year mortgages that go toward building additional Habitat homes.

Families are selected based on several criteria: the families must have been Northern Virginia residents for at least a year, must currently be living in inadequate or substandard housing and must be willing to partner with Habitat. Partnering means future homeowners must commit between 300 and 500 hours of "sweat equity," meaning families work to build their home and other Habitat homes. Virginia Patton, the Marketing Communications/Media Manager for Habitat of Northern Virginia, said with the condos, families work side by side with their neighbors to help build their homes, making it a "community effort."

The Maple Ridge condos include six three-bedroom units at 1,100 s.f. each and three two-bedroom units at 900 s.f.

Fairfax Virginia real estate development news

Metro West - Urbanity on Hold

It has been heralded by green organizations across the country as "the answer to urban sprawl" - an urban village complete with more than 2200 new residences, fountains, cafes and over 100,000 s.f. of the all-important, ground-floor retail, concentrated around a Metro station as an outlet to relieve pressure for expansion outside of Washington DC.

When Pulte Homes' 56-acre Metro West development is finally completed, it will concentrate residences and offices south of the Vienna-Fairfax-GMU Metro Station, north of Route 29, and usher in a new era of "smart growth." That is, if it ever gets built.

The idea for Metro West first debuted in 2001, but it was March of 2006 before Fairfax County approved plans for up to 2,248 residential units and 300,000 s.f. of office space between Lee Highway and Saintsbury Drive; outside the beltway but still on a metro line.

"It took too many years trying to get it approved," laments Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. In 2003, Schwartz's group began lending support to the project as it passed through Fairfax County's Proffer System. He credits green organizations like the Sierra Club, FairGrowth and his own for spurring a "turning point" with the Board of Supervisors, who began to see "a transit-oriented development as a green solution" that would help to make Fairfax and other Northern Virginia neighborhoods feel more connected to one another.

In light of the 2006 zoning approvals, an announcement appeared on the Metro West web site declaring that construction would begin in 2007. The bulletin still adds that "the first townhouse and condominium units could be ready for occupancy by the middle of 2008."

But three years after making that announcement, Pulte Homes Corporate Communications Manager, Eric Younan, tells DCMud that no sale dates have been set, and his office "doesn't have a date for when they're going to build [Metro West] at this time." There is nothing new to report "that's not on our web site," reiterates Younan.

So, will Metro West ever come to achieve its potential?

Mike Wing from the Fairfax County Department of Planning Zoning is optimistic, assuring that Metro West "is moving forward with the permitting process and working with the VDOT," but that these discussions "take time."

Pulte Homes' former Northern Virginia land acquisitions head, Stan Settle, takes a different perspective. In 2005, Settle battled with everyone from angry neighbors to then-US Congressman Thomas M. Davis of Virginia to win the right to raze 69 single-family homes so that Metro West could be realized.

But Settle says a lot has changed since then. In 2009, Pulte merged with Centex Corporation, becoming the largest home builder in America. Settle was let go from the company after the merger, and has since formed his own land company. Although no longer involved in Metro West decisions, Settle holds fast to the opinion that Pulte "projects like Metro West have gotten shelved until the market improves."

"They have a great land position," but he speculates that Pulte "is just sitting on the land," adding that in this market "it could be a while before Pulte has to worry about high rise construction again."

Despite Settle's foreboding, there have been signs that Metro West is still on Pulte's agenda. Just last June, the company began looking for Fairfax County approval to swap out 700,000 s.f. of residential space for office space, a move green organizations are supportive of because it still translates into increased density near a Virginia Metro station. But building anything close to 2200 housing units seems presently unimaginable, and Stan Settle remains the contact person on Pulte's website, which also lists a timeline that hasn't seen an update since 2004.

GMU Courts Commerce in Fairfax

One of the Virginia commonwealth’s largest public educational institutions, George Mason University, will be getting in on a little private commerce this coming May, when it officially breaks ground on its new $30 million hotel and conference center: the George Mason Inn.

Developed in conjunction with University Hotel Partners, the Inn is to be the newest addition to GMU’s flagship Fairfax campus. Once completed, the development will stand between Braddock Road and University Drive on six-acre parcel close to the university’s Patriots Village dormitory complex. Plans prepared by Gensler Architects call for a seven-story, 150-room hotel to be built alongside a 20,000 square foot flex-space conference center that will include a 175-225 seat restaurant, in addition to meeting, banquet, business and lounge areas.

GMU has already taken hotel operators Aramark Harrison Lodging, which operates fifteen similar “collegiate conference center/hotels” throughout the country, to manage the day-to-day functions of the center. The University has stated its intent to use the facility as a “campus living room,” since according to their projections, “university use accounts for 55% of meeting [and] guest room space.” Which isn’t to say that GMU will be hurting to fill the rest of their vacancies; as Virginia’s second largest university, GMU draws upwards of three million visitors per year to the Fairfax campus alone.

It seems logical enough then that provisions for a conference center and hotel at the university have been bandied about since 2002, when they were first included in a County Master Plan governing the site. With seven years of lead time, GMU has had plenty of time to secure financing for the project; its $30 million budget is to be drawn from state-backed bonds and, once open for business in the fall/winter of 2010, the Inn will be owned entirely by the University. Balfour Beatty will oversee construction.

Our Feature Presentation: More Development!

Given the twists and turns of the real estate market, we often feel like cooking up some popcorn, sitting back, and watching the show. But this is taking things literally. Out in Fairfax County, the Merrifield Multiplex Cinema, located where Lee Highway meets up with Gallows Road, might soon be demolished and replaced with a massive 27-acre "town center" complex containing 800 residential units, 600,000 sf of retail (plus a rebuilt theater), and possibly hotel and office space, if South Carolina-based developer Edens & Avant and Bethesda-based Clark Realty have their way. Initial plans for this project were honored last year by the Washington Smart Growth Alliance, which praised the town center concept, along with plans to include three new urban parks throughout the site. There will also be a focus on mass transportation, with free shuttle service and pedestrian/bicycle accessibility to the nearby Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station. To date, the development team has spent over $100 million just acquiring land and planning for the project, and expects to have final site-plan approval before the county’s Board of Supervisors in October 2007. If approved, ground could be broken by Summer 2008. Together with Trammel Crow Residential’s plan to build a 720-unit apartment building with retail down Gallows Road on a 15-acre lot at the Metro station, Merrifield might soon be known for its bustling activity rather than rundown warehouses.