“We’ve got to keep this winning thing going,” opined Falls Church’s chief planning officer James Snyder last week. He was referring to the economic development that is generating millions of dollars in surpluses overflowing the City’s budget with the bulk of the already or about to be built portions of the City’s commercial areas still to weigh in.
“When we assess where we are now compared to how it was 12 years ago, when I first came here, the results are amazing,” he said, speaking to the monthly meeting of the City Council’s economic development subcommittee gathered at City Hall.
At the end of the fiscal year this June, the City was endowed with a $5 million surplus, which may not seem a lot for a large jurisdiction, but means a lot to a small one like Falls Church, where $500,000 roughly equals a penny on the tax rate, and therefore $5 million adds up to a potentially not-insignificant 10 cents savings on the tax bills that all those living in the Little City have to pay.
And the revenues from economic development are just continuing to roll in. Among the developments are the massive West End project that is already looming over land that once was was home to the old high school here.
Those massive buildings are not fully spoken for yet, but will be. It includes the news that the George Washington University Hospital has sent a letter of commitment to fill most of one entire building, one facing directly onto Route 7 there, and that Experience Senior Living has picked up the ball for completion and operation of the 14-story senior living building.
The hotel site and parking garage have both been “topped off,” with roofs in place to make the last stages of their construction easier, and adjacent the 10-acre site, Virginia Tech is sending the City a check for $8.4 million for the 440 apartments and 240,000 square foot Hitt headquarters and 40,000 square foot building that will house its innovative National Center for Smart Construction.
That is just that site. The Inova Go Health Urgent Care is moving into the site of the old Bolero in the 1200 block of W. Broad, and the Eastern House restaurant will go into the site of the former Fatouch at 1109 W. Broad.
Movie theater construction is underway at Founders Row, slated for completion next year, and a first-rate Seoul Korean Prime Rib barbecue and steak house restaurant is being readied for that site, as well.
The Modera senior living building at Founder’s Row is 95 percent leased, down the street the Troika Russian restaurant will be going next to the site of the Cuevas Grill in the Broadway building. A Halal City market and Brick House butcher are also getting set to open.
A Mexican restaurant is being primed to open at the former Target location on S. Washington and there are plans moving forward to put a food hall into the Eden Center site. The Insight project that will bring a new Whole Foods to the intersection of Broad and Washington is reportedly now 25 percent complete and will begin to house residents by next May, with the entire project, including the section reserved as the new home for Creative Cauldron, the City’s innovative performing and teaching theater venue, set to open next fall.
The Quinn/Homestretch senior living project on S. Washington is also moving ahead, with a resubmission of plans due Oct. 27 and consideration by the City Council on November 20.
And there’s more.
With all this new development generating revenues to the City that will ease pressures on residential taxes, the issue for City government is how to step up to the demand for more affordable housing, in keeping with the mandate that is pressing the entire region, and even the nation as a whole.
The City Council, having moved forward on that front with its vote to ease restrictions on development in the City’s narrow “transitional zones” to begin to address the pressing issue, it will be tasked with changes that may raise the hackles of single family homeowners even more in the coming months.
But no one can say the City Council has not been doing its job to look out for the interests of the community as a whole as its pro-development posture is bringing amazing levels of tax revenue that will lead to major tax cuts for homeowners, even if they may have to welcome some more forms of affordable housing in the ranks.