the same type of building height. And as we talked through that and as the ideas became further refined, there was sort of a recognition that what we're dealing with in those connectors are shallow building lots that don't lend themselves to redevelopment at a higher FAR and higher building heights and at the same time sort of respecting that proximity to the residential neighborhoods that are behind each and every one of these connectors basically. So the notion about the connectors is put them along a boulevard, have more modest building heights meaning one to two stories roughly. But put them on an enhanced boulevard. So, the take the roadway, make sure that there are pedestrian accommodations along the roadway, not necessarily within the developments that redevelopments that occur, but along the roadway, that you get your tree canopy, you get what they call proper pedestrian walkways. And so, you know, if they have to be commercial strips basically, I mean to put it at its most basic level, let's make them the most attractive, best functioning commercial strips that we can. But it is a recognition that of the geometry basically of the properties that are along these connector areas. Again, a lower scale, to one to I said one to two. I meant one to three. And the emphasis is on, principally on the design of the buildings, design of the sites, first of all, and secondly, and equally is important, the interface between these buildings and the adjacent residential areas. And that interface could manifest itself as a buffer, as a landscape buffer, or as a transitional land use between a three-story part of a redevelopment transitioning down to more of a neighborhood scale. But it's going to be different from site to site. But those are the basic principles. And then throughout the boulevard make the boulevard a great street. And that is, you know, part of the notion here is that we want folks who come into the city to know that they're in a place that's different from what's all around it. And you make it a great street by developing that landscape canopy by providing decent pedestrian areas and public spaces and starting to look at stormwater drainage maybe as an amenity. I think our consultants showed a lot of examples of creative stormwater approaches that were used in, I believe, as Portland. And I think there are probably some applications that we have. And maybe even we can even one up that because we have some opportunities with the stream values that we have along our corridor to be able to do some very nice amenities that also serve a stormwater drainage rather than the traditional way of just piping these things into an outlet, outfalling a minute stream somewhere with some rip wrap around it and that's the end of it. So the land use part of it is basically what I just went over. Again, nodes or centers, connectors, make the boulevard a great street. There's also a transportation part of this, obviously, transportation, generally throughout the corridor, or not completely throughout the corridor, but generally, the master plan suggests that what we call the 5 plus 2 configuration for Fairfax boulevard, that would be, Fairfax Boulevard. That would be, Fairfax Boulevard would be converted to two travel lanes in each direction. There would be a center turn lane. That would be the 5, that would constitute the 5. The plus 2 refers to on either side, on the north and the south side, the through lanes would be separated by a large landscape buffer that would be planted and then behind that there would be slow lanes. So the slow lane would essentially run parallel to Fairfax Boulevard and provide access internal to the developments that occur next to Fairfax Boulevard and there would be on street parking. The notion is that it would be a safer environment for pedestrians. It gets the traffic that wants to use the centers and redeveloped areas. It gets that traffic off of the main arterios and onto a separate road network basically so it's not clogging up traffic with turning movements and it provides on street parking which is obviously more comfortable for the pedestrian and provides convenience for folks who want to do shops there. Now, I would like to point out and stress that the plan itself, the master plan itself, the draft that we received did not recommend these, this five plus two configuration throughout the entirety of the corridor of adjacent specific areas. And I think the notion within this master plan is that as we as a city begin the field development proposals, redevelopment proposals, and begin to look at some of these centers in a more specific way that that's not in stone. Conceptually the five plus two, I think folks generally like that idea, seems to make sense. As it applies to individual development conditions, it's something that's up for grabs. Individual centers or individual development proposals, and will require sort of a transportation analysis to see if it's necessary and or desirable. So, and the second part of that transportation component that was accepted basically as part of the brochure, which I'll refer to it as the brochure, executive summary, was the notion of inter-connected street networks. And again, that was, that is a principle that is just central to the development of these centers. And it also applies within some of the connectors as well, and the idea is that you create blocks within this, particularly within the centers. You've got some fairly large redevelopment areas. So you create walkable blocks, and then the development will conform itself to those blocks. And it provides a framework for a more pedestrian friendly environment. In a nutshell, that's the brochure, Mr. Mayor. If you would like me to elaborate on anything, I'd be glad to, but... You know, it will open this up to discussion. And obviously those of us who are on the council previously spend a lot of time and energy along with our planning commission and our economic development authority folks and representatives that sort of cleansing through and dissecting that to get to this summary document as we move forward. And really, you know, when I said, and we've been of us, we had a chance over the last two days to talk about where we are and where we need to go. And when I look at what we did in the downtown area and look at sort of the good and the bad and the failures and the successes, what in my mind really turned it into the success was the city coming up with a common vision for what we wanted downtown in terms of size and scale and then allowing the development community to take it from there. And I think that's what this document is intended to do. And so let me open it up and see if A are there questions. Hopefully everybody's had a chance to read it in detail. And then see if there are any changes or concerns that are outlined in the document and then we'll kind of build from there? Everybody? Have a pretty good understanding of how comfortable with the vision that was created a year ago and the summary document? Okay, that's going to be easy. And so I guess then David as we Mr. Hudson as we kind of move forward on this dialogue and discussion, I think where we probably are. And I would just say that, you know, in talking to the development community, I know we've all had an opportunity to do that. And talking to the consultants, the last conversation I had with them was that the dialogue and the difference between something in paper and reality and the next portion of this discussion is to sort of jump from what's on paper and the vision that we've created to reality and to invite the stakeholders to come forward and talk a little bit about their challenges, their vision, their ideas and how they'd like to see for their properties this plan. And we're referring to not the connectors at this point. We're really referring to the centers. I think is what we're calling it, or the nodes is what we used to call it, as we move forward so that we can put reality. And I think it's going to be very, very important that we always keep in mind that this process intended to be a summary and to create a vision and to create incentives and not to be a distance and I know that will be important as we have this dialogue with the development folks as well. So if there's not any other discussion at this point, what I'd like to do is to bring the stakeholders forward. And I see feet over there. I don't see body. There we go. Mr. Donigan, I see his over there. I'm not sure who's sitting next to him. Chase, representatives of Archdown. Why don't you guys come on up front if you wouldn't sit at the table and maybe share with us as a major stakeholder and one of the major centers that we've created as a priority sort of your vision and your ideas in terms of how you'd like to see us move forward and sort of frame some of the issues that are going to be important to you to be able to move forward. I'd be great. I don't know. If I could, we do have some conceptual sketches on the PowerPoint presentation as well that address some of the thinking, conceptual thinking, and particularly in some of these nodes or center areas as it exists today. And some of it's very conceptual. And we've got one for a couple for the North Facts area. We've got one for Camp Washington area. And I'd like to also note that the North West corner of North Facts, although there hasn't been any conceptual work that's really recently that's been done on that, that the property owner, I think you mentioned is here and it will represent a substantial component of north facts when it is redeveloped. And so I'm sure heigan. Nice to be before you once again and to the new City Council members before to work together. I'll introduce Taylor Chess from Regency Centers. He runs the Mid-Atlantic Region. Taylor and I have been friends for a long time. Business partners for ten years now, I guess. And we've done a lot together and this would be certainly a major undertaking in the city And I guess that first project in the city to my right is Randy Kenna from Archstone Development partner with us on this project that we want to talk about tonight Randy has extensive responsibilities for Archstone and has been just a pleasure to work with over the last six months I guess. That's great. With that being said, let me just start with where we are today. Regency and my company acquired Fairfax Shopping Center. It's close to a year ago, Taylor. We've been in a little bit of a holding pattern since then. I think that probably is a function of a number of things. One, I think when we bought the property, it's fair to say, and it's public record, it was over $27 million. It's a very expensive piece of property, currently about 80,000 square feet of retail space exist. And I consulted in formally with a lot of folks in the city just basically saying that while the master plan was underway, we were acquiring this property underwriting it in a way that retail could stand on its own. It was aggressive, probably near the top of the market. You know, timing is what it is. But I think ultimately we were comfortable that it could be redeveloped as a first-rate retail property. We haven't done that yet. It is what Taylor and I do day to day. Each of us over one years of retail experience. So to sit here with a development partner to my right that really the residential developer is a function of, I guess what we would say we think is the right thing to do. You know, there's economic factors, but ultimately, and I guess you just take my word for this, we have been part of the process in terms of looking at Fairfax Boulevard. We've looked at North Facts and its entirety. We recognize that this piece is one piece, but a critical piece. And in light of that, we've been in this holding pattern. It's not particularly attractive today. There was a fire there that we had nothing to do with. So I put you under a thing. But it has taken away what it did have to offer. And so it's not without urgency that we sit here, but we again want to do the right thing. That being said, everybody's going to have a different view of what the right thing is here. So let me just really jump right into it. As we looked at not just our 6, 7 acre piece that is a retail shopping center, but looking at the adjoining properties. We've talked informally with Kathy McKay. We've had good discussions with John who I think will be talking later tonight. We recognize that we're in just not an island here, that there is a development that should be integrated and make it a special place. Having said that, we have an investment and we want to do the right thing in a timely fashion. And so, as we sit here tonight, I think this is a healthy time to just talk about the vision and I hope it's consistent with everyone's vision here. Essentially, mindful of I guess some core principles that I think should be attached to any, you know, development along this corridor. We're looking at this as a primarily residential development. We have great comfort with Archstone, their quality folks, and they do great projects, and I'll let Randy elaborate a little bit on that. But I think at the end of the day, we're comfortable sitting here before you tonight saying that at this corner, at Eton Place and Fairfax Boulevard, as reflected on the screen. A cornerstone location, if you will, as you enter this North Facts area from the West, we think that a residential, a meaningful residential component that has retail as a complimentary goods and services and that kind of activate the area. I think, you know, we feel like that's a direction that is appropriate to go in terms of the redevelopment of this property. We don't view it as being an isolated development. I've sat here before and talked about incremental development. And while I think the Dover Coal Plan served its purpose in terms of coming in at a very high macro level and looking at a corridor, I think there's value to that. But I think with all due respect that when you're dealing with individual owners and decentralized fragmented ownership, I think you work with what you can and my experience has been that if you do a quality development that it will follow. And I think coupled with a vision from the city that's articulated in writing that has the core principles enumerated, my feeling is that this North Facts development can be something special. We'd like to thank and we're not, that we could perhaps partner with Kathy and John and do other things, but whether we're part of that or not formally, we think informally, we've had enough discussion to really believe that this would jumpstart this North-Fax in a way that's meaningful and sets a standard that I think can be carried over. You know, with that, I think maybe we could go to the slides. I guess the one last thing I'd say is just to frame this, we're not yet under contract with Archdom. And I'd say that, you know, because it's a fact. We feel very, very strongly about our relationship here. There have been great development partners, and we're very close to formalizing a contract to jointly develop this property. Having said that, I'd be remiss not to say that your input is going to influence us. I'll start with the predicate that when we bought the property initially, we accepted the notion that it could be a retail development. It's difficult for me to say this, but I'm going to say it, and I may come back in six months to say, look, we really need to do retail. We want to do the first rate job, and I promise you we will. But as I sit here right now, I can say that I think the highest invest use and the right thing for this corridor is to proceed with a primarily residential development at this corner with retail that's complimentary. It needs to be first class. It needs to be done correctly. And it'll be a lot of discussion about what that entails. But generally speaking, if we have a single objective tonight, it would be to get constructive feedback and to be able to move forward earnestly with Archstone. And while there is a lot of details to sort through, I'd like to think