Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Finance and Budget Committee members are slated to consider approving tonight (Jan. 10) a solicitation to developers for the commercial development of 24 acres at the West Falls Church Metro station site, a plan that could include 700 residential units, 150,000 square feet of office and 50,000 square feet of retail.

The plan would be to limit the solicitation to the two development teams that have already been deeply involved in the development of the City of Falls Church’s 10.3-acre West End Economic Development and the 7.5-acre Virginia Tech graduate center site. These would be the EYA-PN Hoffman team that won the Falls Church bid and the other the Rushmark team that was a finalist but lost the Falls Church bid, and along with the EYA team has already bid on the Virginia Tech project.

The limited solicitation would encourage development of a plan to integrate all three projects, according to a report in the Washington Business Journal this week. “Soliciting interest from the developers connected to the adjacent sites could help generate more riders, and by extension, more money, for WMATA than if the three projects progress on separate and unrelated tracks,” a WMATA official told the Journal.

Fairfax Supervisor John Foust and county officials are hosting a public forum on the plan next Tuesday, Jan. 15, at Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center, 7054 Haycock Rd., at 7 p.m.