A shopping center anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store is on track to find a home on Route 50, despite a negative review by Fairfax County planning staff.
Current guidelines call for a moratorium on new commercial development on that part of the highway, which is why the Planning and Zoning Department rejected a request to revise the comprehensive plan to accommodate the project, according to planner Lindsay Mason. The comprehensive plan guides land use policy in the county.
“No change of circumstances justifies adding retail use in this location, in contradiction of long-standing [comprehensive] plan policy,” said an April report from the department.
Nevertheless, the Planning Commission was expected Thursday night to approve the request from Atlantic Realty to allow for a mix of office, retail and public use on the approximately 35-acre parcel.
The property, bordered by residential areas, sits at the northwest corner of the highway’s intersection with Fair Ridge Drive in the Sully District. A community task force lent its support to the proposal, said Sully District Planning Commissioner Ron Koch.
Koch, who supports the development, said the commercial prohibition along Route 50 originated out of concerns of the road turning into a “continuous strip of retail.”
“There is no other place that you can put retail along there, except this one spot,” he said. “[Route] 50 is basically built out to what it is.”
The land is owned by Light Global Mission Church, and would also contain 90,000 square feet of additional office space, according to Keith Martin, an attorney representing Atlantic Realty. About 76,000 square feet of office space and an electric substation already occupy the property. A church will occupy the second floor of the office space, he said.
The Board of Supervisors would need to grant final approval to the comprehensive plan amendment, as well as another zoning application for the project. Martin said the development, if approved, would likely open in late 2007.