that from a shared vision that we may be able to get to that point. That being said, maybe we could, let's, Randy, or Taylor, or something to add? No, we just had the existing shopping center lay out and Ariel, if you wanted to look at that proposed layout that Archstone has provided as a bookend on this corner that could be melded into the rest of the project or the rest of the quadrant that's called North Facts. And we also have, I think, David had provided as well some renderings. This would be of the residential corner, which would be closer to most be woods, and then of the retail corner, which would be closer to the north facts and be the entrance across from University Drive. These are just very schematic drawings, very preliminary. These were drawings that Archstone had put together in an effort to give us an idea of what type of project they would like to bring here. And part of why we decided to go forward is with a development partner of Archstone on this. We just wanted to share those with you. It's our very preliminary. We have copies of them. Randy's provided them out front as well. Randy, anything? I think, you know, Archstone unlike we could just tell our vision if you could move this way. It seems kind of intuitive a little bit that Archstone unlike other companies out there are less in the apartment business and more in the demographics business. We have, we pursue a tenant base that we think of internally as the people that have made all the right decisions in their life up to that point. That the rent levels we are going for would be equivalent to mortgage levels. Across the country we have 240,000 residents. The average household income is $132,000 a year. Then we're almost all childless, almost entirely with bachelor's degrees and higher. So when we look for areas to try and develop, what we're really looking for is places that we can build a home for these people that they'd be attracted to. Places that we think we can bring value to and then use that value for higher rents for this population. And one of the things that we liked so much about Fairfax City was that it had an authentic core. And our hope is to build upon that and create a sense of place here in the North Fax area and change over a heavily automobile oriented area and creating a sense. This is something that people can walk through and make a home if. That's it. I would say one last thing and conclusion perhaps before we get to questions. You know, we've been in a holding pattern, but we've not been inactive. We've met a number of times with David and his team. We've worked with a variety of our development team and archstone. So I think we've laid the groundwork here. So this isn't like let's throw it out here and see what you think. I mean, we really believe that, you know, from an economic standpoint, it makes sense. We think it is a catalyst for development of this North facts quadrant. We have to team up. we have to be development partners. You know, the things that have been talked about in terms of core principles and how do you redevelop a corridor? And if this is a focal point of that corridor, and I think it is, you want to do it right. Things that we've talked about that are kind of critical elements in this approach. You know, we want to be sensitive to it being a coherent place, that there's the details that go to the architecture resonate and are true to the character of the city, that there's pedestrian environment. There's a linear park that's absolutely critical to the development here. There's been discussion about the traffic pattern in terms of five and two. You know, we think we can work within the traffic pattern that's there. We think it works not alone, but with a linear park that frames and shapes this development. That has a sense of place that has some articulation, not only with the buildings, but pockets of activity that are pedestrian friendly and frankly places where the community can have activities and be a place. There's little things, the signage, open areas, the size and scale, all that's really fundamental to whatever we do going forward. But we feel like we have a unique opportunity. It's funny how real estate is. It's probably why 25 years I'm still in it. I mean, timing different sellers have different objectives. Communities have different priorities. I think we're at an exciting place here, not to be dramatic. But I really think that we have a substantial investment. We cannot sit on it. We're not here to put pressure on you. We think it's the right way to go. We'd like to get your feedback and do it together. Can you maybe, before we start asking specific questions, can I get you to back up and maybe fly the 20,000-foot-level for a minute on this block? You've talked about your portion that you control today. I don't think there's any one of a sitting up here that doesn't hope and doesn't have the longer-term vision of all the properties being consolidated and built in a quote master plan. Sort of viewpoint you've got and what you're proposing and I'm assuming is that the residential component would be on the western side of this block but can you sort of paint a vision of how you would see let's say if today you control the entire block how you'd see that work its way toward 123 and assume the whole thing wouldn't be residential And there's a mixed use component. Can you sort of share with us your vision in that regard? Sure I'll start and then welcome you guys to chime in I We think of this as you know the the Western most peace at this point being the residential component It's not to suggest that they couldn't be additional residential, but I think really this is where it's concentrated. And I heard Randy use the term kind of an area of compression, which I've never used, but I think it resonates. You know that as you come to 123, you're really coming to Maine and Maine, Fairfax Boulevard in 123. So as you, you know, if you're in eaten place in Fairfax Boulevard, this is going to be something that says, hey, I've come to something special. It'll architecturally size and scale, you know, these pedestrian linear park, I think is going to tell you you've come to something that's different. Coming from most be woods, which would be less, you know, more park like and I think you're going to come to something that has more of a critical mass. As you proceed west to 123, it wants to be, in my opinion, commercial, you know, with a strong, strong retail component. I can't sit here and speak for Kathy. I can tell you that we get along well. There's an ongoing dialogue. You know, I think there's an interest in working together. I think she has an interest in redeveloping the property. I know she's teamed up with capable folks. And I think we've all had a pretty good dialogue. So our vision would be that this is the start, not the end, to something that carries over to 123. As you go further west, we sat down with John. We had meaningful discussions about doing this in a coherent fashion, possibly partnering up. And, you know, we're a little bit of a head of ourselves. This is a very public work session, but I think the spirit of is to work together. And I think if you're flying at 10,000 feet, you have to say, that's what it should be. So I think we'd like to team up and talk about what the vision is and then try and implement it. As I said earlier, if we're part of it great, if we're not, you know, we're certainly going to be involved from day one. And we've found an experience that often that residential can be a leading edge that allows and sort of breaks the ground for future redevelopment that follows and afterwards. That if we can partner together, Archenke come in and we can build a not just the nicest thing in the city of Fairfax, but the nicest thing in the region and bring in a strong demographic. You know, they're the types of people that the Super Bowl folks go after. You know, that's $3 million for 30 seconds. And then following that, it's evidence of a strong institutional investment, and we can work in designing ways for our site to play the groundwork for future redevelopment off the site. And one of the best things that could happen is we build an apartment building. We put a strong retail component, and then five years later, there's a great retail site right next door to us. That would be great for us. And so we'd like to design whatever we come up with that would then lay the ground for future redevelopment. You'll see in the packet that was handed out some planning principles. The way that Archstone often goes about doing its planning is to work with key stakeholders from the beginning and understand what they would like to see in the area and then solely work through and develop some rough outlines of principles for planning. What you see is not necessarily what we think the answer could is but some of the ideas of what could be there as we develop this. You know, when we start talking about later on in the evening, the city's roles to kind of move all this vision forward, and I look at it, can we put up the aerial that had the division lines, the property lines, we had it up there a few months ago, I'm not sure which one that one. Obviously, the property, if I'm understanding this right, that you control and I, and it's the ones that are in the sort of brown, orange colors, the next piece of property over to the left is a combination of car dealership storage, used car junkyard on the eat and place. But as I understand it, there's two controlling components there. One, Kathy McCabe and the others, whoever owns the back portion that she controls the 20-year lease. If we work our way closer to the west, then we have the Bank of America lot, which is individually owned. We have the Exxon gas station, which is individually owned as we go north on that. I guess there's a small strip that the city of Fairfax, if I remember right, controls. And then the floodruckers property, which I believe is controlled by Kathy McCabe. The next piece of property is the folks who are here tonight that are that is controlled at least by contract I think on the Marriott extended care that are stay that we've talked about. But what role can city, how do we, if the city's goal is to consolidate all this and get it built out in some sort of a consistent sort of master plan, how do we go? I don't think it's going to happen by us most. Is that a market driven thing that takes place? Is that a city roll portion of it? Can you kind of share with this your best thinking in terms of that? I'll try. I mean, I think the market's always going to weigh in and it could certainly affect timing at a minimum, but putting that aside for the moment, I think that there's a number of things the city can do in conjunction with the stakeholders, so to speak. And it would be to really lay out, let's start with the easy, not easy, but the obvious things traffic. You know, how do we deal with the road network? You know, this Fairfax Boulevard. I mean, fundamentally, is it five and two, or is it keeping it what it is, making sure the utilities are extended, and what do we do with University Boulevard? Is it extended through to eat in place, or is it something that goes through the overall development? People may have opinions on that, but I think laying the groundwork for that, I think to a certain extent, shapes this quadrant. Our dealings, as I say, with Kathy and with the folks from Mary, I have all been very positive. I think everybody wants to do the right thing and to do it well. And I think the city can facilitate that in terms of bringing us together, which has already happened. take that in terms of bringing us together, which has already happened. I think it sounds cliché to talk about core principles and development guidelines, but I think they're critical. I think you have to lay it out in a way that's not so rigid or unrealistic, but give some flexibility and discretion to the City Council and staff. But ultimately is, I don't know, developer friendly for lack of a better word that facilitates the outcome we all want. We've made a substantial investment here. It doesn't make it smarter or more wiser. It just means we're part of it. And we want to do something that I'll speak really for myself. I've been in ball in the city for a long time and you know it's not a benevolent work. I mean it's for profit but ultimately you know there have been times where different things could have been done to make more money. That's not the end all. I think it's it did not mutually exclusive. You can do things that make economic sense and and do something that makes the city a better place and I think we have That opportunity here there's a variety of folks involved so it's maybe more complicated because you're not dealing with just one piece But I have every reason to believe and I don't think we'd be sitting next to Archstone Candidly if we didn't think that this could all come together we'd be much better off not having waited a year and gone and redeveloped retail. Trust me, that could have been done and still can be done. So I think, you know, to answer your question, if we lay out principles, we talk about size and scale, you're building architectural controls, you're really nailed down pretty quickly that traffic issues and utility issues so that we know what we're working with. In our particular case, if we have something resembling a green light that says, you know, we can get our arms around residential at this triangle, and we really want you to continue to work very closely with Kathy and John and the folks from Marriott. I mean, those are the kind of guidelines and direction that I think gets this going forward. In the absence of that, you know, we would be in limbo and we probably would work with what we know. So I hope that answers it somewhat. I don't want to speak for everybody here. No, I think that was good. One thing that we've always looked at and my background is with the Hazel Peterson companies, Peterson companies for 15 years before starting the office for Regency seven years ago. My involvement there was with master plan communities. And when you're looking at the master plan and when you're thinking about this as a larger area than just a six acre shopping center, we bought Regency wanted a six acre shopping center. We bought Regency Wanted, a six acre shopping center. That's what we do. But when you look at North Facts as a 30 to 40 acre quadrant of Fairfax, the intersection of 123 and Fairfax Boulevard, it brings a lot more into effect. When we were doing Fairfax Corner at Peterson companies, the project was in the woods on the wrong side of 66. But what we were able to do was start with a residential component, bring people and density to the area and blend into that the retail component. So we started with residential and we moved into the the retail. This layout, this quadrant and our being on the far east side of the same type of area, same type of block is a similar principle. So what we're looking at doing is just being the catalyst to start the overall development of which, as Jay mentioned, we want to be a part of being retail of people for the rest of the block. And truly, the high density commercial best location here is 123 and Fairfax Boulevard. So what we're trying to do is pull in from the sides. We don't control anything on the west side, but we see this as a good catalyst for the east side and moving across. And this side hopefully would be part of that transition going from the residential east side to the stoop side, progressing and you'll see the darker red is retail. That's about 16,000 square feet of retail. That would be restaurants and small shops and stores that would then enable you to progress towards more high density, node that, you know, main and main in 15123. I think also the city has an opportunity to really create a special place with the area in front of this. It's currently now what would be under the storm sewer, about a 35 foot buffer area. That would enable you to really create a wide linear park that would give pedestrian, or