Our Community in Fairfax County, Virginia
The current plan to redevelop the Westlawn Shopping Center calls for the permanent closure of the service road between McDonald's and Annandale Road. If you don't like how this road closure will impact your life or the value of your property, you need to attend and speak out at the Mason District Land Use Committee (Mason District Government Center) on 22 September at 7:30 pm.
There currently are two options proposed for changing the service road on the south side of Route 50 between McDonald's and Annandale Road. The plan that Bill Page prefers is to close off the road completely for this portion of the service road. It also closes off the Route 50 eastbound right lane from McDonald's to a little past the new entrance to the Honda dealership.
When I asked if Bill Page would consider an option to leave the service road as is, I was told that option was not possible because it would force them to shift the redeveloped shopping center farther south, and it already is as far south as it can go. The county is requiring Bill Page to replace the simple 4-ft wide sidewalks with 10-ft wide trails, which reduces the space available for the shopping center. By converting the eastbound service road lane into a trail, the north side of the parking lot would not have to be moved back.
Bill Page has held several meetings with area residents, VDOT, and Fairfax County staff, and the plan for redevelopment of the shopping center has changed a bit. One of the changes that most affects Westlawn is the creation of a 25-30 ft buffer along the majority of Tripps Run. The new plan proposes supplementing the vegetative buffer along Tripps Run, an idea put forward by Westlawn residents. The original plan was to just leave the wild trees and shrubs as they are today. Hopefully this will lead to a lot of evergreens being planted that will provide a year-long visual buffer along Tripps Run.
Under the current plan, the road along the back side of the shopping center would dead end from either direction at the back corner of the parking garage, preventing a "race track" shortcut behind the shopping center. This change occurred by the widening of the Tripps Run buffer and shifting the main shopping center building west, which also allows more parking in front along Annandale Road. It also gives more space for cars to stack up leaving the parking lot at the South Street stop light.
One night in April, a handful of Westlawn residents met at Bill Page Honda to hear a presentation on Bill Page's new proposal to redevelop the Westlawn Shopping Center. The plan is similar to his earlier proposal from 2006, but there would be no underground automobile service bays and only one dealership instead of two (the Toyota dealership will remain at its current location on Annandale Road).
According to Bill Page’s representatives, the shopping center redevelopment would be finished by about 2013 if all goes well. It will take about a year to go through the Fairfax County zoning review process, which includes a series of reviews and hearings. If that process is successful, it would take another year to get through the site plan and permitting phase, after which construction could begin.
Construction would commence in phases, with the first phase involving demolition of the existing shopping center, which would be replaced with a new building housing the Honda dealership and a redeveloped retail component. During this initial phase, the Post Office and the BB&T Bank would be given the opportunity to continue to operate out of trailers. The remaining tenants currently at the shopping center would be given an opportunity to lease in the new retail building, but would have to cease operations during construction.
Once the Honda dealership has relocated to the new building, which should take approximately 12 months, the existing Honda dealership will be demolished to make way for a bank and credit union, with additional parking.
Bill Page would like the Post Office to remain. However, there will be very limited parking at the redeveloped project available for postal trucks, so it remains to be seen whether the Post Office will choose to remain at the Westlawn Shopping Center or move to a different location (see next article).
Highlights of the plan:
Several of us spoke out against closing the service drive, as it would eliminate an important access point for residents who live in the north part of Westlawn and need the service road to get in and out of the neighborhood, especially during rush hours when traffic on the main roads can back up and block access to our neighborhood.
If you have concerns about this proposal to close the service road, either for or against, please contact Staff Coordinator Tracy Strunk (703-324-1290) and Supervisor Penny Gross (703-256-7717) and express your concerns!
At our last civic association meeting, representatives from the US Postal Service made a presentation of their plans for the future Mosby Branch, the post office that services the 22042 zip code. Dennis Perry, a USPS real estate specialist from Greensboro, NC spoke to us about the situation they are facing regarding the Mosby Branch.
A post office has a heavy parking requirement for its employees—one space for each postal carrier's personal car, and another space for their postal delivery vehicle. Bill Page's plan to redevelop the Westlawn Shopping Center would eliminate the employee parking area needed to conduct a carrier operation. Rather than keep a retail postal service center in the new Westlawn Shopping Center and split off the carrier service to another location, the US Postal Service wants to keep everything in one location. As a result, it is looking to relocate the Mosby Branch.
According to Mr. Perry, his goal is to find a new site within a half mile of the existing location. He is looking for a site with 10,000 square feet that has 140 parking spaces. He has identified a couple of promising locations. However, he has taken no actions yet, and he is not at liberty to discuss where these locations are. When asked about the old Chili's site just north of Route 50 and west of Annandale Road, he said it was a possibility, but the building was a bit small for USPS needs.
