3 Developments Underway To Boost Housing, Retail In NoVA's Little City (2024)

Even at 2 square miles, the City of Falls Church is utilizing its limited space to boost housing supply with three developments underway.

Posted Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 4:49 pm ET|Updated Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 1:24 pm ET

In recent years, cranes have towered over the Little City as three large developments take shape. The projects — Broad and Washington, Founders Row 2/Modera Falls Church, and West Falls — will see progress in opening during 2024 and 2025. The developments are part of a vision to make the city more pedestrian and bicyclist-friendly and providing services closer to where city residents live.

"We're trying to make Falls Church into a community for all generations that not only produces entertainment and services … but we're trying to find places for those people to live," said outgoing Councilmember Phil Duncan, who chaired City Council's Economic Development Committee.

For homebuyers and renters alike, Falls Church is an appealing location inside the Beltway about 10 miles from Washington, D.C. Residents of Falls Church live near major job markets and commercial corridors in Arlington, Tysons and Seven Corners, as well as key commuter routes like Route 7, Interstate 66, Dulles Toll Road, and two Metro stations (East Falls Church and West Falls Church). Residents are also enticed by Falls Church City Public Schools, often ranked a top school district in Virginia.

But with only 2 square miles in the City of Falls Church and a desirable location for prospective residents, housing inventory is limited and prices are high. The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors estimated Falls Church's average home sale price is $805,583, and the median home sale price is $780,000 as of November 2023.

"Inclusivity doesn't just mean sort of saying, like, hey, everybody's welcome," Paul Stoddard, the planning director for the City of Falls Church, told Patch. "It actually means making sure that there's housing available for people to either rent or buy at all income levels."

Apartments are an option for residents who want to live in Falls Church but cannot afford the cost of a home. In recent decades, the share of rentals, including multifamily units, has gone up. According to an economic outlook for the city, the City of Falls Church has 3,229 owner-occupied housing units and 2,401 renter-occupied housing units. Multifamily housing units are starting to outpace single-family units.

"Today, it is almost even, although there are a few more multifamily houses than there are single-family houses, so there are about 5,000 homes in the city, plus or minus," said Stoddard. "And there's a relatively small number of townhouses and walk up-style apartments. But then the bulk of them are either larger multifamily buildings or single-family housing."

The city, which was part of Fairfax County before it became an independent city in 1948, had little housing and farms before the 1950s. Then much of the single-family housing was constructed during that decade amid expansion of the federal government and construction of the Capital Beltway, according to Stoddard. As single-family development began a westward march further from D.C. into Fairfax and Loudoun counties, Stoddard said there was a realization that there were more opportunities than developing more single-family housing westward. So in the 2000s, much more multifamily housing was built in the City of Falls Church.

"It's only in the last couple of years that the numbers have tipped where there's now more housing in multifamily than there is in single family," said Stoddard. "And that's probably a trend that will continue."

Duncan told Patch how trends have changed in the last few decades to spur the growth in housing demand. The retired council member, who was involved in different city organizations before his 2012 election to City Council, said the 1948 city charter envisioned Falls Church as a full-service city. But within decades, Seven Corners and Tysons were developed, providing new commercial centers outside the city. In the mid 1980s, Falls Church was a "bedroom community" with a stagnant population, Duncan said.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Duncan said there was a focus on growing the city to improve the market base for existing businesses. City leaders worked to revitalize the city and expand capacity at school facilities.

"We put ourselves in position to accommodate growth then concentrate on growing the residential base," said Duncan.

More recently, the city worked to upgrade several facilities — City Hall and Mary Riley Styles Public Library as well as rebuilding the former George Mason High School into Meridian High School. With those facility upgrades completed, the city is turning its focus to completing development to revitalize underutilized land.

"I try to look at these changes through the lens of what was there before and is placing what was there before an invariable community benefit," said Duncan.

What's on the Horizon

Falls Church has three major mixed-use projects under construction: Broad and Washington, Founders Row 2/Modera Falls Church, and West Falls.

Broad and Washington

First is the development at the Broad and Washington intersection where a former commercial building hosting businesses existed. This project by Insight Property Group will offer 339 rental apartments, Whole Foods Market as the anchoring retail, a theater space for Creative Cauldron, and a four-level parking garage.

"And a lot of it is what gets at that idea of a live work, play," said Stoddard. "And people can be right downtown, they don't have to always commute in, they don't always have to drive home, right, they can just sort of be where things are."

Creative Cauldron, a professional performing arts group serving Falls Church, will be moving from Pearson Square, as Stoddard says lease terms for that building are set to expire soon.

There will be 10 percent of units designated as affordable housing. Broad and Washington could open the residential portion in spring 2024 and retail in fall 2024.

