City Center South Set for Revival in Falls Church

A nine acre, 1 million s.f. mixed use development in Falls Church that four years ago had been touted as a revival agent, City Center South is coming back to life, confirms the Planning Division of The City of Falls Church. The revival of a sagging downtown has been a city aspiration since at least 2000, yet has been slowed by the economic downturn as well as the scope and size of such an ambitious development.



"We have had indication from Atlantic Realty Companies that they are ready to move forward with their plans," said Becky Witsman, Planning Officer for Falls Church. "We take that as good news."

The Tysons Corner based Atlantic Realty Companies, which owns the land, confirms the project's revival. Jonathan Ross, Development Coordinator for the company, said Atlantic Realty will likely break ground nine months from now. "We don't have far to go in terms of approval with the site plan," he said. "We are in the final stages of approval and financing."

As the case has been for so many large development projects around the area, lack of financing had stalled City Center South after Fall Church City Council's surprisingly unanimous approval of the $317 million project in February of 2008. Plans languished and WDG Architecture abandoned the project. LeMay, Erickson and Willcox Architects of Reston was hired to take over in 2009, but the design will stay the same as that approved in 2008, Ross says.

The two-phased plan is slated to take five years to develop the 8.7 acre area bounded by West Broad Street, Gibson Street, Big Chimneys Park and South Washington Street. Phase one entails a 73,570 s.f. office building with 16,250 s.f. of ground floor retail at West Broad Street; a 140,400 s.f. hotel at South Maple Street and West Annandale with 180 rooms and ground floor retail; a retirement community with 134 apartments; a new Bowl America, garage, and a drive-thru bank.

Phase two encompasses a 58,850 s.f. Harris Teeter (which has signed a Letter of Intent); 16,750 s.f. of retail at Annandale Road and South Maple Streets; as well as 412 residences and 16 town homes at the intersection of Gibson Street and Big Chimney Park.

Falls Church, VA Real Estate Development News

HITT Hits a Home Run with New Falls Church Facility

They say all that glitters isn’t gold. Sometimes it’s silver, and that’s the goal for Falls Church, Va.-based HITT Contracting Inc.

Seven months into its brand new 140,000 s.f. facility at 2900 Fairview Park Drive (HITT occupies 2 1/2 floors of the four-story building), the 73-year-old company with annual revenue of more than $900 million and 700 employees in five cities has just finished the LEED certification commissioning process, with Silver a viable prize.

Occupying only 6 percent of a 17-acre Fairview Park campus, reduced site disturbance was one of many objectives on HITT’s relocation agenda. The company was compelled to move from five disjointed buildings in another part of Falls Church due to a consistent growth pattern. But housing approximately 400 Falls Church-based employees and showcasing its business weren’t the only goals that HITT, with 47 green building projects in various stages of development or completion, wanted to meet. Working closely with owner/developers Fairview Property Investments, LLC and Rushmark Properties, LLC, along with Noritake Architects and interior designer Susan Stine, principal of Red Team Strategies, HITT chose to become a beacon of green construction in its own right.


“From the beginning we took the approach from a LEED perspective that we want to do things that make sense,” said Kim Pexton, HITT’s Director of Sustainable Construction, a LEED-accredited professional (AP) since 2001 and former 5-year member of the local U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) national capital region board. “But we don’t want to fit a square peg in a round hole. If there are particular credits and design requirements behind those credits that don’t make sense for us and our facility and our beliefs, we said we’re not going to do it. …We just wanted to do what we felt was right,” she affirmed.

To that end, and with the responsibility of maintaining its vast, gently sloping campus, HITT worked with landscape architects Rhodeside & Harwell, Inc. to institute rain gardens as part of a storm water management system (gardens for this purpose are not a LEED requirement). Utilizing a native and drought-tolerant planting scheme requiring no permanent irrigation system (LEED compliant, if one elects to have a garden, when pursuing water efficiency credits), the rain gardens treat runoff from the upper half of the parking lot. Without these gardens, untreated water would flow directly into the site’s storm water management ponds.

Two storm water management ponds - one large and considered primary - receive rainwater diverted through the gardens from other places on the property, some channeled by strategically placed regionally-imported boulders (rather than unattractive culverts and drainpipes), with suspended solids and phosphates settling into the ponds. The water then goes back into the watershed. To enlighten visitors about the way it works, with green education part of the LEED accreditation process, a series of recycled signs made of resin and metal with a VOC-free printing process punctuate the site.