Mr. Perry indicated that the USPS is committed to find a new site for the Mosby Branch in as convenient a location as possible.
The big news is that Bill Page is reconsidering its application for a major overhaul of the Westlawn Shopping Center, and a less ambitious plan may be the result.
The original proposal called for the collocation of Bill Page Toyota with Bill Page Honda and the construction of an underground service bay area for both dealerships. Underground construction is quite costly, which is a major factor in Bill Page's decision to consider a redevelopment alternative that does not require underground construction.
I have no details on any alternative plan, but the original plan to move a second car dealership to this site was predicated on the construction of underground service bays to compensate for the lack of space on the ground level.
Bill Page owns a strip of land on the south side of Tripp's Run that abuts the back yards of Westlawn residents on Westcott Road. I inquired about two small areas that seem to stick out from the thin strip of land. It turns out that these small areas are zoned commercial. While they can never be developed because their location is cut off from the main shopping center, they still count in calculations of shopping center green area.
The lawyers representing Bill Page have been quite responsive to our questions, but we cannot expect them to be totally forthcoming about the motivations and intentions of their client. In particular, we had some questions at our last civic association meeting about why the plan called for the closing of the service road between Annandale Road and the border between Bill Page Honda and McDonald's.
The answers I received were reasonable, but they appear to make it sound like Bill Page is willing to make road improvements for the sake of goodwill. Perhaps, but the plans also call for a strip of parking spaces to display new cars for sale with unimpeded views from Route 50. On the other hand, the cars would be further back from the road than what you see at Bill Page Toyota or the car dealership at the intersection of Annandale Road and Hillwood Avenue. Stay tuned for more information!
Imagine the Westlawn shopping center and Bill Page Honda rebuilt from scratch. What would you build if you were the owner? Dozens of residents from Westlawn and surrounding neighborhoods got a peek last January as to what Bill Page plans to do.
Conceptual Plan. In your mind, move Bill Page Honda over to where the supermarket is now, but expand it a lot closer to Annandale road. Make it part of a new building that extends all the way down past the post office to the old Luskin's building, and turn the old gas station building into parking spaces. Reduce the parking area to a thin strip along Annandale Road and along Route 50, and build a two-story parking garage above the entire shopping center behind the Honda dealership. Reserve a large block of the parking spaces on the lower deck for shopping mall patrons and reserve the rest for storage of new cars.
Move the Bill Page Toyota dealership (owned by Bill Page's brother) over to the current site of Bill Page Honda, and give both dealership buildings a common, modern look. Keep the two dealerships separated, and place the service bays for both dealerships underneath the two dealership buildings, increasing the number of service bays for both dealerships over the current number.
Add landscaping along the back and the two front sides of the property. Make keeping the post office a top priority. Consider putting a bank at the end with a drive-thru. Skip the idea of putting a large supermarket in the development—they are attracted to traditional strip mall developments with a large retail square footage and field of parking. Determine the rest of the tenants after the county approves the plan.
Approval Process. Bill Page cannot proceed without first getting Fairfax County to modify its Comprehensive Plan and then getting the county to approve a rezoning of the property. Both approvals require multiple steps with opportunities for citizen's input at each step.
The Comprehensive Plan is a set of guidelines that describes the appropriate type of use for individual business areas. The plan currently has a different set of guidelines for several different parcels of the Westlawn property, and Bill Page needs to have them changed to be the same throughout the property. He also needs the guidelines to permit the kind of development he is seeking.
In late January, Mason District held a Citizens Task Force meeting to review and make recommendations on several proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan, including the shopping center. For each proposal, the Task Force members listened to a short presentation from the lawyer presenting the proposal, questioned the lawyer, discussed the issue among themselves, and solicited input from people in the audience who were either for or against the proposal. Then the Task Force voted, and their non-binding recommendation was forwarded to the Planning Commission, the next step in the process.
That night, all the other proposals were either rejected or withdrawn, but the Westlawn shopping center proposal was approved with broad support from the audience. I and several other civic association presidents spoke up and noted the strong desire for redevelopment of the shopping center and the largely positive reaction of those who had seen the initial presentation to the community a few weeks earlier at Bill Page Honda.
On 28 June beginning at 7:30 p.m., the Planning Commission will review the proposed change to the Comprehensive Plan, taking into consideration the recommendation of the Citizen Task Force, and citizens can speak at the meeting. If a change is approved, it goes before the Board of Supervisors, where citizens have another opportunity to speak at a public hearing before a final decision is made. If the change is approved, the next step is rezoning, which is a much more interesting process.
To get the property rezoned to allow the redevelopment of the shopping center as proposed, the request for rezoning must be discussed and approved by the Mason District Land Use Committee, the Planning Commission, and the Board of Supervisors. Again, citizen input is welcome and encouraged at each step.
