Development
Seven Corners primed for redevelopment
Recent changes affecting commercial properties in Seven Corners could create opportunities for redevelopment, yet without a comprehensive, multi-year plan to encourage positive, mixed-use projects, new development could continue in the patchwork pattern that has led to massive traffic congestion.
Photo by the author.
That's according to Frank Sellers, president of the Bailey's Crossroads Revitalization Corporation (BCRC), the organization tasked with revitalizing the eastern Fairfax County commercial hub.
Redevelopment opportunities are arising with some pending changes in land use and ownership. What that will mean for the community is not yet clear, but this is a perfect opportunity for neighbors to forge a vision for a better Bailey's Crossroads.
The owner of the stone building where the Seven Corners Animal Hospital is located at 6300 Arlington Blvd. has been declared bankrupt, although the vet clinic's lease still has five years on it. The same person also owns an adjacent building at 6801 Wilson Blvd. Both properties have been foreclosed and are expected to be sold at auction.
6319 Castle Place. Image by the author.
Nearby, 3 medical professional buildings, at 6305 and 6319 Castle Place and a larger one at 2946 Sleepy Hollow Road are for sale. That land is zoned for higher density than the current buildings, so it could eventually support a larger development project, said Clark Turner, sales associate with West, Lane and Schlager. This sale is not a foreclosure.
The owner is asking $225 a square foot, or $2.9 million for 6305, $3.8 million for 6319, and $6.9 million for 2946. A buyer could purchase the buildings separately or all together. It should be noted the sales brochure for those properties says average daily traffic along Route 7 is 41,000 cars.
Meanwhile, an eight-story Hampton Inn hotel has been proposed for Arlington Boulevard at the South Street intersection between the BB and T Towers and American Lube.
These changes could be the catalyst for a different kind of development in Bailey's Crossroads; one that does not repeat the problems of the past.
"Seven Corners Shopping Center is difficult to enter, difficult to park in, difficult to like," Sellers wrote in the Lake Barcroft newsletter. "It's a 1960s shopping district faced with the realities of the second decade of the 21st century."
"Everybody knows the hideous intersection that brought Seven Corners its name and daily causes thousands of cars to stream through our neighborhood streets," he continued. "But fixing the intersection would be a nightmare and a huge expenditure."
Any new development will worsen the congestion on Route 7. "There are terrible right of way issues," Sellers conceded. "If you widen Route 7, you're going to put some shopping centers out of business. And if you put in streetcars, where would the cars go?"
Sellers believes addressing the mess at Seven Corners calls for an areawide solution that includes more than just the shopping center and intersection.
Seven Corners doesn't have a chamber of commerce but it does fall under the jurisdiction of the BCRC, which worked for the past 10 years on developing a conceptual plan for the revitalization of Bailey's Crossroads, which was adopted by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors last year.
Sellers would like to see the BCRC "spearhead a community effort to consider the future of Seven Corners." He notes that "neither Fairfax County, the Office of Community Revitalization and Redevelopment, nor Mason Supervisor Penny Gross have ever done any overarching planning review for Seven Corners. We need to start."
All the neighborhood groups close to Seven Corners need to be involved. "The community needs to come to come together and focus on what they would prefer for that area for the next 50 years," Sellers says. "It has to be a process where everyone feels they are involved from the beginning."
Two years ago, the Ravenwood Park Citizens Association mobilized local residents to oppose a major redevelopment project proposed for the Sears site on Route 7. The developer ultimately withdrew that proposal. But more projects are on the horizon. "Any time there's a change of ownership, it creates an opportunity for development," Sellers says.
Bailey's Crossroads is poised for new development, too. A mixed-use project to include Fairfax County government offices for social service programs and about 300 residential units has been proposed for Moncure Avenue, next to Columbia Pike. That project has not gone through any official approval processes yet.
Meanwhile, a temporary fire station will be installed on that site while a new Bailey's Crossroads fire station is built on its existing site to replace the building badly damaged in a 2010 snowstorm.
Sellers encourages local residents interested in development plans for Seven Corners and Bailey's Crossroads to attend BCRC meetings. The group meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30 p.m. in the Mason District Government Building.
Crossposted at Annandale VA.
Ellie Ashford is a freelance editorial consultant and community activist in Annandale and writes the Annandale VA blog.  |
Comments
@ggwash
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http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/11/19/stretching-the-limits-of-washingtons-dense-core/
But the potential for the area has been a long time coming. It is unfortunate how badly the streets all connect. Every time I've tried to drive through there I've done something wrong and ended up going the opposite way I intended to go. The traffic that can easily lock you into a lane doesn't help.