both residents in the buildings, and pedestrians are coming to the retail a place to walk and a place to be. And if you interspersed that with smaller pocket parks that create more relief both a walking as well than open more in just space with bouncing and so on. That could help create something here for people to come to, for people to know they're really in the City of Fairfax which is a great place. Let me see if there's other questions and comments as we continue the dialogue. Any other at this stage, Mrs. Cross? Thank you very much for being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to ask some really general questions as developers. What role do you have, having looked at this, reviewed this, and worked on the beginning elements of your project, how inhibiting, what were the factors in this outline inhibited the creative process and the economic considerations and all of that that you had to factor in to come up with what you, to progress to the point that you have now. This is where I have, I understand the concept of having flexibility. I also understand the necessity for having a vision that you can work within. And so that goes to the design process and how you work within whatever it is that we envision for the project. You know, let me answer that two ways. If I could, the first is, and I'll be real candid, I don't think personally I would be involved in a project of this scale. I think I would stick with retail if it wasn't in the city of Fairfax. So I, please take that as a compliment. I think the, the history that I've had working with the city council and staff enables me to personally, and I think Taylor would say he was comfortable acquiring this property and thinking outside the box because of the experience I had. Maybe a little self-serving to say that, but I mean it sincerely. There's a lot of risk that comes with projects like this, incurring the property as long as we have is a reflection of the fact that I think the city can and is committed to doing something here that's special, that while the Dover Coal Plan was generated, that wasn't the end result. It was just the first part of a process that was a reflection of that commitment. So, you know, what was inhibiting, what was inhibiting is that that was somewhat rigid. It was one plan on a piece of paper that covered a huge area relatively speaking. That was just not possible to implement. It was impossible. There's fragmented ownership, unreasonable people that own some of their real estate, you know, long-term leases, all kinds of mitigating factors. If it were looked at as a plan, a guideline, that this is what you have to do. If it's looked at, as I think that we looked at it as an idea and a concept of how to improve areas. I think that we took that from the plan and are trying to kind of step on board with that concept to provide you know a little more detail the design guidelines, the J reference that Randy has put together to help take that diagram to another level. I think that's fair. I think if that plan was to stick with the altitude and allergies, 50,000 feet and we're now at maybe 10, we got to get down close to the ground, you know? And I think ultimately easier said than done, but it can be done. And I think while there were inhibiting factors to it, I think the fact that the city, I think, is embracing this and wants to do something that is significant. You know, we're on board to do that. Good. Good answer. Could I finish? Sure. Mr. Donnick, can you have done worked on many projects within the city and work with city staff on making those happen? What is your opinion, put you on the spot here as to the the advisability of going with form base code? I would not sit here and say I'm an expert on that. So with that caveat, I think what I understand it to entail is a a flexibility that's built into some fundamental principles. And while that feels fuzzy, kind of glad it's fuzzy, because I would be nervous about something that was overly rigid. And if it's a form-based code, it's different than that. Someone needs to tell me. But I think that's my understanding that you're putting in some principles that are fundamental, but you're not dictating specific land uses on specific parcels. It's somewhat flexible and looked at from a macro sense. This is probably a perfect case study for that. Okay. This is cross before you go. You know, as we sit here in struggle where we need to go from the city side of the equation, the form-based code was a phrase that had kicked out very early in this process. A lot of people grabbed onto and understood it. The dilemma that I have as I look at that is for us to go rewrite our zoning ordinances and move into that process. It's a six-month year, year and a half, two year process, even under the best antenna. I guess the question I would have is, is there something in our current ordinances that would prohibit the vision that you've outlined or that we couldn't work within if speed and time, if I heard your presentation. And I think it's going to be consistently held throughout the rest of the discussions tonight are important. How do we balance, and I'd love to hear the staff's viewpoint too, but how do we balance those two things? Is the horse we're right now so broken we've got to go in a different direction to get what you and others need to be done, or can we work within that frame act and save the time and the energy and still need to be done, or can we work within that frame act and save the time and the energy and still get to be in the game? I think one way that I know jurisdictions have often done this is, I mean, say two things. On the form-based code first is that I think they're often very good ideas, but the difficulty is often implementing them. You get the worst of both worlds. For example, in Columbia Pike, they've had a longstanding form-based code, and despite the developments coming up all around them, that it has, at least from the developer standpoint, really been a barrier to development and made it more difficult because you really didn't know what you were going to get. But it makes sense, I think it's a legitimate interest of every city to want to be able to have a say of making sure good stuff is coming in. And so how do you develop something that lets you rationally critique what's coming in. And so how do you develop something that lets you rationally critique what's coming in making shorts meeting your goals. And so one of the things that Archstone has done is with these planning principles that we again began sketching out and working with David Hudson, but would then later further refine once we've met with the stakeholders in the community, once we've met with the planning staff, planning commission, so on, that would give you objective criteria against which you could evaluate future development coming down the line. The next issue, just forgotten what is the primary question? Well, is this a form- Form- Form- Oh, and now, okay, and here's one way other jurisdictions can do it. It's an overlay zone rather than changing all the zoning's or coming up with a form-based code for the entire boulevard. You can create an overlay zone for certain areas that have limited impacts on them, it scopes that allow you to do what you want to do into those areas. I hit head on the second part of that which is the whole timing and how we reconciled that and let me defer to David and maybe put him a little bit on the spot in a second but I don't think there's anything that I've been involved in the city that was by right. It felt by right, it looked like it was in the zoning ordinance but it really wasn't And ultimately we had to agree on what could happen there, even in cases where everybody wanted to do it. So, I mean, practically speaking, as I sit here, everything takes longer than you think and it costs more. So ultimately, if the conclusion was, let's wait till the zoning ordinance is rewritten and it's form-based code or whatever we want to call it, that would scare me, honestly. I would be very candid and say, I don't think we have that luxury. What I do think is that, and some would say, well, that's backwards, but I don't know that it is. If we can agree on, this is a right development for this property and do it dovetailing with the principles that are going to be outlined in this code and go forward with the land use approvals and ultimately site planning building permit. I think that's the way it needs to work. That has been my experience with the city, whether it was on the Harris-Teter redevelopment or Old Town or Frank's nursery recently, et cetera. That's the way it's worked. I hope it can work that way here because I do think that's compelling. Yeah, I think you develop a form based code for two reasons. One is to implement your vision in any locality. And second is to provide, so in a a sense it helps define the vision. And secondly to provide an incentive, the whole notion of a form-paced code isn't to impose more restrictions on developers. Rather it's supposed to say we've got a vision and you got a code here that lets you do it without a bunch of hassle. Come on in and it's an incentive. It's supposed to save time. It's supposed to a lot of the public process is supposed to have already been hashed through by the time somebody gets to that. In our case, we pretty much have a vision. As it relates specifically to north facts, Anyways, we don't need an incentive for somebody to come in and implement our vision if we indeed have a vision. And so waiting for a foreign based code, if that's the question, I don't think it's particularly necessary as it relates to this, mainly because we don't need an incentive. We already have a developer on hand. I think it will become useful for a base code as we, notwithstanding how others have other localities have implemented for base codes, design for base codes, I think you can design them to do what you need to have done. And ours would be different from Arlington's, which would be different from somebody else's. But I think that it does provide the incentive or can help provide the incentive for as we start developing these sites within the centers for the remainder of the sites to want to get on board because what they can and can't do is more clearly defined through the zoning curve. to get on board because what they can and can't do is more clearly defined through the zoning code. Ken our existing ordinance is accommodate what we need them to occur or what we want them to accommodate. Yep, they can. We have traditionally used the special exception process over lay zoning districts throughout the last 20 years and we could continue to do that. I would say that in any development application that comes in the short term, that's the way I would plan to do it, is to try to run them through all these special exceptions. Now, philosophically, conceptually, in terms of perception of the community, it looks like when somebody comes in with a development and it has 20 special exceptions associated with it, it looks like that a city council or a planning commissioner is saying, you don't have to live up to our standards. And the reality of it is that they are implementing our vision. So we do need to have a set of regulations ultimately that don't make it look like that we're granting special favors for anybody that comes down the pipe to redevelop a piece of property. Our regulations do need to reflect our ideals and our vision for the corridor. Again, that can be through a form-based code. It can also be for an overlay district as Randy suggested. We, in fact, I'm just kind of less than I have done a great deal of work on fleshing out a potential alternative or in-term step to a form based code. The form based code process is still kind of new. We don't have a lot of models to look at and it will take some time to do that. I think that an option for us is we're looking to implement whatever the master plan or the comprehensive plan as it relates to redevelopment of the corridor. An interim step might be for us to develop an overlay district. As was suggested and to try to, about the issue of the public hearing process. I don't know if I can tell you about the issue of the public hearing process. I don't know if I can tell you about the issue of the public hearing process. I don't know if I can tell you about the issue of the public hearing process. I don't know if I can tell you about the issue of the public hearing process. I don't know if I can tell you about the under existing regulations. Yeah, I personally think a foreign base code is a good and useful incentive, but I don't think that it's necessary that we have that on the ground before we start to implement our vision. But what we do have to have on the ground is our vision. Right. Right. This cross? I think the only thing else that I wanted to touch here is and you've covered it to some degree is what the city can do to motivate landowners to get on board with this new development. I think we have an I would say an exceptional number of landowners in the Fairfax Boulevard corridor who have, who no longer live here, who are sitting on properties breaking, making very nice incomes on their tenants in those. What motivates them to make a change, to sell the property, to join forces and consolidate and move forward? So Randy just jotted a little note and I let him elaborate on that momentarily. People are largely motivated by financial incentive. I mean, when all is said and done, we're working, I won't be specific, but we have a restaurant in our project. And there's some interest in perhaps relocating that. But as we look at options, it really comes down to, and you make it worth someone else's while. Exactly what you described. They're option T owners. They have properties that might suit their needs. But ultimately, it has to work financially. So that's reality. There are other ways to do it. I think ultimately, by redeveloping something next door, it is a catalyst. I mean, those are words we throw around, but it really does motivate, I think, the joining property owners to do something because it will be more rewarding, not because they're embarrassed or not because, you know, that what they're doing wasn't working, but it could be better. They could make more money. And ultimately, working, but it could be better. They could make more money. And ultimately, that's what it comes down to. I mean, there's things that Randy, you can talk about, things a city can do, that can facilitate timing of those things and the quality of it. I think, and that's critical. Why don't you jump in on that? Well, I think it's helping out with many of the conditions, I guess, let me back up. This particular case, thinking about here, the detention plant on the storm water there on the end, that right now is overgrown, covered in trees. And I know the city is thinking about both road widening as well as a major storm water change. Helping us work through that, being a partner to take those city infrastructure projects and integrate them into the development. I think it's essential for this specific project to be more. I know also you have on your book's a tax incentive program. And that is I think thinking through that and the incentives the city can give future developers to come to your area, I think are all other key things to bring to make development happen along the corridor. Thank you. If I can bring could add to that, when you do have pieces of property that are centrally located and not centrally located with a bad looking shopping center, a junkyard, an start an old V. facility that's half torn down. It's very hard for anybody to sit in the middle of that, a despondent landowner or a landowner, and say, gee, what should I do here? If we could start from one side and start working across, I think it makes it a lot easier for other landowners to start from one end of north facts and work across 123. You can eventually keep improving the entire area. So the catalyst, the start. And I think a key thing that I can articulate well is