Roots and Reflective Materials

Stine, who first designed the company’s headquarters 17 years ago, recalled that W.A. HITT Decorating Co. started as a tiny, family run business during the Great Depression. Co-founder and matriarch Myrtle Hitt, who Stine knew personally, worked and handwrote checks until a week before she died at the age of 90. Current Chairman Russell Hitt, Warren (W.A.) and Myrtle’s son, is credited with growing the business into a world class interior contractor. Though the mantle has been passed to Co-presidents James Millar and grandson Brett Hitt, Russell – with a proclivity for the word “howdy” and a legendary perfectionism that included taking a hammer to a wall of which he didn’t approve – reportedly still gets to work at 4 a.m. each day, crossing HITT’s light reflective outdoor concrete surfaces or “impervious paving.” According to Pexton, these surfaces, as opposed to blacktop, reduce the heat island effect. She noted they also have a white reflective membrane on the roof instead of a traditional black roof, which reduces roof temperatures by 30 degrees. “It has a huge impact on interior spaces and your overall demand for cooling,” she explained.

The building’s interior includes an aptly named “Redskins room” replete with leather recliners and a 50-inch flat screen TV. Other entities include a training room for ongoing classes, café for breakfast and lunch, coffee bar, reprographics shop, dry cleaning drop-off and pick-up point, hair salon (by appointment), and a 5,180 s.f. warehouse for building materials with protective plywood walls recycled from its former headquarters. Estimated to use 46 percent less water than the previous building, plumbing fixtures are dual flush with waterless urinals in the men’s rooms. Pexton said HITT met the LEED innovative wastewater technology requirement, which is to reduce sewerage conveyance by 50 percent. A ladies room across from the company’s fitness center boasts a steam shower and also a wheelchair accessible/no threshold shower, with fitness center floors made of recycled rubber. Sweeping glass doors open from the center of the gym provide access to a walking/bike path.

See and Be Seen

According to Stine, HITT’s lighting system uses T5 technology. Ninety-seven percent is motion sensor-triggered, including office task lighting, with metal halide systems in open work areas to cut down on wattage. Overhead lighting is reduced by about half from the old building, attributed in part to 25-30 percent more glass in the new facility. From most points in the building, employees have great views to the outside and a lot of natural light coming in. In fact, two of the facility’s three reclaimed White Oak staircases are glassed in and by their nature motivate employees to use them instead of elevators - a large part of the design statement and criteria, Stine said.

With visibility key in every sense of the word, in its continuing pursuit of business HITT liberally uses interior glass to display its bid room – the company’s nerve center – to clients and other guests, as well as in its recruitment strategy. James Landefeld, senior vice president of major projects, explained that the bid room’s 16 equally-spaced hanging microphones have replaced the relic spider phones in most conference rooms' middle of the table, allowing up to 32 seated staff to simultaneously participate in conference calls with subcontractor prospects. The room is also equipped for video conferencing, which according to Landefeld will come in handy for long distance meetings as HITT embarks on a $62 million Tier III data center for the Denver Federal Center. While placed outside the bid room for all-company access, a computer operated "Bid Board" that is displayed on a 65" monitor has replaced the traditional white board in terms of efficiency.

With 3,000 projects on its dance card each year and a campus designed to facilitate business into the future, HITT remains committed to life in its present environment. Casting an eye to the very distant future, however, the building was conceptualized to accommodate multi-tenants with minimal incursion into its current design, yet another hallmark of its sustainability.

Crescent Falls Church

Falls Church will soon have a new high-end, mid-rise apartment building, when construction on the new Crescent Falls Church finishes next spring. The 6-story, 214-unit Crescent is a new mixed-use and multi-family residence near the East Falls Church Metro, which its developers now say will finish in the spring of 2010 and to begin leasing next spring or summer. Located mid-way between the District and Tysons Corner just off I-66, the new community will sit adjacent to the Washington & Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) and Falls Church Park, and across from the Westlee, a condo completed in 2006. The area was the focus of a study that began in 2007 that aimed to improve the metro site's land use, recently dominated by parking lots, and connect it better with the city of Falls Church. Given its proximity to DC and rare undeveloped metro locale, planners have sought a more urban landscape and transport integration The Crescent will apply for LEED certification upon completion, in the hope that its metro location, recycling center and technical features will secure the status. The Crescent's planned attractions will include a private screening room, concierge, daily hot beverage service, two courtyards – one with conversational firepit and outdoor grilling and dining areas, and the other with dual-sided fireplace and outdoor grilling and dining areas - and each unit should have a view of green space. Developers also plan an "oversized" bike room - intrepid residents could even ride the W & OD and Custis trail into DC - and underground parking garage with preference for low-emission vehicles. Crescent Falls Church is being built by Texas-based Hanover Company, which has a sizable record of apartment building construction and operation, though the Crescent is only its second DC area foray, having completed Ashton Judiciary Square, one of DC's more design conscious apartment communities, earlier this year in DC's Penn Quarter. The project site had been purchased from K. Hovnanian Homes, which had begun the project as the Easton condo project.