And I remember the last time the Ravenwood Park association was mentioned here, it wasn't pretty.
by Canaan on Jan 23, 2012 12:36 pm • link • report
by MW on Jan 23, 2012 12:41 pm • link • report
This has to be on the one of the most challenging projects in redevelopment.
That new safeway is really nice, though.
by charlie on Jan 23, 2012 12:47 pm • link • report
by oboe on Jan 23, 2012 1:34 pm • link • report
The general area is a real headache and a good example of the car-centric development paradox. I decided to string together a few errands there several months ago, thinking I'd save time because all the stores had branches there and I needed to be there anyway. Wrong--unless you're a regular, perhaps, the traffic patterns and parking lot layouts turn simple steps into a huge waste of time.
by Rich on Jan 23, 2012 1:43 pm • link • report
I think anything will be marginally better, but in the end it will be yet another "town center" type development like what is going on at Merrifield.
by spookiness on Jan 23, 2012 1:51 pm • link • report
by charlie on Jan 23, 2012 2:04 pm • link • report
That intersection is a nightmare. The interesting thing is that it is only about 1.1 miles (wilson ---> roosevelt) to the EFC metro. Streetcar!!!! But in seriousness, what could you do to fix the intersection? A huge traffic circle, and maybe cut off access to Hillwood Rd? You'd need access to 7, Wilson, Sleepy Hollow, and 50 - plus 50 is basically an expressway through there so you'd need on/offramps. Crazy.
by Nick on Jan 23, 2012 2:23 pm • link • report
by Juanita de Talmas on Jan 23, 2012 2:23 pm • link • report
That post wins most racist statement on GGW I've read in a while!
by Nick on Jan 23, 2012 2:31 pm • link • report
Would love to see Seven Corners re-purposed, obviously. But I think people tend to underestimate the complexity of refactoring sprawling, interconnected systems.
Everyone seems to think that improving 7 Corners means expensive transportation projects. Transportation can come later. First, show them the money.
The easiest (relatively speaking) thing to improve about 7 Corners is to encourage increased density. Create a bigger tax base and then you'll have the money and desire to make some transportation improvements. Sure, more density will worsen congestion but it also means more jobs, more tax revenue, and being closer to critical mass to get better transportation.
Once there's more density, I'd say the highest returning transpo investment is not some massive re-jigger of the roads but rather making it easier to walk from one place to another within 7 Corners once you've already parked your car. The godawful pedestrian bridge that takes an eternity to climb isn't helping things.
by Falls Church on Jan 23, 2012 2:54 pm • link • report
Or much much cheaper...a circulator type bus. But, first you have to make 7 Corners more of a destination...a place where you can get buy anything you need and eat a good meal all in one place.
by Falls Church on Jan 23, 2012 2:56 pm • link • report
Once you have more retail, it increases its attractiveness as a place to live, so you get condos, and once you have more highly skilled people living there, you'll attract employers. So, it's really all a virtuous circle that starts with increasing density.
by Falls Church on Jan 23, 2012 3:10 pm • link • report
I'm not sure a bus is the answer, simply because I think the congestion is so bad that it won't be able to be nearly as effective as it ought. Personally? I think Metro would do wonders there, coupled with a rerouting of the Blue Line...perhaps with the Seven Corners station directly under the infamous meeting point, and with seven entrances on all points of the circle.
Yeah, yeah, pipe dream, I know. But a fellow has to have something to sustain him...
by Ser Amantio di Nicolao on Jan 23, 2012 3:30 pm • link • report
"Seven Corners?" Nobody goes there. It's too crowded".
by ceefer66 on Jan 23, 2012 3:58 pm • link • report
Everyone seems to think that improving 7 Corners means expensive transportation projects.
I'm not saying an expensive transportation project is the answer. But I'm not sure "increased density" is sufficient either. It's a bit like addressing a project consisting of 500,000 lines of spaghetti code by saying "We should refactor it!" Much easier than doing so. It's like rebuilding an airplane in flight with a significant amount of disagreement as to what, exactly, the desired outcome should be.
It's one of the reasons why existing TOD-type areas (DC, Silver Spring, Alexandria, Arlington) have a major advantage: a) they only really need tweaking to achieve that outcome; and b) the stakeholders are more homogenously pro-urban, so there's less of the NIMBY issue (even so, NIMBYism is a huge obstacle).
by oboe on Jan 23, 2012 4:14 pm • link • report
by charlie on Jan 23, 2012 4:17 pm • link • report
White Flint is the closest I can think of to this - and even there, there were two corridors identified and reserved in the 1990-era master plan for streets parallel to Rockville Pike.
