Updated Dunn Loring Metro station plans presented to residents
By Frank Mustac
Merrifield residents received an update from a representative of developer Trammell Crow Residential about its plans to build apartments and retail stores adjacent to the Dunn Loring Metro station's south entrance.
About 50 people attending the April 29 evening meeting at the Marriott Courtyard hotel on Gallows Road in Merrifield heard a slightly revised version of the rezoning concept that would transform the 15-acre, triangle-shaped wedge of land into a planned mixed-use development.
"We've been at it now for four years," said Chad DuBeau of Trammell Crow Residential, referring to the relatively long period of time that the company has been revising designs to meet approval from both Fairfax County and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
Trammel is looking to construct up to 720 Class A apartments at the site. The developer initially plans to build only 628 units, 8 percent of which is designated for affordable dwelling units (ADUs). Workforce housing will also be a part of the project.
"We're starting out as an apartment community," DuBeau said.
The developer also plans to build about 125,000 square feet of mostly ground-level retail, including a grocery store, which DuBeau said would probably be a Harris Teeter supermarket.
Trammel will also construct a multi-level parking structure on the north side of the the site, which will contain about 2,000 parking spaces, much of it for use by Metro riders.
The triangular parcel, which is bounded by I-66 to the northwest, Gallows Road to the east and Prosperity Avenue to the south, currently contains a 1,355-space surface parking lot about seven acres in size. Substantial additional parking spaces would be built beneath the apartments that would support both the residential and retails components of the development project.
DuBeau said he hoped construction would start no later than January 2009, and that the project would be completed in its totality within three and a half years. The multi-level garage that would provide almost all of the Metro parking would be completed about 15 months after the start date.
For the first two years of construction, the current bus bay area near the station entrance will be converted to temporary Metro parking, and the bays will be relocated off site to nearby Gallows Road and Prosperity Avenue. At least 1,360 Metro parking spaces would be available throughout the construction, DuBeau said.