Fairfax County’s population zoomed past one million residents a couple of years ago, but there’s still plenty of room in the county for more through re-development of underutilized land. Citizens were treated to a new vision for the Merrifield section of the county near the Capital Beltway in an area that, until not long ago, sported little more than a nursery, a Taco Bell, a post office, a movie theatre and a 1950s-style diner.
New construction is picking up in the area, reports Nicholas Benton with the Falls Church News-Press, and a plan due for consideration by the Fairfax County Planning Commission this fall would allow up to 22,000 new residents and 22 million square feet of commercial space. Plans call for a new town center and the realignment of two roads that would create a new main street linking the center to the Dunn Loring Metro station.
Writes Benton: “Gallows Road to the east is being envisioned as a ‘grand boulevard’ widened on all sides with large medians in the middle aimed at becoming “pedestrian refuges.”
I’m hesitant to comment upon the merits of such a grandiose plan in a location that I’m unfamiliar with, but several aspects of the idea augur well. The plan places density where it ought to go: close to the center of the Washington New Urban Region, not on the periphery, and in a location that is served by two Interstate highways, a Metro station athwart Interstate 66 and other existing infrastructure.
Best of all, no overt opposition surfaced at the public hearing, attended by 250 residents, where the plan was presented. Explained Providence District Supervisor Lynda Smith: “There is no groundswell of citizen opposition to this because there’s been a lot of input in the process since 1998 to update the comp plan and move forward.”
(Map courtesy of Google Maps; blue dot shows intersection of Lee Highway and Gallows Road, red dot the location of the Dunn Loring Metro station.)