Akridge Wins Nod as 'Master Developer' for F.C. City Center Plan

In a surprise announcement Tuesday, City of Falls Church Mayor Dan Gardner told the monthly luncheon of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce that the highly-reputed Washington, D.C., construction firm, The Akridge Company, had been selected to operate as the "master developer" for a sweeping redevelopment effort in the City's downtown.

Gardner reported the outcome of a secret, closed door session of the Falls Church City Council and its appointed City Center Task Force the night before. It was a long-awaited decision, since the task force had determined what its recommendation would be months ago. But it came as a surprise, even to the Akridge representative at Tuesday's luncheon, when Gardner, during the question and answer period of his speech to the Chamber group, made the public announcement.

Asked by the News-Press to comment, Akridge's Chris Ciliberti, who posed for a photo with the mayor afterwards, said he couldn't, because his company had yet to be formally notified.

But it came as no surprise to Dr. Steve Rogers, who was installed as the Chamber's new president earlier this month, since Rogers chairs the City Center Task Force and was at Monday's closed meeting.

Still, it will be months before the City and Akridge ink an actual contract for the job. The mayor's announcement signaled the beginning of a negotiation process, he said.

Although Akridge presented a detailed outline of what it hopes to do with Falls Church's downtown, that is not yet public. It will be subject to considerable behind-closed-doors negotiations with City officials, since much of it will involve publicly-owned land.

Falls Church's downtown – the area surrounding the intersection of Routes 7 and 29 – presents a unique problem for redevelopment. Normally, such efforts are done either entirely on publicly-owned land, or on undeveloped or blighted property.

By contrast, in Falls Church's case, the land is mostly privately owned, currently in active use, and worth about $1.5 million per acre.

In an address to a breakfast meeting of the Downtown Merchants Association late last year, Falls Church City Manager Dan McKeever said that every effort would be made to accommodate the existing businesses in the impacted area while a redevelopment was undertaken.

He said the project would unfold over the course of a decade or more.

Asked about timing Tuesday, Mayor Gardner said "It won't happen tomorrow, but it won't take forever, either." He said he expected the public to be involved in every stage of the process with public hearings and full disclosure of plans. "The public will be included in the entire enchilada," he quipped.

In remarks during his regular speech, Gardner told the 40 Chamber members and friends present that "things are moving" in Falls Church. "We're more business friendly, development friendly, and realistic," he said.

"The bottom line is the City's budget," he said. "We continue to get state and federal mandates with no money to pay for them, and at the local level, our budget is driven by school enrollment growth. The passage of a $25 million school bond referendum last fall was a great step forward, but now we face the reality of a bill to be paid of $2.2 to $2.5 million a year for 20 years."

Three large-scale mixed use projects already approved or in the pipeline for approval could bring in over $1.1 million in new revenue to the City, he said. As a result, he said, "the market (for these kinds of projects) is now in sync with what the City needs."