Broad & Washington LLC, a venture of the Arlington-based Insight Property Group, announced today that it has signed a 20-year lease for a 50,000-square foot Whole Foods Market to anchor its redevelopment of the corner of E. Broad and N. Washington Streets in Falls Church, the central intersection in the City’s downtown.
Maury Stern, a principal with the Insight Group, notified the News-Press of the development this morning. In a press release, Insight said that the proposed mixed-use project is currently estimated to result in additional net fiscal revenue, including inflation, of more than $40 million in tax revenues to the City over the 20 years and also “will help to create a new and compelling connection between this critical intersection and the City’s adjacent Arts and Entertainment District.”
As with its earlier approved zoning modifications, the project will also include 5,000 square feet for the City’s popular non-profit Creative Cauldron theater.
The new plan will require a new approval from City Hall because the only significant change from the plan OK’d earlier is that the Whole Foods will replace what earlier had been designated as office space.
Otherwise, the project will be anchored by outdoor eating areas and highly landscaped public spaces. The project, according to Stern, “is also being designed to help reinforce pedestrian and vehicular links in theneighborhood by expanding connections between existing park spaces or upgrading traffic safety features at intersections and curb cuts.”
Stern described this new opportunity for the development saying, “We spent the last year rethinking the project and could not be happier tohave signed a lease with the leading natural and organic grocer in the country. Whole Foods Market will bring an incredible amount of activity to downtown to both complement and help support the existing and longstanding businesses that make Falls Church so unique.”
Stern said the new plan will come before City Hall as soon as the City can accommodate it, and that there have already been some preliminary meetings with City officials in recent weeks, although the announcement of the Whole Foods lease is new to everyone.
Insight, according to its press release, “has become a local leader in developing iconic residential communities in the Washington Metropolitan area. Its recent projects includes the nationally acclaimed and award-winning Apollo, a 431-unit, mixed-use project that also is anchored by Whole Foods Market, The Lockwood, an 145-unit boutique apartment building embracing the rich history of its Capitol Hill neighborhood, and the overhaul of the Falls Greenapartment community (formerly Oakwood Apartments) next to the Eden Center in Falls Church. Insight is currently partnered with Carr Properties on the development of The Elm, a 28-story, 456 unit top of market apartment project in the heart of downtown Bethesda, above the Red and new Purple Line metrostations which will open in Fall, 2020