Falls Church commercial real estate news

New Rentals for Falls Church

FALLS CHURCH, VA - Landlords are finally getting their due. As the rental market makes a roaring comeback, developers are now aiming for, rather than backing into, the rental market. For the first time in more than 30 years, a developer is planning market-rate, rental residences in the center of Falls Church. And while several nearby projects shifted from for-sale to for-rent as the market shunned sales, developer Hekemian & Co. intends a new apartment building on three prime parcels within walking distance of the Northern Virginia township's Metro-serviced downtown. Though that would seem like a boon for Falls Church real estate, retailers and residents alike, its move that has drawn flak from local homeowners, yet given local civil servants a reason to be in good cheer. Annapolis-based Hekemian plans to bring a 304,000 square foot mixed-use development called the Northgate to the intersection of North Washington and East Jefferson Streets. Using designs prepared by MVA Architects, the Northgate development will feature 119,164 square feet of residential area, which will include 95 “luxury residential rental apartments” and 10 three-story townhouses in the rear. In an interesting twist, the developer has proposed initiating a VIP program for prospective residents that provide “move-in discounts for city employees, including teachers” – meaning no security deposits or application fees for eligible tenants. Hekemian is also setting rent on 7 of the available units at an affordable rate, so paycheck-impaired educators can look forward to a double discount as well.

The residential component is to be coupled with 22,396 square feet of retail at targeted at “higher-end retailers and services” (i.e., “a white tablecloth type restaurant” or art gallery) and 15,125 square feet of separately accessible office space, though specific tenants have not been named, and developers typically court popular opinion with such desirable tenants. Given the bevy of uses in play on the parcel, the building height will vary from 4 to 5 stories, with the townhomes standing along the building’s rear to provide a buffer with the neighborhoods beyond. The sites at 436, 458 and 472 North Washington Street currently house a cluster of single-family homes, a funeral parlor and its adjoining parking lot, respectively. Convenience aside, some local homeowners in the suburb were initially concerned about the presence of a 55 foot shopping and apartment complex on the corner. Since the project first surfaced publicly in early 2007, Hekemian has retooled their plans multiple times, in accordance with the wishes of the Falls Church Planning Commission. Those changes resulted in the loss of 19 units and subsequent creation of the townhouse buffer. Even so, some remain concerned about the developer’s push for a variance that would allow them to build up to five feet from the property line, instead of the normally regulated twenty.

While still under negotiation with the Board regarding an acceptable traffic pattern, the developer has since sought to curry local favor by promising up to $20,000 worth of streetscape improvements and shooting for an ever-popular LEED (environmentally-friendly) certification.

Though Northgate has been consistently planned as rental residences, it's been beaten to the punch by others - like Pearson Square and Avera Station - that were initially conceived as condo developments, but wound up rental due to the lack of confidence in the housing market.

Falls Church Virginia commercial real estate news

Avera Station Condos Now Apartments

The Avera Station condominiums in Falls Church has joined the long and growing list of condos that have been converted to for-lease apartments, and has been rechristened as Carmel Vienna Metro. Built by Atlanta-based Beazer Homes, the 245-unit Avera Station was fully completed in mid June, and sold to Denver-based Carmel Partners on July 1. The project had been selling as condominiums since early 2006, and had been advertised as "No. Virginia's Fastest Selling Condos." Carmel, which purchased the project free of the previous condominium contracts, would not disclose the sale price. According to Carmel, none of the pre-construction contracts went to settlement.

The project is located outside the beltway, nearly adjacent to the Vienna Metro station. Carmel, which owns and manages 45 apartment buildings nationwide, says it has already leased 50 of the units over the past month, with rents ranging from $1705 to $2420. According to on-site Manager James Mann, Carmel Vienna Metro is maintaining the "luxury homes" branding, offering "concierge services" and a flat-screen television to all tenants.