The rezoning process is a negotiation, where owners generally try to get what they want with as few restrictions as possible, and the local communities seek to impose as many restrictions as possible to ensure that the current or future owners don't change their minds and build something very different than what was planned. For example, Bill Page has indicated that he does not plan to use car racks on the top floor of the parking garage, which would raise cars above the top of the garage and look bad. However, if there is no restriction included in the rezoning application, Bill could change his mind, or the next owner of the property may decide that car racks are a great idea.
For homeowners, the best time to get involved in either the Comprehensive Plan or the rezoning process is before a proposal reaches the Board of Supervisors. The earlier, the better. Our most important impact will be in the rezoning process, where we need to make sure that our long-term equities are addressed. Fairfax county staff will do some of that when they propose restrictions based on county codes, but it is up to local communities like ours who know the area best to propose restrictions that are unique to this area. At the same time, we want to encourage redevelopment of the property and not scare off the owner with a list of restrictions that he finds unacceptable.
I believe the best way to accomplish both goals is for us to develop a set of proposed zoning restrictions that both address our concerns and do not impede Bill Page's vision for the property. I also believe that less is better, and we should focus on issues that are key to our community, such as pedestrian access (sidewalks and ramps), appearance (landscaping, no car racks), mixed use (no future growth of the car dealerships beyond the current plan, unless they somehow convince McDonald's to sell their property), security (monitoring the garage), and traffic flow and safety (keeping the entrance at South Street and closing off some of the entrances along the Route 50 service road). I expect most of these issues will be addressed either in the owner's proposal or in proposals by the county staff. However, you never know which ones will not be addressed, or will be addressed in a suboptimal way.
The process for redeveloping the Westlawn shopping center has just begun. The Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a Comprehensive Plan public hearing on this and other proposals related to Mason District on Wednesday, 28 June. If approved, the Board of Supervisors would likely review the proposal this fall. The rezoning process would then likely take much of 2007 to complete. If successful, I expect construction would not begin until 2008 at the earliest.
If we reach this point, rest assured that the post office would remain open during construction, if they choose to remain a tenant. While the building is being demolished and rebuilt, the post office could operate out of a trailer. Bill Page Honda would remain at its current location until the new building is finished. At that point, the current Honda facilities would be rebuilt to make way for Bill Page Toyota to move in.
Local communities, including Westlawn, have raised a lot of questions about potential tenants to the new shopping center. Bill Page has repeatedly stated that he is not going to consider the issue of prospective tenants unless and until the rezoning process is finished. As he said, it is pointless to talk to prospective tenants when he doesn't even know if he will be able to build a new shopping center, and he has plenty of time to find new tenants.
Nevertheless, he has made some general observations about what would likely happen with regards to future tenants. He has hopeful expectations that the post office will stay, and beyond the post office would be a bank with a drive-thru. The remaining facility is too small for a conventional grocery store, but it could hold a specialty grocery store. Existing tenants would have to move out during reconstruction, and they are free to negotiate for space in the new shopping center just like everyone else. Realistically, we can expect that at least some of the existing tenants will not return. Hopefully, they will find a nearby location, as Subway did when it moved to a different location in Loehmann's Plaza to make way for the new grocery store.
Bill Page is currently conducting a range of development analysis to determine feasibility, construction, and engineering costs for the proposed shopping center. In addition, he is planning on and looking forward to meeting with neighborhood civic association presidents in May to discuss the 28 June 2006 Planning Commission hearing.
If you are interested in this issue, please come to our General Meeting on 2 May and hear what others have to say!
On 25 August, Bill Page Sr. discussed some of changes that he is planning for the Westlawn shopping mall. His plan is to tear down all but the post office and rebuild with a large grocery store and perhaps a few small businesses. He needs the county's Board of Supervisors to approve a zoning change to allow him to expand his Honda dealership onto the property, which would take the unusual form of expanding up!
Rather than take up valuable ground space, Bill Page would like to build a one- or two-level parking deck on top of the new grocery store, which will likely be a large chain store. Access to the parking area would come from a long ramp along the west side of the dealership where he currently parks his new cars. Walls along the sides of the parking deck would mostly hide the new cars parked there from the sight of people on the streets below. For Bill Page Honda, greatly increasing the number of new cars on his property would lead to increased car sales and better business.
Going through the zoning appeal process, negotiating with tenants, tearing down old buildings, and building new buildings will take several years. No construction is likely to occur over the next year, although current tenants may choose to relocate beforehand. The Westlawn Supermarket has reopened under new ownership and management, but it too will have to close or permanently relocate once construction begins. Don't expect the new grocery store to open for at least a year.
I ran through a number of changes that neighbors have expressed with regards to changes to the shopping mall: