Falls Church council presses developer after EDA parcel removed from 7‑story mixed‑use plan

An applicant representative told the Falls Church City Council at a work session that the city’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) withdrew support for including its triangular parcel in a proposed seven‑story mixed‑use development after a year‑and‑a‑half review and three staff reviews, leaving the project team facing a likely redesign.

The removal of the EDA parcel “is a really tough pill to swallow,” the applicant representative said, describing what they called “good faith” conversations with the EDA and city staff and adding that the team submitted a letter of intent and expected further discussion. The representative said the team has tried repeatedly to set up follow‑up meetings with individual EDA members and with EDA leadership but “the city has not helped us set up a meeting with the EDA or facilitated that.”

Why it matters: the triangular EDA parcel is shown in the project concept as the connector between Broad Street and Maple Avenue; council members said the inclusion or removal of that parcel affects the project footprint, the amount of ground‑floor commercial, pedestrian streetscape continuity, and how the adjacent Burke and Herbert property could redevelop.

The applicant described the proposed building as seven stories with a ground floor largely devoted to commercial frontage and cited design features including multiple courtyards, 10‑foot clear sidewalks on Maple, green roofs and bicycle parking that connects directly to the garage. The team said it committed to 10 percent affordable housing for the life of the project and that up to 10 of those units could be set aside for clients of CRI at 40 percent of area median income; the applicant said those CRI‑set‑aside units would not be group homes but rather individually leased units tied to a proposed master lease with CRI.

City staff and council members focused on conformance with the city’s special‑exception (SC) criteria and on the project’s commercial-to‑residential mix. “I find the staff report well reasoned,” Councilmember Dave said, urging that threshold concerns in the staff report be addressed before the council would consider supporting the application. Councilmember Erin said the submission still “does not meet the primary or secondary criteria for a special exception application,” and added that prior submissions carried unresolved threshold issues.

Staff member Wyatt, speaking for the reviewing team, described concerns about how extending the project onto the EDA parcel amplifies failures to meet SC criteria. “By making the project bigger and sort of more expansive, that failure to meet the SC criteria is not just contained to this parcel. It actually becomes a bigger issue,” Wyatt said, adding the city has been “consistent” in raising those points with the applicant.

The applicant disputed staff and council characterizations of responsiveness, saying the commercial percentage had been increased across submissions and that ground‑floor commercial is greater than in other city projects. The applicant also described design responses including fenestration, ventilation and other transparency commitments, a traffic circle and multimodal accommodations, 5 percent of parking spaces with EV charging and infrastructure for 50 percent, and voluntary concessions such as “solar ready” construction and electric‑only appliances.

Council members probed technical and neighborhood impacts. Councilmember Laura questioned the staff‑projected school‑age student yield (18 pupils) and asked whether the figure was from staff modeling; Gary Ford, identified in the meeting, confirmed that student estimates were derived by applying unit types to the schools’ address list and that the city’s demographic model would be updated with new information. Councilmember Marybeth repeatedly asked whether the project could be redesigned without the EDA parcel and was told removing the parcel “would require a full redesign of the building” and would shrink the footprint, reducing both residential units and commercial square footage.

Several council members, including Dave and Erin, said they were not prepared to support the application as submitted and wanted the applicant to resolve the staff‑identified threshold issues. Others indicated they wanted a project on the currently underused surface parking lot but still expected stronger evidence of a viable commercial program and clearer answers on sewer capacity, tree canopy calculations, and how interim design conditions would interact with expected future redevelopment of the adjacent Burke and Herbert parcel.

No motion or formal vote was taken on the application during the work session. The applicant said it would continue to seek a meeting with the EDA and requested direction from council on whether to pursue inclusion of the EDA parcel. Councilmembers asked for additional information, including clarified fiscal analyses, updated student‑yield modeling, and clearer evidence on retail marketability and streetscape impacts.

The meeting closed the project discussion with council members asking the applicant to return after addressing staff comments and threshold issues and with staff and council indicating they wanted more clarity about the role and future of the EDA parcel before the council took any formal action.