Falls Church real estate news

First Step for Falls Church Affordable Project

The Falls Church Housing Corporation, which provides affordable housing opportunities, currently awaits a formal staff review of its project at 350 South Washington Street, where it plans to demolish its recently purchased office building and a neighboring office building, and replace them with a seven-story, 'affordable' apartment building. The non-profit is preparing for their meeting with Falls Church City Council on May 12, officially beginning the public review process, in which organizations like the Architectural Advisory Board, the Planning Commission, and Zoning can have their say. FCHC hopes to get a final approval from the Council by the end of June so the arduous financing process can begin, all to begin construction by summer of 2009.

The properties to be redeveloped are owned by FCHC and Homestretch Inc., working together to bring down their separate office buildings and provide affordable housing. Homestretch, like FCHC, is an non-profit organization that serves lower-income families. But while FCHC is an affordable housing provider, Homestretch serves the community by renting transitional housing and offering services to families that are at risk of homelessness. The duo will work with Atlantic Realty Companies, the master developer, and the City of Falls Church. Virginia-based architect Butz Wilbern is designing the new building.

Homestretch acquired their building roughly six years ago, and rents out some of their building to local businesses, using the remainder for administrative functions. FCHC just purchased their building in February, with the goal of redeveloping it, and now leases two-thirds of the space. Carol Jackson, Executive Director at FCHC, pointed out that the firm has no interest in being a commercial property owner: "If we get turned down any step of the way [in the development process], we will be selling the building." Both firms use their respective commercial leases to subsidize the outstanding mortgages.

The two 1970's office buildings currently on the site will be cleared away to make room for a mixed-use 150,000-s.f. building which will hold office space for both firms on the ground floor, and offer 172 rental units for families earning 60% of the Area Median Income, or about $40,000. According to their November '07 pitch to the City government, the project will serve to restock the affordable housing supply in Falls Church, which has recently been depleted. "By the City’s own estimate, Falls Church: lost nearly 200 affordable rental units between 2001 and 2006; [has] a shortage of 262 affordable housing units in 2007 – not including 650 additional units that may still be lost through conversion or redevelopment; [and] suffered a 60 percent loss since 2001 in the number of for-sale units affordable to households earning less than 120%."

FCHC has referred to the development as turning "an isolated area of obsolete office buildings into well-located, quality affordable housing for a vital local workforce...who will otherwise be unable to remain in Falls Church." Said Jackson, "Like many of the older 'inner ring' suburbs, Falls Church is transitioning into an expensive, newly urban environment where property values have left behind 75% of the local workforce who are unable to live in the city where they work and contribute to the balanced economy Falls Church desires to foster."

Pearson Square in Falls Church To Go Rental

Continuing a familiar trend, last week Atlantic Realty, the developer of the mixed-use Pearson Square condominium project currently under construction in Falls Church on the former 4.6-acre site of a duckpin bowling alley at 410 S. Maple Street between Route 7 and South Washington Street, approached the Falls Church City Council and requested permission to convert all of the building’s 230 residential units from condos to rental apartments. If Atlantic wins approval for this conversion to rentals, the company will then sell the units to Carr Homes, which in turn has a deal to convey them to the Trans-Western Company. The Falls Church City Council is expected to officially vote on this request at an upcoming meeting. This move by Atlantic is not expected to impact its deal with the city on the massive City Center redevelopment plan.

Centex Development in Falls Church Stalls

A combination of astronomical asking prices for land and recent residential market trends has Centex Homes reconsidering whether to move forward with its planned role in the development of Falls Church’s City Center village project, to be located at the intersection of South and North Washington Streets and W. Broad Street. The City Center project will contain a public town square, along with a hotel, new grocery store, retailers, office space, and a mix of residential options, including up to 1,000 condo units, over the next decade (though this, too, is now uncertain). However, the job of purchasing the needed land for this project has proven problematic, as landowners are asking between $2.5 and $5.7 million an acre on the north side of W. Broad – the location of the first two blocks of the project that Centex (teaming with Federal Realty) is tasked to develop. Given the significant distance to the nearest metro station, Centex is re-evaluating the worth of this project, and is now in discussions with the city and landowners on the next step, if any. Meanwhile, while the north side of W. Broad is up in the air, the south side of this project, which is being developed by Atlantic Realty, appears to be moving forward, as most of this land has already been bought or acquired.