to send signals to the development community that Fairfax City is a place That you're looking for the business and it's not just in financial incentives But in being a reliable partner through the entitlement process of You know doing a clear job of you know making sure you have a vision and it's being implemented and you're protecting the public's interest But also saying that look once this development gets, the next four developments will be reliable places that you know the rules and everyone's playing by the rules so that there's more incentive for people to come in and pay more in the city of Fairfax than they would in all the other competing jurisdictions. Because in this environment, the development dollar that's being spent on new site acquisition is shrinking. And more jurisdictions are competing for that business. Thank you. I'll give you a real example here too. We shared with you that we're not yet under contract. And there's really no negotiations. We've agreed to terms. But inherent in those terms or reflected in the contract are what's going to happen with utilities? What's it going to cost? What's the road network going to be like? There were assumptions built in that we can work together to get there. If we thought that we couldn't, and we wouldn't even enter into the contract, but in that contract, a study period, limited amount of time where these things have to get sorted out. So if this is the first formal step, if you will, it will be it. You know, I think that's the path we're on. And I don't know. I feel better just sharing all this openly. It's odd. I don't know that, you know, it typically curses way, but here we are. There we are. Mr. Mayer. I was pleased that you talked about core principles as a, as a Neophyte on Council here. I'm, I'm, I want to do a lot of listening and learning of the specifics and understand where you and others like you are coming from. Um, you know, there's a famous comment about architecture that first we shape our cities and then our cities shape us. Many of you all heard that. And, you know, as a citizen, I've watched over many years the whole tug of war between development and redevelopment. It's always seems to be somewhat easier for anyone to go into a vacant space and develop it rather than redevelop it because redevelopment has all kinds of issues, whether they're financial or environmental development. So I'm pleased that you are focusing on this redevelopment. development usually awaits market forces to create the pressures to make it more viable. And I think that's really what we're talking about now with respect to this corridor. It's been a long time. It had to kind of percolate until forces have created to make it more viable for private capital to come in. With respect to redevelopment, and again, I'm talking at 20,000 feet here, and if you'll just bear with me for a moment, you can understand where I'm coming from, and then we can get down to a little lower. But I do believe that any kind of redevelopment, particularly this north fax, should in its design and function pay homage to the traditions and values of a community. 40 years ago it was kind of the reverse. Urban designers had a philosophy and they expected the community to kind of buy into that. And so I do commend at least your words about paying homage to it. And I also liked your comment with respect to Archstone's market niche and who you were focusing on because I, the housing component, the residential component of any of this project is a significant concern to all of us because of how it may change the dynamic of the city. And I would like to see the residential component of these projects to be a portal for persons to come into this community as young people, transition perhaps from that area to our traditional residential experiences that we have. And then for older residents who have been here a long time to go back to that portal. And so it would be a complete life cycle for our residents. We do not have a lot of residential space that allows that to happen, either at the price point or in its design and function. Also you made reference to the public infrastructure. And another phrase that we've all heard is that oftentimes public dollars rush in, we're private capital, more hesitant to try and we did the project here in downtown and it resulted in approximately 40 million dollars of public infrastructure upgrades and I may have my numbers off a little bit but and we were all of us both the city staff and the citizens and the developers were sort of cutting our teeth with respect to the project of that magnitude. Any one of the centers along Fairfax Boulevard are in order of magnitude for more significant than what we've already done. And I would hope that as we move forward that we would have a little bit more precision, a little more certainty as to what public infrastructures are required to support these projects. And when the city's commitment come into play on that timeline and how that financing would occur. So I would, again, those, 20,000 foot principles. And with respect to form-based code, I thought that was a very good discussion that we had. And it was kicked around a lot in the last six months and people asked me about it. I was kind of paraphrased the Supreme Court's decision on pornography. I really don't know what it is. I can't describe it to you, but I'll know when I see it. I would like for us to embrace the principle of regulatory flexibility that we have exactly what I think David Hudson said at best that we know what we want and we also will not apologize for certain quality standards, but we are not dogmatic and will be flexible in how we apply them. So as a new personal counsel, those are some of my thoughts in response to your initial presentation and I'm mostly concerned with respect to the financial requirements of the city to make this happen because the citizens expressed some significant concerns about the costs that we incurred in the last project. They not that they were necessarily opposed to it, they just expressed concerns about the uncertainty throughout that process. And I will share with you one conversation I had with a small landowner along the Boulevard who is in the Northax area, whose grandmother was the principal owner of the elderly mother, said, you know, this was a project, it's a property that the family's own for a long time. There's no mortgage, there's a steady income, and it provides for her, but at this point for us to join in a partnership, take on a huge amount of debt, reduce our positive cash flow, knowing in the long term, at least, we'll reap a more significant economic benefit and on paper would be worth a lot more. Is a tough hurdle for that particular owner to overcome. So I think in every circumstance, there's always going to be unique considerations. And so bringing those parties to the table, particularly in the minority status, is something that it's going to require some ingenuity to make sure that people's interests are accommodated and and also meet our overall objectives. So those are some of my random thoughts on that. Appreciate it. Mr. Traumann? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, everybody, for being out here, especially the detail of the drawings or beautiful, especially like the balloons. My two-year-old, three-year-old, and seven-year-old, they apply a charter, we check and grab them. So this would be illegal, by the way. I request one base goes. You know, the timing of the discussion is impeccable. Justice Morning, the Washington Post had a front page story. The headline was, gas prices apply breaks suburb migration. And when you read the story and there's a pretty big spread on it, it talks about how people, because of gas prices, because of energy costs in general with their homes, because of the fact that they don't have shopping centers and grocery stores and public facilities that are within proximity, especially walking proximity, they're rethinking where they live. And I think that is good for the city of Fairfax, especially when you look at North Fax and where we are. And Mr. Gongen, you made a comment to me or made a comment to the Council, excuse me, about the need to start your property and move westward. And I see a lot of value in that. I agree with Mrs. Cross and I agree with Mr. Meyer that there's any for vision, there's our need for principles. In fact, if you look at the first principle of this plan, which I think all of us appear agree upon, it talks about how this is a living document. It talks about how that we're going to revise the existing land development regulations and developers can be allies. I mean, they're all the right buzzwords. So I guess the question is, is that in moving forward, in the heart of heart, do you feel that the residential complex, as you envision, and as envision by archdom it's going to provide that catalyst or with a retail provide that catalyst because obviously as it has been alluded to moving to the residential is a bit of a change excuse me a change for the city for the same time again as I pointed out in the article as you see in the news there is a move toward making communities which, you know, have tight knit residential units, obviously keeping in size and scale with the communities for which they serve. But what is your feeling? Would the retail provide that same sort of catalyst? Or are you in need of that residential component? I can hit that one head on. It would be disingenuous to say that retail couldn't work there because it can. It would be better, a lot better. It will get, in my opinion, a much stronger tenet mix in a much higher quality project if the location is better. And as you get toward 123, retail is going to want to be close to 123 when all said and done. And the residential component will make that even stronger because clearly those are the folks that are going to be patronizing and giving activity to this now rather quiet quadrant, if you will. So I think I'm quite comfortable sitting here saying it can work as retail. It did and it will going forward if that were the case, but putting a substantial high quality residential component that has a retail piece and then moving west and picking up in a meaningful way, a more substantial high quality retail development. I think that's good planning. Just to follow up on that, I appreciate your comments, is when you look at the master plan that's been drawn on, look at the principles that have been drawn on, you get a sense that the project that you're talking about, the residential project, is where we want to go. As we look at their vision of Fairfax Boulevard, what the community told us. And I think at the end of the day, we want what's best for the community. Working with our allies and the development community, we want what's best for the community. Working with our allies and the development community, we want to best for the community to create that sense of place. So I guess what I'm offering here is, we've had the discussion about form-based code. We have the discussion about the master plan is providing, is providing more facts as something of a template, if you will, to move forward with something with a residential component that provides that spark that catalyst. Because what I have a fear of, and I'll tell my colleague this, my fear is that if we continue to delay things, to some extent, don't get throw debate to it and don't do diligence. But if we delay things too much, we're going to miss our mark. And we're not going to have the day when we can be on a different page of the wash compulsive about what we did right for our community. And that will then provide an opportunity for us to start looking at code and warnances over the distance. But I do feel that we need to start somewhere. I will say this with a caveat though. I do have a bit of a concern that not all the properties are assembled, but it seems that some discussions might be in place which might be able to provide some assurance to all of us that at least the direction will be in one for which we want to go. So with that, those are my comments. Mr. President, thank you. Thank you. With just your triangle of the bigger triangle and the bigger triangle, do you see anything that you're planning as inconsistent with a street grid system? Not at all, but I think we need to lay it out. We talked globally about university, for example, I think, you know, where that goes and how it's extended, you know, I think we'll influence how this triangles developed, for example. Does this layout, this layout accommodates both the connection of university all the way through to Eton. If that's the desire of the City Council, or it does not need to do the connection all the way through to Eton. It also would accommodate a connection from Orchard if a connection from Orchard and a bisection of the bigger parcel was what the City Council wanted. And this may be more detail than you want. Even the University connection, you have one of the principles is not to back up to a road. Well, there's buildings on both sides of the University extended that face the road. So, I mean, there's a small example of something that can't be implemented. And we have designed, you'll see a building on that, but we've actually designed a, think about a two-story open space open space fly over the street. It creates a significant visual element as you're coming down university towards the FX Boulevard, helping the census place to this corner. I noticed that most of your, well, all of your retail was fronted on what would now be basically the intersection of university and the boulevard. Does pushing university through there cause any problem for the retail? The, I mean, you guys are the, no. Showing answers now. I mean, I think the frontage on Fairfax boulevard is significant and at a light at university gives it some definition. You might be able to turn the corner so to speak with retail, but I think what you have on Fairfax Boulevard works very well. Thank you. Other? Mr. Tombys. