Plans are in the works to replace a pair of office buildings with townhouses in a pocket of Northern Virginia that is seeing significant new development.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Oct. 14 to approve a proposal for 137 homes at 7600 Leesburg Pike, currently the site of two four-story offices built in the 1980s.
The property owner, an affiliate of real estate investment firm Situs AMC, has a contract with national builder Toll Brothers to construct the townhouses, according to Lynne Strobel, a consultant for the owner.
Washington, D.C.-based builder EYA has sold nearly all of the 104 townhouses at the Tysons Ridge property next door, according to its website. As with the neighboring location, the builder converted that land to housing after tearing down a 1970s office building.
Strobel told the supervisors before the vote that removing the office space was justified because of a substantial amount of vacant space. The vacancy rate in this part of Fairfax, including the commercial hub of Tysons is currently 19.2%, according to CoStar data. The rate rose in the 2010s as more people began working remotely, county officials said in a 2024 report; this trend accelerated during the pandemic and has not shown signs of a turnaround.
Strobel said her client’s plan for the 10-acre property includes 38 “stacked flat” townhouses, with one residential unit atop another, and 99 attached homes. Residents will have access to a half-acre of on-site park space.
The owner also committed to a number of other improvements, including extending a street from Leesburg Pike into the adjacent Pimmitt Hills neighborhood, providing space for a 10-foot-wide pedestrian and bicycling path along the front of the property, and a walking path linking the townhouses to the public library next door.
The median sales price for townhouses in Pimmitt Hills is $1.15 million, according to Homes.com data. EYA recently announced plans for another 70-townhouse development 1 mile down Leesburg Pike, near the intersection of Interstate 66. Both projects are centrally located near Interstate 495, known in the Washington region as the Beltway.
“I do think this is a great use of the site,” James Bierman, the county supervisor for this part of Fairfax, said at the Oct. 14 meeting. “It adds necessary and important housing into the area, market-rate and affordable, in close proximity to transit and services.”