The wooded property situated at the junction of State Routes 28 and 267, kitty corner to the airport, is the subject of an upcoming rezoning application from Novais Partners, a team of developers that hope to transform the mostly undeveloped 103-acre plot into a massive mixed-use development. The moniker chosen for the aspirational project, “Innovation Station,” reflects the property’s location near the north entrance to the Innovation Center Metro station.
While the Metro station is located on the border of McNair in Fairfax County, the majority of the property lies within Loudoun County. The application for the first phase of the project, called “Rivana,” will be submitted to Loudoun County government next week. The development team hopes to break ground next year and begin delivery in 2024. Seeing the praise that local officials enthusiastically provided for the press release, along with the prominent placement on the county Economic Development site, it seems likely that Loudoun County will work diligently to ensure that the project gets started on time.
More details are sure to be released after the application submission, but some general plans have been shared already. Innovation Station is planned to total nine million square feet of development, which equates to an overall Floor-Area Ratio (FAR) of 2.0 for the 103 acres. Rivana appears to occupy about 80 acres of the space, and will be about 4.5 million square feet, which is a FAR of about 1.25. This will consist of an 11-acre park, a 265-room hotel, 1.8 million square feet of office space spread between at least 10 office buildings, 1,954 apartments in 6 or more buildings, and a lowrise retail village with 185,000 square feet of shopping, dining, and services spread among 17 small buildings. Construction of Rivana will be broken up into a series of sub-phases, the first of which is supposed to deliver housing and a small portion of the office space.
Judging by the renders that have been released, Rivana will consist primarily of low- and midrise buildings, with some highrise office space on the south side fronting the Dulles Toll Road and Silver Line. The office buildings in the development have been promised to be among the largest and tallest in Loudoun County. The retail district and park will be situated in the center, and the apartment buildings, which may contain a significant number of affordable units, will be situated along Innovation Avenue and Route 28.
Future phases will provide the other half of the nine million square feet of mixed-use space, concentrated in about 20 acres of the eastern portion of the property near the Metro station entrance in Fairfax County. The buildings here would be much higher density with a FAR possibly as high as 5.0, and per county guidelines, would consist mostly of commercial office space.
The proposal replaces several previous iterations for the site, including an Amazon HQ2 bid, all of which were planned for much lower densities. The drastic increase in square feet was made possible by recent changes to the Loudoun County Comprehensive plan that emphasize dense transit-oriented development near the upcoming Silver Line Phase Two stations. The neighboring Innovation Metro Station is currently scheduled to open sometime in 2022, and as long as it does not experience too many more delays, should be ready well ahead of delivery of the first buildings in 2024.
The location is well-suited for the density proposed. Just a mile and a half (or one Metro stop) from the Dulles International Airport terminal, and with immediate access to Routes 28 and 267, the development will enjoy access to and visibility from some of the main commuting paths of Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, as well as the prominence of being the closest office space to the region’s largest airport. The amount of green space proposed for the property is remarkable, considering the overall FAR of 2.0. The apartment units will be highly clustered to maximize the publicly accessible space in the development. The developers are also promising many community uses in the neighborhood, such as farmers markets, a performing arts venue, and outdoor entertainment spaces.
Innovation Station is not the only development coming to the area between Herndon and Dulles. Directly to the north, the proposed Waterside Master Plan will replace a depleted quarry some years in the future. These new mixed-use neighborhoods should complement each other and hopefully create some synergy that encourages more growth in the area. It will not be without its challenges, though. There is sure to be some opposition to such a dense development in close proximity to Herndon garden-style apartments and single-family homes, and the post-COVID office market is still full of questions. But the people at Novais Partners are hopeful that the prime location and abundance of amenities will prove attractive to potential tenants, not only in the local technology and defense industries, but also as a relocation opportunity for a national or global player. With marketing for the development beginning now in earnest, it will soon be seen if these plans are able to come to fruition.