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In this small triangle, what is the gray box there? That's a above ground parking deck. And so what we would do is take the surface parking and solidate it all into that. And then it would be wrapped on three sides by the residential building. And for somebody who's coming to the retail, would they be able to park there, is that conceptually a residential parking area, reserved parking for people who would be coming to shop in the retail. The plan is to have retail parking in that deck. Yeah. Maybe. And then also go in some service parking. And some service parking as well in front. Surface? Along the street. Surface, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. Sir, I'm sorry. of summary that we developed in the master plan, we talk about specifically on this property, the five two configuration that I know we've had a lot of offline discussions and what I've taken out of that is the reality that while it may work in other areas, it doesn't work for your project in this specific location. Can you just share a little bit of insight into that and when I'm here and as you it prefers we move forward to leave the road in front of your project, the way it is now is opposed to and go in the Lineal Park concept. Can you share just a little bit of the pros and cons of the 5-2 and what impact that would have, I assume, negatively on your project if we decided to pursue that? I think one of the initial motivations of the 5-2 and initially came out and was popular in some jurisdictions is creating a buffer between the active street and then creating a local turn-off lane. In our experience, we have found that the 5-2 lanes actually create an unwelcome distance and separate any retail that would be on that front from the cars coming in. And that's what you really want. You want drive by traffic, seeing retail and stopping. But instead of the five, two, which is okay, but what is even better is we created that linear park, which instead of privileging the car, you're now privileging the pedestrian who's walking through. And this becomes a public amenity that is available to everyone in the city rather than just the car striving through. When I'm downtown and it's not that often DC and you have as an M Street case street thank you you know it doesn't feel great done feel safe it doesn't it isn't inviting to retailers the convenience of the parking doesn't feel safe. It doesn't, it isn't inviting to retailers. The convenience of the parking doesn't seem to exist to me. It's not really there. This linear park is not like we're just getting more density there. We're creating a space that's really user friendly. And we think it's the signature, if you will, to this triangle anyway. It may be that that two lanes make sense elsewhere along the corridor. I think every parcel, if you will, or different areas may stand on their own. But I think here we're absolutely convinced that this is a signature type development that's going to set it apart and really be very nice from a community pedestrian standpoint. As a practical matter, thinking what does it give you, it gives you a chance to push out tables in front of a restaurant, it gives you a chance to have a winding place for people to walk, push strollers right a bike. That's the tradeoff of what you're getting. Kind of like what you have right out front here. I mean the width of the sidewalks and green space that you have right in front of the city hall is similar to what Randy is talking about in this linear park to give you a better idea. The one thing that we had a lot of discussion on the 5-2 in early designs, when you do have the 5-2, you've got the ease of that commuter traffic from Fairfax Circle to Fair Lakes, or straight down 50. If we were to keep it at the two lane, it's going to force more people who are commuter traffic to get up, eatin' and on to 66 as opposed to trying to go through this part of the boulevard that we're trying to turn back into something that's more town-oriented, city-oriented. or town oriented, city oriented. Two last things. And this to me is the big one. And we've talked about this offline, but I'll just lay it right on the table for discussion. And I think as policymakers on our side of the equation, it would be fairly easy to buy into the exciting plans you've got in the artwork and the lineal park and all the things with it. You know, when we started down this process and if you really look at the core of what I believe the consultants were talking about on the master plan, was the consolidations of property and building it all as a plan and at one time is opposed to the cookie cutter approach. And I understand the realities of where we are. But I'll just throw out the question because I know it's going to be out in the community as my biggest concern is we this unfolds is especially for this property is if we say okay we understand we got to start somewhere. We understand you're the right people, and you're having dialogues to try to consolidate, and are willing to step to the plate and do that. And I do believe that you are doing that, and have some insight into that. But as a community, twofold, A, what happens, this is the end of the master plan of this project. We have landowners that decide they like the cash flow, is Mrs. Cross defined, or they want to keep a gas station there. The Bank of America just says, you know what, this is a great location, and we're really not interested in moving. So on the one side, I would say, and I don't know, maybe this is a hypothetical thing I'm putting out there, but it certainly is a concern I I'm putting out there, but it certainly is a concern. I know has been discussed up here is, you know, where's the leap of faith? And where's it start? And where's it stop in that? We start this process. And we don't end up with a really nice apartment complex and nothing else happens. And that is a realistic possibility as we go through this that could take place not a preferred, but just any general thoughts or comments? I do have thoughts on that because it, I can't sit here and say that that won't happen. I mean, we don't know what the markets are going to say. The financial markets are in turmoil right now. And the fact that we're sitting here talking about this is remarkable. In some respect, you have deep pocketed, committed folks. So I mean, so the market will bear on that. Certainly as it relates to timing. You know, doing nothing is a strategy, but doing nothing ensures that that our piece will be fixed up and renovated and it'll be it'll be nice, but it'll be single story retail and will forever I think shape that quadrant. It's not to say that it it compromises it forever but it just sets it back in terms of what it could be as opposed to 3040 acres in a master vision you know it's it's it's an improvement over what's there but it isn't as much as it could be. Those that's the challenge here today I think because there is a leap of faith that could be. That's the challenge here today, I think, because there is a leap of faith that's required. As I'm sitting here, and I don't know if this is a great example, but I'll share it with you, when I was involved, I was 10 or 12 years ago now, with the old fault graph. That was an absolute ISO in the community, and I remember using words like, it's a gateway to the city, and I was new to the city and I meant it but it was in many ways the start of something good. And I remember getting a phone call from the original developer who didn't ultimately develop all town saying, Jay, do not do what you're doing. It's not enough density, it's wrong. Wait for us and I said with all due respect, we're not waiting. You know, this is going to work well. It will be, I think, complimentary to what you're going to do. They never did it, but it was complimentary. I think it was a first class project. Doesn't have Harris-Teter today, but it was a huge improvement. And I think did jumpstart development in Old Town. And while it's not apples to apples, I think there's a corollary here that, you know, we've talked a lot about Fairfax Boulevard, but it's only been done in small little increments. This is a chance to take a much bigger bite in what is arguably, in my opinion, the key intersection. I think Camp Washington's significant Fairfax Circle may be less so, but I think this is main and main. And, you know, I think it does require a leap of faith. I can't say it and say it's a sure thing, but it's a great start. If I could just segue into the flip side of that, let's say it is a great start and it gets other night owners excited specifically on this block. And they look at your project, which is an apartment, rental apartment complex, which is the flavor of the month. I used that phrase, but you know, three years ago, you couldn't get anything other than a residential condo. Now everybody wants to build rental apartments, and we'll hear that more later on. But let's say there's, you know, another landowner right now that has another big portion of this already assembled. Just not as part of that. And they come and say, you know what? We don't really want to risk the retail market, the office market soft. And we want to build a J. Downigan 2 right next to it. And we want rental apartments as well. And I'll ask this question to staff later too. But that to me is as big a concern that while we're getting to staff later too, but that, to me, is as big a concern that while we're getting excited about, quote, a master plan, those land owners are going to have rights and opportunities too, and how, in your opinion, do we control a master plan build out as opposed to, we turn the whole block into nothing about rental apartments? Well, I think you can influence it. I mean, I think that's the blunt answer back that ultimately you can dictate what land is used for. And if it is the failing of the council and the city that enough's enough, and this was the catalyst and the rest should be retail in office and a quality hotel like Marriott will do, if that's the vision, implement it. And in my opinion, being a retail developer, I think retail is the right use at 123 and Fairfax, over. I think it can be substantial and high quality. Will it happen next year in this market? I don't know. I mean, it might be five years. But I think you're setting the table for that. There is risk, but I think the city has to shoulder, if you will, some of the responsibility as we develop this together. Well, let me just say I know on behalf of my colleagues, thank you for the honest and frank conversation. I think this has been most helpful. What I'd like to do is ask that you just stay there for a second and Mr. Napolitano, if I could invite you up to the table as we expand this dialogue. We're still talking about Norfax, but now we're talking about Norfax West. And I know it's a little bit more conceptual than what we've heard earlier, but you've been a valued partner in this process from day one and a leader in where we've gotten to today. and maybe could you just share any comments you may have to what we've already heard and anything you want to add in terms of North Facts West and how it complements or doesn't compliment how you see us moving forward. Absolutely. And thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council, for having this meeting because I sort of sit here threefold. One, as an owner of a real estate company that has four office buildings in the city of Fairfax. Secondfold, as chairman of the partnership that has spent an enormous amount of time on this what we call the master plan and the vision. And then thirdly and importantly, quite candidly, 10 acres of property that's probably larger than both these pieces that we're speaking of now. And in all those instances, I'm very much in favor of this conversation of starting this quadrant sort of with the thinking that the whole quadrant real in fact become a sense of place. One of the office buildings we have is already in this quadrant, if you will. And your question pertaining to would it be fair to the other property owners? I think it would be very fair to all the property owners to start with this type of a project because it enhances value. And the market kind of drives. I mean, whether or not this is the, whether or not this happens and this is residential, again, I'm all for it. And I think that it can be the catalyst. But market is going to also drive what component is going to be retail, what component may be office. We all know that office product is a great product for a community. It requires very little services and as a high tax base. And our hope is that this become an area where people do actually live and work. And the article that Mr. John referred to, I've read myself and I think the idea of creating a sense of place with walkable amenities starts with this project. So I guess I just want to be clear that as someone who has negotiated 10 different contracts from 10 different private owners buying 15 lots and actually being part of spending the dollars to do this, we're 100% behind this meeting and this particular project. Great. Does anybody, any questions, Mr. Palatana? He has a wealth of knowledge obviously well beyond just his particular project and leader of the bid for the last several years. Any Mr. President? I wanted to ask one question, because of obviously a weird experience from the bed and the work that you've done as someone the properties. And this is for all of you actually. One of the things that I think all of us here on the council and the community value is the sense of place, the small town community. We always talk about size and scale as well. I don't wonder if you could provide some insight in terms of how we get that sort of size and scale and keep that sense of place, continue to have that small town field which is something that makes us attractive and separates us apart from the rest of Northern Virginia. How do we do that while at the same time ensuring that we get the sort of amenities and residential housing and the retail and everything else that we're talking about? How do we balance that? I think at the end of the day I think we're speaking to myself. That's one of the concerns for like over where that I have it's making sure we have the The side of the scale that's appropriate for the community. So open up the next I would defer These gentlemen way more experts at the development of myself and I go I go back to the design guidelines and putting together some sort of guidelines that on small scale of what we've already discussed that will help ensure but not suffocate the design of future developments. Randy, you dealt with this in different. Yeah, it challenged that you always face in redevelopment is how to make the land worth more than the existing asset. And so on one side, you're looking for greater efficiencies of scale and density. But on the other side, you don't want a monolithic building that destroys what you got there. And so there are ways to break that up. One, you'll see in some of the handout is to activate the streetscape with multiple access points. So people are coming in and out, break up the size of those buildings, and also make sure you are drawing on precedence from the surrounding environment. So that you know, it fits into that place. That it's not one street wall, but comes in and out, the buildings go up and down. These are ways to make something that needs to be of a sizeable really, that's imperceptible to a person driving or walking or sitting on the street. But is nonetheless behind that that allows you to get the economics to afford something like buying a shopping. And I'm glad you brought that up if I may, Mr. Mayor, because that's, and this is the kind of why I reason I would direct Mr. Napolitano is you're, we're talking about establishing the consistent retail height and talking about varying the roof lines and all this sort of, right, right, what we're doing there. And you brought up the issue of commercial space. And I know that we've had some offline discussions too, but the need for commercial space in the city and such, and it's part of the master plan in the vision. But the issue here is that as we develop this spot here, are you of the opinion that this is going to sort of set the tone, if you will, from a size and scale perspective for the rest of what we do along the Boulevard, whether it's commercial, whether it's retail or residential. I think to a certain extent it will set the tone. I mean, I think it's going to be significant just in terms of the scale of it as you come west and you see the corner of Eaton Place and Fairfax Boulevard, so yes, it will. And I think it suggests that that kind of density, if a lack of a better word and quality is consistent. I think the linear part, we need to buy into that. If we're going to have this vision, it's critical, I think, to this development and the articulation that comes with that in these places that are created, I think, have to be consistently applied throughout this quadrant at a minimum. And how far it's extended east and west? I don't know. And these ideas that you have here were just initial working drafts and I think they need to really be refined within foot from the various stakeholders to make sure that if they do set the precedent, that's the right precedent that you all want to be setting for this area. And doing so in a flexible way that still allows the market to respond within the framework and principles that you guys are going to hold everyone else to. You know, one last question I have on the stormwater drainage and we're talking about obviously that's going to be important to the Norfax West. I don't know if it's ever been tagged that way, but I'm going to refer to it versus East. But does the Lineal Park, is there a lot of synergy that we can get between this project, if assuming it got approved in underway at the same time we're trying to build the Sturmwater Trainage, which we know is going to be challenged and expensive? And I mean, is there some trade offs on that that