Developer: Insight Property Group, LLC

The Broad and Washington project was approved by the City Council under its Special Exception procedures on January 25, 2021. The project provides for a seven-story mixed-use building encompassing 339 rental apartments, a Whole Foods grocery, and ground floor retail and theater use on 3.2 acres at the northeast corner of the intersection of Broad and Washington Streets. Tentative residential opening is planned for Spring 2024, and retail opening in Fall 2024.

Approval followed extensive discussions by the developer with the City Council, the Planning Commission, several Boards and Commissions, and the broader community over a six-year period, involving two very different proposals, and 10 formal submissions. Key issues included:

Initial Council insistence on a substantial office component to replace existing office space on the three Broad Street lots;
The importance of substantial high-revenue retail space;
Height and setbacks along the neighboring residential area (Lawton Street);
The number of bedrooms/apartments and likely student generation/fiscal cost for the City;
Adequacy of parking spaces;
Provision of accessible community open space and significant green space; and
A significant percentage of affordable dwelling units.

Where is the Broad and Washington Project?

The development is on E. Broad Street and stretches from N. Washington Street to Lawton Street. It includes a City-owned municipal parking lot.

Broad and Washington location satellite image — Location of the Broad and Washington Development

What is the Environmental impact?

The table below shows the green canopy estimates compared with the pre-existing conditions. The green space comprises of a plaza and a linear park. The developers combined trees and shrubs into a single category. 79 or more trees, out of 94 existing trees, were removed from the development site. Some 20 trees will be planted along the street and about 5 trees will be planted in the linear park. Read our post for more details, Stormwater, Tree Canopy Impacts Of Broad And Washington.

Of the 3.16 acres (137,650 sf), 2.2 acres of the site’s stormwater will be captured in a retention vault system. This easily satisfies the City requirement to reduce runoff by 80%.

What is the Affordable Housing impact?

A key consideration in the final Council discussion was the willingness of Insight to provide a 10% affordable dwelling commitment, provided the present value of additional units could be deducted from their voluntary concessions for schools, parks, and the library. An option to provide cash-in-lieu of the affordable dwellings was not chosen at Site Plan. The final mix of affordable dwellings includes 9 studio units at 40% AMI (annual median income), 15 studio units at 80% AMI, and 9 2-bedroom units at 60% AMI, for a total of 33 units or 10% of 334 apartments, according to Insight.

History of the development

Phase 1:
The initial Broad and Washington proposal submitted in 2015 was substantially different from the proposal that was approved on April 9, 2018, after six submissions that consecutively revised the project in response to Council and community concerns.

The 2018 approval dropped the initial grocery store proposal, increased office square footage from 33,400 to 74,700 square feet, increased retail, and sharply reduced height and mass and increased setbacks along Lawton Street. Shared parking between residential and office uses reduced parking spaces by some 28 percent. A new second floor public plaza provided significant open space between the office and residential buildings, and a pocket park provided access between Lawton Street and the municipal parking lot. Three-bedroom apartments were eliminated, with two-thirds of the apartments focused on studios and one-bedroom units.

2015 Broad and Washington Development Project

Phase 2:
Unfortunately for Insight, in September of 2018 a key partner in the development project, Todd Hitt, was found guilty of securities fraud and sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. His Kiddar Capital firm had been expected to assume a prominent position in the proposed new office building. It took Insight more than a year to recoup and submit a new application for the Broad and Washington project, even though the 2018 Council Special Exception approval would remain in effect until April 2021.

Insight’s Narrative Statement on November 20, 2019, said:

“The new Broad and Washington brings a full service organic grocer, enhanced public open spaces, community theater, new public parking, and transportation improvements in the heart of downtown Falls Church. The applicant has a signed lease to open the first Whole Foods Market in the City of Falls Church within a redesigned building that keeps many of the successful elements from the original Broad and Washington approval.

The new application incorporates the City owned Park Place parking lot for use as public parking within a structured parking garage, along with a new signal at N. Washington Street that provides enhanced access for both vehicles and pedestrians. The project includes significant net new revenue for the City of $45.5 million over 20 years.”

In addition to the new grocery store, a new Urban Plaza was proposed for the corner of E. Broad and N. Washington to serve as a community gathering space, with outdoor seating. LEED Gold certification would be pursued for the project. Replacing the previous office building with grocery and retail, the total commercial component declined from 99K to 70K square feet, with no firm commitment on a restaurant, while the residential component increased from 295K to 350K square feet. The previously proposed pocket park from Lawton Street would continue along the new parking structure to connect to Park Place. The municipal parking lot would be incorporated into the parking garage, with additional apartments above.

Early 2020 discussions on the new proposal were focused on exchanges with City staff: Staff provided comments on the November 19, 2019, submission in January, leading to a second submission by Insight in April; the next staff comments were provided in May, followed by a Council work session in July, and a third submission was provided by Insight in August 2020. In the meantime, Insight was also in negotiations with the City over the sale of the municipal parking lot, which was considered integral to the project.

Key Council concerns included:

Whether there was certainty that Whole Foods would be the grocery store;
The impact of incorporating the municipal parking lot on neighboring businesses dependent on the lot for both permanent and temporary parking during construction;
Maximizing green space and tree canopy;
A desired increase in affordable dwelling units above 6%;
Including an office component;
Continued dialogue with Lawton Street neighbors.

Neighbors remained concerned about the sale of the municipal lot, designed for public parking, the height of proposed apartments on that lot, the adequacy of proposed parking, and the impacts on neighboring businesses and traffic/parking on Lawton.

Following a walking tour, town hall, and two Council public hearings, the City Council referred the proposal out to the Planning Commission and Boards and Commissions on first reading in October 2020. Their comments were taken into consideration by Council in December and a subsequent fourth and final submission was approved on January 25, 2021. In the end, the neighboring Clare and Don’s and Thompson Italian supported the project.

Where to get information about the Broad and Washington project

This City webpage contains links to many documents related to this project, including the various submissions of architectural drawings, site plans and staff comments.

The curated Broad and Washington posts on Falls Church Pulse are accessible here.