The conventional housing market may be going all to hell, but Atlantic Realty Companies has won unanimous approval from the Falls Church City Council to proceed with a $317 million redevelopment project downtown. Phase I of the mixed-use development, which should start construction this summer, includes an office building, a conference hotel, age-restricted condos, structured parking and a relocated bowling alley. A second phase will include an apartment building, townhouses and a Harris Teeter grocery store.
Preliminary designs, to be refined in a charrette involving the public, emphasize the street-level pedestrian experience. The major buildings will have retail on the ground floor. The grocery store will follow the model pioneered in neighboring Arlington County to fit a smaller footprint and require fewer parking spaces. Although there will be street parking, most parking spaces will be located in decks. The concept art (see illustration above) suggests that the developer will invest in attractive streetscapes.
The devil is always in the details, of course, and the details are sparse in the accounts provided by the Falls Church News-Press and Atlantic Realty here and here, so I reserve the right to change my mind. But it looks like Atlantic Realty plans to do thing right.
Over and above the nitty gritty details, this is a case of growth occurring where it should — on under-utilized property close to the urban core. (Falls Church adjoins Arlington County.) The area is already well served by roads and other public infrastructure. Falls Church officials apparently regard this development as growth that will pay for itself. Indeed, according to the News-Press, City Council is counting on the influx of tax revenues to ease the fiscal pressure that all municipal governments are experiencing.
Currently, the downtown property is underutilized. Press reports refer to construction taking place on a post office parking lot and a drive-through coffee shop, among other properties. The new development is projected to yield $2.8 million in additional property tax revenue, not including revenues from sales taxes or BPOL taxes. The grocery store by itself could generate $250,000 a year in tax revenues.
Atlantic Realty also will provide the city proffers worth more than $16 million in cash or cash equivalents, including money to city schools to offset the enrollment growth, and $4.2 million to the city or its equivalent in dedicated housing for affordable housing. The city will invest $9 million as well.
What we don’t know from the press reports or Atlantic Realty press releases is how much ongoing obligation the city will incur to serve the new businesses and residents who move into the area. Presumably, though, the city has crunched those numbers and found them to work in their favor
Bacon’s bottom line: Mid-sized projects like this, replicated dozens of times over, will slowly make the human settlement patterns of Northern Virginia more more livable and more fiscally efficient. Not everyone wants to live in urban places like downtown Falls Church, but big developers like Atlantic Realty believe there is a huge, unmet demand for housing located close to the urban core in walkable settings. Mixed use, pedestrian-friendly development is the future.