if the Lineal Park is something that the Council signs off on that can help us facilitate and accelerate the development of the Stormwater Drainage Project that we've been working on for decade or more. Go ahead. The tale is investigating this. Certainly, and I think that once the decision is made as to the road configuration, both the stormwater plan can go into effect and sit right underneath what would be the linear park. I think both of them work very well together. And in question for my, the road improvements will be, five, two would be a lot more expensive than working off the existing road network and building this any apart under which the stormwater system exists. Jay was just mentioning that the five to be much more expensive than the current than working with the stormwater and the linear park. Also in doing, if we were to do this project, we might be able to help expedite the stormwater system project. I know our friends from the Marriott Hotel are here in the audience with us. We've got another chair here, but we can always add more. Do you all want to come forward while we're still focusing on Norfax and add your thoughts or comments or to this is it unfolds. And just I see we're about to lose most of the council if I could, if we'll just bear through a few more minutes and then maybe we'll take a break. Otherwise, we might as well take a break now and we almost just lost four out of seven folks. So I think we're getting close to the end of the discussion in Norfax, but do you please? Well, very much appreciate the opportunity. Again, I'm Dave Lasso. I'm the attorney that's been working with Mayor at this is Tom Galley, Vice President of Development. And the discussion is terrific. I don't, we've been talking about it as it's been unfolding. It's important for you to know the plans for the hotel. This is a rendering. It's a concept. It's evolving a little bit. The screen causes it to flatten out a little bit. But it is designed using the principles that are in the draft master plan, which the plan called, this is a five-story building. It's 55 feet high. It's within the height limit, looking at what you've seen tonight for the residential or the mixed use component, very compatible in terms of height. The concept of having the building front on streets, we tried to draw compromise here that deals with one of the more challenging aspects of the timing of all of this discussion, which is the plan calls for a street grid, but there's no clear movement to establish that street grid. So this building, if you look here, you see the project site, that's the street grid that would be imposed by the master plan. University drive would go through, which you've accounted for in your development, it could go all the way to eaten or it could make a left and go out to chain bridge which in talking with the staff over the last several months seems to be a general desire so that you have an intersection at Route 123 with what would be a new university drive that would go into North Fax West. So it begins to divide up this area into very buildable and developable envelopes, which is really critical to your long-term prospects. It just happens that it also works well with our site, which is not a rectangle, or it's a bit, it's a bit oddly shaped. But we've accounted for that so that if there are, if there is a new university drive, you can see that there's going to, there would then be frontage on chain bridge and on university drive, which would allow for a wide sidewalk, extensive plantings, a retail appearing end, and it would provide for a transition to the retail area that could unfold on what is currently the footrucker site all the way down to Route 50. You know that area has got to redevelop. The gas station may simply go away when the drainage work is done because it's just going to be happening just in the way. So there's going to be changes occurring there. And we've taken a very difficult site that's got environmental issues. It's got just design issues in terms of its shape, anticipated the master plan, all with the understanding that it can accommodate what seems to be occurring. Fairfax City in terms of demographics needs extended-stay hotels. That's where the market is. This is very similar to a very high end full service hotel, but it relies on the adjacent uses to provide the restaurants, the dry cleaners, all of the support services that the residents want to have. And that sounds like it can begin to unfold as the plan matures. Tom and I have been involved in at least two other projects together in a relatively recent past which is going into revitalization areas. This is like that. Somebody's got to go first. Our plan is filed. It was filed over two months ago. It's been formally accepted by the staff. It's getting the full review. The owner wants to sell. Marriott wants to buy. But timing, as it's unfolding, we've participated in the master plan. Again, I'm speaking for time to try to move it along. We like Marriott very much likes what it sees. This is a very good place. It's a gateway site. So the building is designed to make a statement on behalf of the community and to establish a presence. The parking is to the rear. It's somewhat enveloped by the building itself, which, if the use is to the north, should unfold for redevelopment. Then you could have a parking structure, not unlike what you see in concept with the archstone, which is that the structure, which is above grade, can be essentially enveloped by the buildings. Again, a fundamental concept from the master plan and of course, which you've done in concept really in old town. So we're very much in favor of how you're proceeding. The zoning code for us to comment on that, it works. The use is allowed, the special exception gives you flexibility as you review this use. You can ask for certain changes to the design. You can impose conditions and Marriott can work with you. Form-based codes, please don't ask us to wait for a form-based code to be put in place. That's just going to take you some time. We have experience as well in Columbia Pike as a firm with form-based codes. They can work, but it takes a lot of hard work to get the specifics of what exactly you think you want to allow in a particular area. That's the whole purpose behind the form base. Literally, you're filling out a form. You're putting in what the parameters are of your development. It fits and it's allowed with relatively minimal review because it's already been done in the development of the code itself. That takes a while to do that. In Arlington's experience, they didn't anticipate what was ultimately presented to them so they had to go back and redo the form-based code. Here, you've got enough flexibility if you have a vision established and sounds like you're pretty much there. If you're not there, you can take a look at this. Your planning commission can take a look at it, the architecture, the Board of Architecture Review, and it gets going. And somebody will have gone first, and the other pieces can begin to fall in place. Tom? So that's a hit to put in the nail in the head. We've been talking about for the last two years and the projects. Where with you? Yeah. Okay. Any other comments? If not, you know, I'll just say this. I look at this table sitting opposite of us and we're damn lucky in the city of Fairfax to have the caliber and the focus and the commitment to it. And that we're not starting by having to create a master plan to solicit people into the city. We've got you all here. And that means a lot to us. And we certainly appreciate your patience and your involvement and your interest in partnering with us is this unfold. So we look forward to a continued dialogue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Why don't we take a five-minute break and we'll invite our friends from Camp Washington if they come up to the table and get set and then we'll re-adjourn in just about five minutes. We're good. We're good. We have this to David. Thank you. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go back to the place where I'm gonna to go to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not a man, I'm not to play a little bit more careful. I'm going to make a little bit of a hole in the middle of the hole. I'm going to make a hole in the middle of the hole. I'm going to make a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the Thank you. I'm going to go to the cityantilly, but I can't. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to go to the next one. Okay, if we could call the room back to order, we're going to continue our discussions with our stakeholders on the Fairfax Boulevard and we're turning our attention westward of where we just were up to the camp Washington area and if I could Mr. Britten turn it over to you to share with us your thoughts and your vision on the properties that you You have on the boulevard Thank you mr. Mayor The boys of pleasure be back and Talk to you about my little piece of land that I have up there I'm trying to redevelop into something substantial unlike Sedanica down the street American medical labs Property that I acquired Cali-Daw, I want to say maybe 15 years ago or or. And at the time, I needed it for car storage, but the car business has retracted just to TAD. And so now is a good time for me to unload property and develop it into retail, mixed use. And so I've been very lucky. I got a partnership with JPI and Aaron Liebert as a senior vice president. And we've come together and put a partnership together to take this and turn it into something I think which is very nice and mixed use development. Which I guess we've all been through the master plan and Fairfax Boulevard's awakening with John and the other people. But I think it makes more sense instead of going through all the history. It is a good time right now for me to do this development. I've been through all the Fairfax High School a couple years ago. We all had all the charat and all that kind of stuff with Dover Cole and that was very exciting. When we did it and then now it's time I think to go ahead and do it. I'm very fortunate with JPI's partnership because we're prepared to move forward and to build it and don't have to study it or go back to the capital market and look for money. Our partnership's unique. Where JPI has the wherewithal to make it happen. So I get sort of Aaron. Right. Well, I want to thank the council for having us here tonight. We're certainly relative newcomers to the City of Fairfax. JPI is a national development company, although our regional office is the largest office in the country and in McLean. We have a lot of experience in development projects around the region in Montgomery County and DC, Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax, but we haven't yet had the opportunity to get into the city. This opportunity presented itself probably about six months ago and so even within the time frame that the city's been working on the master plan, like I said, we're relative newcomers. What we were excited about when we engaged in this opportunity is that the city had already outlined in the 2004 comp plan in the recent summary that we had reviewed what their vision was. And for us, we like to row downstream. So when we see a master plan that outlines the same concepts and policies and design guidelines that we tend to do because of our mission, which is building quality for our customers, it makes our job a lot easier. So we're not trying to propose something that doesn't mix. That's too much density, too little density. So we were very excited when we first saw this opportunity. Well, quick, I want to thank the gentleman before me. I do want to say we are heavy direct competitors with Archstone. Certainly think they do a great quality project. And the fact that we're here tonight and that they were here tonight, it's pretty exciting for us because it means that certainly they believe, and we believe that this is a place that we can both be successful providing luxury, residential as well as mixed use in this community. There have been several instances where Archstone or JPI around the region of pioneered into neighborhoods and built projects only to be followed by more and more development. Recently, Archstone went into some areas of laurel that proved that that was an area that could warrant high rents and high values. And so they've done wonders there. an area that could warrant high rents and high values. And so they've done wonders there. So I want to thank them. We're also working with Jay on another project, so a great retell developer as well. As far as our opportunity here, we have many of the same challenges that you've spoke about before, however, with a little bit different twist. Our particular triangle in Camp Washington, I don't actually don't have the numbers and perhaps the city knows, but significantly more acreage with significantly less streets. It's kind of amazing, up between Germantown,, Lee Highway, and Fairfax Boulevard. There's not a single connection. We have large parcels, several industrial parcels, obviously a car dealership, the Dominion Power Parcel, the AML parcel, a couple small shopping centers, and then similar to Norfax, a Hodgepodge of some smaller uses. We have some townhouse condos. We have a couple gas stations. So a big mix of different uses in there, some of which are doing very well, some of the retail is doing very well, some of which, as in this property, are certainly under developed. So as we looked at this and as we compared the site to the master plan, we felt like there was an opportunity to deliver on the master plan, deliver upon the pedestrian orientation, walkability, the ground floor retail, as well as start to put in place a grid and a canvas for how the rest of the neighborhood could develop. So as you see here you can see outlined in the area that's on the screen AML parcel. These are the parcels that Gardener owns. Obviously a very odd geometry. On the northeast we have the Germantown Cemetery on the northwest gas station and the Dominion Power Parcel. On the southeast we have the Sussevich retail center and on the southwest we have the Clover Parcel. Obviously the parcel lines couldn't be any more, you know, gerrymandered in this property. So that was a challenge as we started to, as we started to approach it, and as we first looked at the survey, we thought this is going to be tough. What we kind of discovered as we got into setting up a street grid here was that it was possible to overlay a street grid with this parcel and with the neighboring parcels that would respect property lines and would respect the ability to develop over time and still work with the AML parcel and be able to provide the things that the master plan is looking for. As we talked as the council and the developer spoke in the previous meeting that the master plan speaks to consolidation. And within this parcel we've got 20 plus property owners. And so consolidation is very challenging. JPI has extensive experience in assemblages and they are difficult. They sometimes very often, especially in large assemblages, they collapse upon their own weight. Once you have one parcel and you add more, and you add more, and you add more, you're starting to talk about the size and complexity of development that is very difficult to pull off, especially in a redevelopment environment. It's one thing to go out into a loud and county, a hay market, and try to develop a couple hundred acres. It's very difficult to do that in the middle of an existing community. So our plan focused very much on flexibility with future development. So we've got a site plan up here. You can see the focus of the plan is to create a north-south connector and a break-cam Washington into smaller pieces and that's by extending Bevan Drive with a signal south through the site. But then that still creates two rather large parcels that even under the current master plan looked at being subdivided even greater. So we introduced an East West connector to connect to