Modera Falls Church/Founders Row 2

The Founders Row project has two phases at the corner of West and W. Broad Streets.

The first Founders Row development is mostly completed. The Modera Founders Row apartment community and Verso Founders Row apartments for residents 55 and older opened first, followed by a slew of retailers and restaurants like Ellie Bird, NUE, Kyo Matcha, Roll Play and Chasin' Tails. Paragon Theaters could open in May 2025. The apartments include a share of affordable housing units.

The second phase of Founders Row, called Modera Falls Church, broke ground in spring 2023 at the site of the demolished RiteAid and carpet stores at W. Broad and West Streets. The project will include 280 apartments and 22,000 square feet of retail space. The developer — Mill Creek Residential — is the same as the Founders Row project across the street. The first move-ins are expected in early 2025.

Stoddard said the Modera Falls Church development will provide some everyday retail that may be lacking on this side of the city.

"It was taking over what used to be then closed drugstore, the Rite Aid, and a shop that had changed purposes over the years, it had originally been an auto garage, and then it became a carpet sale place and then a cabinetry store place," said Stoddard. "But really what that section of town needed was sort of everyday shopping and dining. And where founders Row 1 is going to maybe have some destination retail, really Founders Row 2 is going to have that everyday retail."

Both developments also have outdoor space. Founders Row has already been used for events like the city's Christmas tree lighting and other events throughout the year.

West Falls

The third project under construction is the West Falls development, a nearly 10-acre development at Route 7 and Hayco*ck Road near the West Falls Church Metro. The development will be on the site of the old George Mason High School, which was demolished to rebuild the new Meridian High School. Development helped fund the high school construction project.

West Falls will have 400 apartments with a grocery store, 126 condominiums, senior living, retail, hotel, The Wellness Center medical office building, and community plaza. The first phase of the development is expected in fall 2024, including some retail — restaurants SEOULSPICE, BurgerFi and Masons Famous Lobster Rolls and early education center Tierra Encantada. The senior living portion of the project is expected at a later time.

"That was always billed as being sort of an 18 hour a day sort of place, so not 24/7 but 18 hours a day where there's going to be activity and liveliness," said Stoddard.

The West Falls development, led by developer Hoffman & Associates, is the first piece in a larger 40-acre development being planned around the West Falls Church Metro station. The other portions are in Fairfax County on Virginia Tech and West Falls Church Metro land. Rezoning was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, but the developers must seek site plan approval and building permits from the county before construction can begin. About 6 percent of the units will be designated as affordable housing.

One common thread of the developments is that they provide new retail space to the city.

Stoddard notes that new commercial additions are more viable to developers when built with housing. Examples of projects that have brought new commercial to the city are Harris Teeter below the West Broad apartments, Solace Outpost at the Spectrum and the future Whole Foods at Broad & Washington. Existing commercial spaces like Broaddale and Birch & Broad, encouraged by nearby investments, have also revamped their spaces.

"One of the things that's been pretty impressive is that the investment that's coming in, in terms of the new housing options is bringing with it, the commercial spaces below, and a lot of those commercial offerings would not have happened but for the apartments," said Stoddard. "That sort of standalone commercial project is sort of a rarity."

Duncan says his priority for new mixed-use projects is providing an anchor to the community, like the Harris Teeter store at West Broad or the successful restaurants like Ellie Bird at Founders Row.

"If you build these buildings, you will find something to go there as long as the community is thriving," said Duncan.

Even as these large developments rise up, Stoddard says they've been planned to be more limited than neighboring communities. During the city's 2017 community visioning process, one common concern from residents was Falls Church becoming another Tysons or Ballston. Stoddard noted Tysons has tall buildings but isn't very dense and walkable yet. Ballston is more walkable but has significantly taller buildings than Falls Church.

"I think the scale of building that's happening in Falls Church is very different from the scale of building that's happening in a Ballston or a Tysons," said Stoddard. "With the exception of [West Falls] what's getting built in Falls Church is five, six, seven stories tall, and that's for a major redevelopment right versus just a renovation of an existing building."

What's Next

While seeing the larger projects through to completion will be a big focus for the city in the next few years, there are other efforts to revitalize the city. A few of the smaller projects are the planned renovation of the Stratford Motor Lodge into a new restaurant and a former motel renovation into the Meeting House hotel with the new Godrey's Bakery Cafe. At Tinner Hill where the mini-format Target recently closed, the city will announce a new grocery store early in 2024, and a steakhouse is also being planned for the development.

Zoning updates in transition zones between commercial and single-family zones to boost housing and neighborhood-serving businesses was another major housing topic in Falls Church last year. This year, Falls Church City Council will consider the Quinn Enterprises development project with senior living and retail. That proposal could go to City Council for approval in early 2024, then it would require a site plan process and building plan review.