Local leaders are throwing out some big numbers and lots of incentives to encourage significant investment in the Richmond Highway corridor in Southeast Fairfax County.
The 10-mile stretch of Richmond Highway is set to undergo a transformation over the next decade and beyond. The County has committed to investing over a billion dollars in revitalizing the corridor and creating a robust transportation network, including a new Bus Rapid Transit system and the extension of the Metro to Fort Belvoir.
At a recent webinar about investment opportunities along the corridor hosted by The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, Fairfax County Government and Bisnow, Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Stork laid out the County’s future vision of the corridor.
“We created the new Embark Richmond Highway Comprehensive Plan to revision the corridor to connect the future transportation plans to the growing, vibrant communities. We got big plans, we’ve got big money and we have big opportunity here,” said Stork.
He continued his description of the vision by saying, “person-centric, not auto-centric is our future, with emphasis on increased density, walkability, livability [and] streetscapes with trees, parks, trails and creeks. That is Mount Vernon, that is the Richmond Highway corridor. All of these things are bringing the corridor from the past into the 21st century.”
Stork and other webinar panelists highlighted the unique opportunities and incentives for businesses interested in being early investors in the transformation of the corridor.
According to panelist Dan Fulton with housing data company, Zonda, Richmond Highway is strategically situation between the employment powerhouses of the Federal Government and the ramping up Amazon HQ2 to the north and Fort Belvoir to the south. Numbers show that within 10 miles of Penn Daw, there are 60,000 businesses employing over 1 million people and 600,000 households earning over $100,000 a year. These facts combined with County stake in the area make the corridor an attractive location to invest in real estate, retail and other businesses.
Elizabeth Hagg with the Fairfax County Office of Community Revitalization briefly explained the new economic incentive program that the Board of Supervisors passed in September 2020.
The program is designed to encourage private sector companies to invest in the County’s commercial revitalization areas like the Richmond Highway corridor. The two main incentives are a 10 percent reduction in site plan fees and a partial real estate tax abatement. The tax abatement is applied to the difference between pre-development and post-development value.
Three representatives of developers who are currently invested along the Richmond Highway corridor spoke about their positive experiences working with the County to build residential and commercial spaces. Developers included Washington REIT, Pennrose and Combined Properties.
Pennrose is currently working on the North Hill affordable housing community at 7201 Richmond Highway.
Combined Properties owns the former Penn Daw shopping center now known as South Alex which is located at the intersection of South Kings Highway and Route 1. When the South Alex development was nearly 50 percent complete a devastating fire tore through the construction on Feb. 8 2020. “They [Fairfax County] provided a liaison, we had the support of Supervisor Stork and others across the County staff that allowed us to basically go out there scrape the sight, restart the permits…it’s about a 16 month delay but we wouldn’t have been able to do that without the County’s help,” explained Andrew McIntyre, Senior Executive Vice President with Combined Properties.
“There are so many changes that I have seen occur on this corridor, and I am bullish on its future,” said Lee District Supervisor Rodney Lusk while wrapping up the webinar and emphasizing his commitment to investors in the corridor.
A replay of the webinar is available to watch here.
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May 21, 2021 at 06:40PM
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Fairfax County Encourages Investment Along Richmond Highway - Alexandria Living Magazine
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