Germantown Road where there's already a signal. And the focal point of that intersection would be some kind of a traffic circle fountain, and that's where the core of the retail, the restaurants within the community would exist. Along both Fairfax Boulevard and Lehighway, we envision street level retail, pushed out against the street to create an urban pedestrian edge, but not with significant mass out on those streets. While I think residential could be successful out on those main drives. We think that in this particular opportunity we can center it in the middle of the site and away from the heavy traffic. And so the residential is centered in the two smaller parcels in the center of the site. So on Lee Highway we followed the same design with retail on the ground floor, single-story buildings, small amount of surface parking, but the idea here, similar to discussions at Norfax, is to get people into the site, get them into the structured parking garage. We don't need to build large surface parking lots anymore, people in this region are very used to parking and parking garages. Sometimes prefer them on a hot day or a snowy day. So we have two parking garages incorporated into the property that will allow for both residential and retail. But otherwise we have ground floor retail stretching the entire length of Bevan Drive and then allowing for future connectivity to the east and west. In the center core of the site, really kind of the town center in place, that's where we have the additional height. So, ground floor retail with four stories of residential above it, will create a real walkable and exciting environment. As far as I guess I can touch on a couple of other things that came up in the previous conversation, as far as public infrastructure, we're not looking for anything from the city in terms of public finance or extensions or offsite improvements. We believe that we can do all of the streetscapes, intersections under this plan. With the exceptional point out of the extension to Germantown Road, that extension goes through the Dominion Virginia Power Parcel. So we are providing for that in the future, so that the future street grid makes sense. But we don't intend, nor do we have the right to build that. So we will build up to the Dominion Power Parcel and allow for that future connectivity. But until they find another location to move those facilities to, we won't be able to extend that. Let's see. Touch on that. I will give you a couple of examples on the consolidation front. That came up as a question. That's probably our biggest concern with the master plan. It does come across in several locations and I certainly understand the validity for it and the desire for it. We worked on a project in Fairfax County, Virginia down in Alexandria on Route 1, and we started with a 28-acre shopping center that was a Chuckie cheese and a Michael's big surface parking lot, very unattractive, and working with the community and working with the county, the desire was to continue to consolidate it, because the neighboring uses weren't any more aesthetic. It was a mobile home park. McDonald's, a appliance store, a couple, ratty single-family houses that had actually been vacated. And we continued to add and add and add. And the site plan did get better but ultimately the entire deal fell apart because it became too large to build in certainly in today's market but even but even in yesterday's market so in this in this site we've certainly taken a lot of time to make sure that we can develop in the future but that we can also develop in the present. Another site on the other side of that story is a site that we're doing in downtown DC, which was in the post probably about 18 months ago, which is the old Nexus Gold Club, strip club, somewhat infamous in Southeast DC. And it sits in the corner of a 24,000 square foot block. It was owned by eight different property owners and we acquired the strip club, the boarded up house next to that, the boarded up house next to that, the empty lot and a transmission store. We acquired, I think from seven different owners we put this block together but there was one piece that we couldn't get. They just simply wouldn't sell. They just weren't motivated. Money wasn't a motivation for them. And had we waited for full consolidation, we would still be sitting with a strip club and a bunch of boarded up buildings, because that seller still is unmotivated to sell. And the result for us is we've got a 130-foot tall, 240 unit building with views of the capital, walking distance to the Metro, very, very exciting, 6,000 feet of ground floor retail. And so I just want to state that because in many instances where consolidation is the benefit, there's still a very nice project, one step behind that that I think that we can provide here. I'm certainly open to any questions about JPI. I didn't go into that at length. I can tell you, as a national company, we build to the highest end of the luxury residential market as I indicated very direct competitors with Archstone and provide condo level finishes but really for renters by choice in this market there are a lot more renters by choice because there's uncertainty about for sale We also develop condominiums however, we're still trying to sell some down in capital hill that we got caught with on the back end of this market. So if the market goes that direction and condos are more warranted, we're certainly open to it, but currently today and probably for the foreseeable future, the luxury rental market is much more easy to get financed and get funding for. and get funding for. Can you maybe just comment on some of the dialogue we had earlier in the night in terms of how you evaluate our current zoning ordinances and the timing of your project and is that a structure you feel you can work within or is that a structure you feel needs to be changed? Well, specifically as it relates to the form-based code, my only experience with it is in Columbia Pike in Arlington. And when it was first introduced, there was great celebration around it. It did take a long time for them to produce it. And there was a lot of excitement from the development community because they did design it in such a way that it was an expedited design process. If you met the guidelines, you got through the system very quickly. I think so quickly that they then realized that they lost a little bit of the control. So that if somebody met the guidelines to a T, that's what they got. But it's sometimes very difficult, three years in advance, five years in advance of a project to really see all the little nuances that come up. So I think that while a special exception process is a little bit more cumbersome, I think that it's perfectly acceptable on very complicated sites like this where every site is going to have its own particular issues. We're going to, at the end of the day, I think that we and Archstone are going to build very high-end quality projects, great retail, nice streetscapes. But along the way, we're going to each encounter some extremely different circumstances. So I think that having a special exception process is completely adequate. I think that going a form-based code while at the end result might be nice. I think it's very difficult on a geography that we're talking about here. Columbia Pike where they instituted it. It's a much shorter section without the varying connectors and nodes that we have here. So I think that what we have designed here, while it doesn't meet the letter of the law of any of your zoning categories, I think with the right process we can create a create a and the right partnership frankly We can create a project that that makes sense and Mr Maybe if you could share we talked about earlier on the options and or facts which Was either to move for it was sort of the plan that was presented tonight or doing just invest in the existing Retail center and go in that different direction is obviously you can't sit on this property forever and you've been probably remarkably patient as we've gone through this process but I mean what's the vision for the property if it's not something consistent like that have you even thought through that portion of it or well I guess I've had because of the Fairfax Boulevard master plan and some of the delays in the last two years, I've had to change my partners in my alignment because I had to go, I lost my previous partner and I had to get JPI. And like I said, I felt pretty fortunate to get somebody that had to share the share to some of the vision that we had with the mixed use. And they were with that. So if it if per chance, it didn't, you know, I have to go through rezoning and all this other stuff because my property is not zoned, it's just its own industrial in the middle. And I went through a lot of different real estate quote unquote experts trying to find out what the best and use for me and how I could get the best return. And because of the economy, most people say, well, if this JPI deal falls apart, you're gonna have to cut it up and split it up into which is exact opposite of what the city and the vision is, is to try to unify. They say, hey, if this didn't do, you need to take the industrial. I got a couple of people that wanna, like industrial is the storage lots and different things like that. I can cut that up and You know, I got some fast food guys. I want to express interest in the in the frontage Now the frontage is an easy part to deal with and then the middle is Industrial and I got some people that were kind of interested in that but the So cut it up in the smaller sites and doing different things that are not very pleasing both to the city and for less money for me because the smaller interior sites are not as worth as much as putting a big piece together and having a more unified You know, more unified piece for the city. So if it gets cut off, if this, if I lose my opportunity this time, it gets chopped into smaller sections because I have to do something sooner or later. I can't keep holding it because I don't, I don't need it anymore to store cars on. Since my business is retract, retracted there too so I guess how much mr. Greenfield how much residential how many units are you thinking we're still we're still very early in the design, but the numbers that we've talked about with Gardner and the 350 to 400 unit range, which is for a rental community right where it makes the most operating sense much bigger than that. You have a very difficult time keeping it full much smaller than that. You have a difficult time providing the residents with the type of amenities and service that we're accustomed to providing. So can you talk about the residential retail flex space about 20,000 square feet? Yeah, I think a couple times in the conversation, you know, we've talked about the market and, you know, what we would ideally like to provide is a feeling of a market common Bethesda row where you've got ground floor retail that stretches from Fairfax Boulevard to Lehighway. However, we're not retail operators. So we don't own cheesecake factory, and we don't own a Lara and those groups't own, you know, a Lero and those groups. And so we're generally subject to their desires. And there was, I think, an article in the paper yesterday about, you know, retail stores and bankruptcy and most national tenants curtailing. Fortunately for us, it's not as great in the watch, in the watch the market. But we do know of most of the national retailers and Taylor and J are more experts in it than I have stopped major expansion plans. So what we wanted to do is we wanted in our site plan to provide a baseline from which we can tell you that we can deliver the retail mixed-use streetscapes that I think the master plan is looking for. And so that's the orange or pink colors so if you go from Lehighway over to Fairfax Boulevard we've got 8,000 feet of retail, little teaser parking area and then another anchor retail above that retail we actually have residential on top and that's the focal point of the circle as you as you head towards the middle of the site, and really the furthest away from both of our major traffic connections, we've identified residential retail flex. That space in order of priority would be retail, office, and then residential. We would rather have retail, because it's an amenity to our residents. So if we have a restaurant down there, dry cleaners, a marvelous market, those kind of things, that's absolutely fantastic for us. The worst thing for us is empty retail. If we just had frosted overglass for that entire storefront. So what we would propose is just the option to provide retail. If that's not the best option, then have an office provision. So your realtors or Dennis, attorneys, title companies, things that people use and can be incorporated into streetscape. Unfortunately, they're not as exciting as a restaurant. And then if all else fails, and we're sitting there with empty retail, that we have the opportunity to turn it into a loft-like residential unit. It'll be fit out for retail, so I have high ceilings and I'll have exposed ductwork. But if down the road, it's just unviable as retail, then we'd want to make sure that it wasn't a failure. I think a lot of that success will be driven on whether or not down the road We can get that dominion power connection over the German town because that creates I create some exciting interplay of the circulation In your experience what typical rents would you expect for this type of a project? For the residential and believe we're looking at we translated into rent per square foot, which I can translate that into into units. But $1.90 is about the rent per square foot that we'd be looking for and so on a two-bedroom, two-bedroom unit of 1,000 square feet, it'd be about 1900 to $2,000. A one-bedroom unit then would probably go for $1,400 to $1,500. So rather significant. All right. What's your time frame? What are you looking for, man? This is the first time we had an opportunity to dialogue about this. But from the time you raised the property to Getting everything approved. Well, we'll get everything approved before we raise the property Gardner's communicated and we understand from his bank. He's got some pressure So we would we would ideally like to get through the initial stages of the approval process I think Gardner'd like to say stages of the approval process. I think Ardner would like to say the end of the year, I think, you know, first quarter of next year is reasonable. It then usually takes us about 12 months to produce construction drawings from that point. So we'd be under construction beginning of 2010. And a construction project like this from when we knock the building down until when we move the first person in. It's probably about 18 months. It can be shorter, but on a site like this we have some major internal infrastructure to do in terms of putting in this new street grid, this one water management and then you don't want to open until until it's really a place to live. You don't want to move into a construction zone. We've done that. We've tried to do that and and that's just as that's just as much a failure. So 2011 before the earliest in terms of somebody being there. The summer of yeah summer of of 2011. Yeah. And how do you or do you I guess that's the limit. Yeah. And how do you, or do you, I guess, address any of the transportation shortcomings in this area, you know, if Mr. Brittkin attests as well as anyone when you're camp Washington, traffic is horrible any time of day. And you're going to add 400 residential people who, for the most part, are going to have to, except for the retail that's going to be on site, are going to have to drive to work, may have to drive to a grocery store. So how do you, how do you fit that in here without doing anything to the transportation network? Well, I think what's been real interesting to see here lately, and we used to make this argument because when my wife worked downtown she'd actually take the bus and people just wouldn't believe me. We've seen a