The results of just adding density, without changing urban form, can be seen in what's happened to Tysons Corner in the last 15 years.
by Ben Ross on Jan 23, 2012 4:26 pm • link • report
by charlie on Jan 23, 2012 4:53 pm • link • report
by Chris R on Jan 23, 2012 5:13 pm • link • report
Tysons is exactly the model to emulate here. Add a bunch of density via high end retail and high paying jobs and voila! 15 years later you get 4 metro stations, an entire line dedicated to your growth, and a street grid.
by Falls Church on Jan 23, 2012 6:52 pm • link • report
I think the article provides a few actionable suggestions for increasing density that are very doable with a little community organization and help from developers. Journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
by Falls Church on Jan 23, 2012 7:19 pm • link • report
The only way to fix this is to imagine a 50-year time horizon. That's why I was disappointed in the
BJ's , because it didn't do anything to move the long term vision.
Here's the really expensive radical idea: Deck over 50 from just west of Patrick Henry all the way to the main intersection. Raze all the properties on both sides and build a nice street grid from Wilson all the way to Route 7. Maybe something like this: http://g.co/maps/9wvv9 (just a notion).
Of course, that's the section across route 7 from where the current buildings are up for sale, so that's another kettle of fish entirely.
I agree that nibbling on the edges won't fix it. It requires a wholesale redesign. But if you're a developer with the hundreds of millions or billions needed, would you put it here? Not.
by Steve O on Jan 23, 2012 8:28 pm • link • report
As for making the area work, a terrain vague like this looks like the perfect place for some cheap and dirty transportation solutions, like bus lanes, painted bulb outs, bike racks, community gardens, and improvised lot uses. Moreover, by experimenting with the infrastructure and empty lots, the county could develop a sense of place without relying strictly on the too-polite strategies of most developers.
by Neil Flanagan on Jan 23, 2012 8:50 pm • link • report
A 500 year time horizon is needed if by "fix this" we mean a transformation to urbanist utopia. But, suburbs like 7 Corners don't work that way. It's never going to be Dupont Circle or even Clarendon and grandiose plans in that direction are counterproductive because it distracts from important actions that are realistic. What are those? Here are some great ideas:
a terrain vague like this looks like the perfect place for some cheap and dirty transportation solutions, like bus lanes, painted bulb outs, bike racks, community gardens, and improvised lot uses. Moreover, by experimenting with the infrastructure and empty lots, the county could develop a sense of place without relying strictly on the too-polite strategies of most developers.
But, really 7 Corners problem isn't transportation so much. There is no lack of cars/people going through 7 Corners. The problem with the area is that very few of those people do anything in 7 Corners -- they just drive through. There needs to be better things to do and retail to visit in 7 Corners and for that, you need higher land values which will drive out mediocre businesses and make room for better ones that can afford high rents. To get higher land values, you need to increase density.
by Falls Church on Jan 24, 2012 2:06 pm • link • report
SC does not have the highway draws Tysons had in the 1970s - TC was the intersection of the beltway and the toll road and on the way to Dulles. Its hard to see how SC draws a major retail center, and follow on office growth with its current transport infra.
Even if it did, a new heavy rail line there is unlikely - its too close to the existing orange line, for one.
Adding more development without changing transport first, could make changing transport later more expensive. That does not mean building rail now, or making it the new clarendon (not that clarendon took THAT long, BTW) - the Mosaic district perhaps is a better model.
How much WOULD an improved interesection cost? Its certainly worth trying to find out.
by AWalkerInTheCity on Jan 24, 2012 2:21 pm • link • report
1. Deck over existing grade-depressed Route 50
2. Re-route SB Route 7 to a parallel 1-way street using the existing turn bridge over Route 50 (street parking on SB & NB lanes)
3. Re-appropriate SB lanes as N/S DEDICATED LRT or BRT
4. 6 to 8 story urban infill with street level retail
Images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33944765@N02/6758065543/
by stevek_fairfax on Jan 24, 2012 9:29 pm • link • report
by NikolasM on Jan 25, 2012 12:02 am • link • report
Kastle Systems just moved in to one of the twin towers. I understand that Grand Mart and 24 Hour Fitness (taking over the Syms) have long term leases, so it will be along time before anything substantial could even get started.
With Fairfax County's focus on Tysons, Merrifield and to a lesser extent Baileys, I don't see any plans for this side of Seven Corners for the foreseeable future. But, despite this, I still walk from the western side of SC to go the Public House #7 and Dogfish Head (there are *some* good places to go in SC!).
by rogerwilco on Jan 25, 2012 8:05 am • link • report
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