A long-anticipated redevelopment of Springfield Town Center could officially be the new location of an apartment building and hotel.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission recently approved the replacement of a surface parking lot with an apartment building with over 400 residential units and a five-story hotel. The November 30 meeting allowed Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) — a retail REIT based in Philadelphia — for the development of two empty land parcels based at the town center.
According to a recent article by John Nelson of Rebusiness Online, the hotel — owned by InterMountain Management — will have 165 rooms, while the apartment building — owned by Hanover R.S. Limited Partnership — will feature a 460-unit multifamily community. The building of the apartment building and hotel would be part of the town center’s “much-desired rebirth,” according to the application.
This approval comes a decade after the Springfield Mall was torn down, reemerging two years later as the Springfield Town Center. According to a November 30 article from FFX Now, the area hasn’t added a single, multifamily residential unit since the Springfield Crossing apartments were built in 2001.
In 2007, 2 million square feet of commercial space and up to 2,736 residential units, in addition to the Springfield Mall, were approved for the area where the apartment building and hotel will be located.
At a Fairfax Board of Supervisors meeting on December 6, Zachary Fountain of the Department of Planning and Development spoke on the behalf of Springfield Hospitality LLC about the request to amend the approvals of 5.3 acres of the 78.5-acre development. In his presentation, Fountain talked about how in 2009, the Board of Supervisors rezoned the Springfield Town Center property to the PDC district to “permit a mixed-use development with a maximum 5.7 million square feet of development potential.”
With that approved rezoning 13 years prior, the Springfield Town Center was divided into a series of areas. These areas included a place to “retain and expand” the existing parking garage; an approved hotel building and “community service retail uses;” an office building and multifamily building, and a park known as the “Center Park.”
During the meeting, Springfield Hospitality LLC proposed three site modifications to the plan. The first proposed modification was the hotel building switching locations with the office building; the second would be that Della Street would be relocated north of the proposed hotel and office buildings; and last was that thee parking structure extension of the existing garage to Loisdale Road would be eliminated.
Phase one of the Springfield Town Center development would deliver the hotel building that would cause “minor changes” to the internal town center drive aisles and pedestrian facilities. Phase two would deliver the 218,000-square-foot office building that would cause “more significant” changes to the internal town center road network.
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