dramatic increase in mass transit usage here recently. I can't say that our entire community is going to ride the connector bus or ride the Womata, but I think I'm pleased to see that as somebody that's very much for mass transit. So this site does have very good access with bus lines. I think actually on both sides of the property. I think we're also, by connecting to both sides of the property, allowing people to take kind of the back door in and out to a large extent. So if the intersection down here is the problem during a particular rush hour, we've got other ways into the site. Thirdly, I'll say that of all the uses that we've discussed tonight, with the exception maybe of the extended stay hotel, residential is the lowest traffic generator of all those uses. So office and retail are significantly higher. So we'll be retail here even though it's a small fraction in the night time. We'll probably be more of the problem than the residential units. We built a project in Bucks County where they have absolute Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where they have absolutely no mass transit 360 units. We had one entrance. It didn't even warrant having a traffic signal. We had actually already paid the city for the traffic signal. We did all the studies, and we just doesn't generate peak traffic the way people think. It's not 400 people coming home at 5.30 in the evening. It's their coming home throughout all sorts of times of the day and evening. And that's not as It's not as much as you would think however throughout the process or the approval process We will obviously have to produce you traffic studies that can support that And if it comes back and says that it's that it's inadequate then We'll have to come up with a solution Until such time as there's a metro station to the west of the city, would you be able to run your own shuttle service? I mean, does 400 units warrant the development of your own shuttle service? It would take people to the Vienna Metro. You see the reason I ask you? You've seen that a lot in buildings in Alexandria on the fringes where there isn't mass transit right there. The closest might be King Street Metro or Bratik Road Metro and in these units that are being had been built that were built for condos converted to apartments because the condo market dropped out. They're running their own shuttle service so one one they're they're contributing to mass transit But they're not a drain on the local government in terms of forcing them to now handle that additional demand on their own bus networks Oh, it's a great comment two of those projects in Alexandria that have shuttles we built we built one at the Near the Eisenhower Metro but not quite near enough and so we ran a shuttle there and we also built a project at 395 in Edsel Road. It's actually 620 units and we're running a shuttle from that to the metro. So we're definitely open to that. I think that I'd want to just certainly research more the actual transit availability in terms of how long does it take the bus to get to the metro. And if that is not effective, then we'd absolutely be open to it. And we've done it on those two projects and we actually just agreed to do it up in College Park, Maryland to take people to the Green Belt Metro. So it's a great solution to that problem. Thank you. Stroudly. I thank you again for being here tonight. I really appreciate the work that you put into this and thank you again for your patience. So they continue to invest in the city. Just a couple of quick questions. And Mr. Greenfield would actually ask some of those. I was going to ask, so I'll save my breath on those. But in terms of the linear park concept that we saw earlier, what is your view on that? Could I think it goes to the transportation question that Mr. Greenfield is asking? Well we don't we don't have as much opposition to the 5-2 not to say that the comments that that were made by Jay and Archdom aren't valid i i certainly would agree with the case street analogy i hate case street and um... and so to put to put the our prime source of traffic is people driving by and by moving them farther away from the site that's really hurts now with our site as as i said our challenges are going to be very different we have very limited from it so if you initiate that kind of uh... design on uh... fairfaxble of Art or Unlead Highway, it's not going to have as many impacts on our site because we have a lot of depth to work with. So I think we can work either side of that. I think what I would prefer not to see is kind of just an initiation of one small section and then have everything else kind of stay the same. So we do have some uses on each side of our property that may be very challenged by that kind of a design. So we've got the cemetery on the north side. We've got the Suselvitch retail on the south side. By enacting that design on the south side, we'd eliminate susla which is entrance and really condemn his property. So like I said, we can work either way within the design of this. I think it's more important to see how it impacts some of the other properties. In terms of the, and I guess the reason I ask is through a sort of consistency. We're looking for consistency along the boulevard trying to keep within the terms of, and I guess the reason I ask is through a sort of consistency. We're looking for consistency along the boulevard trying to keep within the principles within the master plan. In fact, when you look at the actual, the full little version of it and you look at yours, I'll be quite frank with you. I think what you got conceptually a little bit better. I mean, because units are contained and they're within a space as opposed to what is originally on here where they just sort of spluttered out and you've got curbing roads that can break the back of a snake. So I guess the other question then is do you see this project as being catalyst for Camp Washington similarly to the how we could envision the project and North Facts being a catalyst for that center of community. Absolutely. I mean, I think that generally residential is the pioneer. We've proven that in DC in some pretty rough neighborhoods by building residential and then the retail. I hope we don't have rough neighborhoods here. No, I'm not suggesting that by any means, but I'm suggesting that we have an area that just simply hasn't had development. You know, a lot of industrial uses car dealerships and has been overlooked. But in those neighborhoods and even if you go out to green fields, residential is the first thing out there and then the retail follows. You can't have retail without shoppers. So I think that bringing the residential in and putting in the streetscape improvements and the pedestrian improvements of this site and laying a framework which I didn't want to say it, but I do agree makes more sense than what's on here. I mean this layout would look great in a European city where everybody walks, but when you do have pedestrians, I think, or I'm sorry, vehicles, we do have to take into account cars and access and traffic lights and straight lines and that kind of thing. So I very much think that this can be a catalyst. I think that it will do the things that we talked about for Norfax in terms of raising the property values. So once this is open and successful, the value of the Dominion power parcel goes up. And that makes the relocation of that to another facility that much easier because there's that much more equity in the land. And then with the development of that parcel, the Brit Ford site makes a lot more sense. And we've already talked about people getting out of the cars or designing an entire community to get people out of their cars. So the Master Plan talks about putting car dealerships in the ground floor of retail. And that's something we actually talked about before this meeting with some new brands that he's looking at. So I think it definitely gets a going. I go back to my original comment about consolidation. It would be absolutely impossible to do all of this at the same time. The market just simply couldn't absorb it. It's very unlikely to get the market to align in that office hotel, apartments and condos all work at the same time. It's very unlikely to get the market to align in that office hotel Apartments and condos all work at the same time and you wouldn't want us to build 2000 apartments there So I think that getting it going in stages the dominion power parcel might make more sense for office The Brit forward dealership might make more sense for a market common Out there on the corner with the better visibility and the better retail. But this is definitely definitely a good way to get it started. Thank you. I wanted to ask you a specific question having to do with one of your slides here. Could you if you look at 1.01 and 1.02 and 1.02 and 1.03 on the east side of your project toward the, I guess you'd say the north end of it, where you border the cemetery. You did, it was interesting. You talked about having some teaser parking as you first enter on the left. Could you talk a little bit more about what kind of design treatments you would have for the project that borders the historic cemetery? Well, I mean, I think the best way I can answer that is this is very early. So we are not at the point too that I can present to you with a lot of details regarding buffers, regarding setbacks and the parking space alignment. We're generally in the, if we were at 20,000 feet in the previous discussion, we're probably still at 30,000 feet with our site. I can assure you that the plan as it's sketched up here provides plenty of room for landscape buffering. We're not looking at, we really are looking at teaser parking and the majority of the retail tenants on the front will be able to park in the two interior parking structures. But I'm not trying to dodge your question. I simply don't have that answer yet. Well I guess embedded in my question is a request that as you, when you move forward with the project that you be sensitive to this particular site, it has quite a bit of history to it. And it's sensitive in terms of its visual sight line and interpretation to adjacent development. And it would be unfortunate if there was intense development right on the property line or right beside it. I think everybody has a graphic example of that at the PNAM Shopping Center, Lehighway and Nuttley, that done, you know, there the highway and not that there was some unfortunate treatment of some historic graves there. This is far more substantial. I know developers sometimes see adjacent cemeteries as a nuisance and I would hope that you would see this as an opportunity to incorporate some of those historic elements in whatever you would to develop. Yeah, we, I mean, in the initial land planning, we've certainly taken in the sensitivity by pushing the tall buildings well back of the back boundary of the cemetery, but I certainly appreciate your comment. We'll be very focused on that. Thank you. Yeah, I think we can treat it this cross. I'm sorry. You won't turn off. I don't know what that says about the only woman here who's microphone won't turn off. I have a little concern about green space and public areas in your plan. I don't see a whole lot of that and that would be something that I think would be most appropriate for, you know, residential development. So that's of concern to me. I also feel like we're really going to need to look at the traffic. It's unfortunate that this entry to Germantown Road is sort of stymied by Virginia power at the moment. But that would certainly be an outlet that would be most welcome for this and I would encourage you to continue to pursue that because I think it's an important element here. But I do think we're going to have to look very hard at the traffic impact on both Lehighway and Route 50. If this is successful and I think it surely will be not only would you have residential folks coming and going but you would have quite an attraction in retail establishments that would be drawing traffic off of both these major roads. So I think we need to be on firm ground before we go forward with those elements. Can you tell me how many acres you have involved here? Eight and a half. Eight and a half. We did a traffic study two years ago before the master plan, but it's expired so we'd have to redo it, but it basically said it was adequate or whatever, but we're gonna do another traffic study. You mentioned openSpace and particularly GreenSpace and that's something that I glossed over. In our partnership with Gardner, we're planning this as a Green Building. We have two under-design and development that we'll be breaking ground on in the next 60 days. And it's something that we think our demographic and our clientele is really focused on we've done a lot of surveys. That people are fed up with utility expenses. They are fed up with their impact on the environment. And we're looking as a company to be able to provide them outlets to take action on that. Right now, if you wanted to deliver a green apartment, you'd have to move to Manhattan. Because there's only one locally and it's only 60 units over in Silver Spring. So, this is an opportunity that it's a competitive edge that we think that we can provide It's a competitive edge that we think that we can provide that is unique to the city of Fairfax. The property is over at Fairfax Corner and in Fair Lakes being built 5, 10 years ago don't have that. We'll be able to save money on utility expenses and storm water management treatments. We'll be cutting edge and recycled materials and the likes. We're pretty excited about it. That's useful. Another thing on the traffic, which is very similar, we're doing a project over at the government center with Fairfax County. It's a workforce housing project where they're actually partnering with us and putting the land in in order to provide workforce housing primarily for Fairfax County employees. Because you may have read in the paper, they statistically, I think 700 out of 1200 Fairfax County police officers are live outside of Fairfax County. And so you're actually in this instance, we're actually going to reduce traffic by building these residential units immediately adjacent to the government center building these residential units immediately adjacent to the government center because these people are already driving to work, but they're driving to work from maybe Fair Lakes, but they might be from Herndon from Chantilly. And now we're going to be able to provide them with housing right across the street. So a lot of times in fill housing does have that secondary benefit that's very tough to capture in a traffic study, but the reality is, people work in the city of Fairfax, so a lot of employees here and there aren't a lot of high end luxury housing opportunities, so that's the side benefit. Thank you, very useful. Any other Mr. Horris? Thank you, Mr. Brut. Mr. Brut. Sir. For you, do you see your dealership moving west? Hello. Any time? Sure. Maybe we'll add that in. I know back when we were talking about your property a few years ago, maybe four years ago, you had tried working with the minion power to see if they were at all interested, and there was no move at that time. Is that still the case? Over the last couple years, I've kind of tacked not only the Minion Power, but all the other landowners that touched me too. And we've tried to come up with a plan that was, was the right way to say it, expandable or whatever with this design, like if Mr. Suschlefish wanted it, you know, it would be easy to incorporate it. And all the gas station would be easy to bring it in. But we wanted to get the first one going and not make it independent without having these things. But I'd love for the Dominion Power piece and JPI has the ability to take on, to buy the big apple like that and bring it in if they if we could but you know that's a very hard You know Nobody wants them because they don't produce any tax dollars So if we if we found the police in the county geez, you know, I can see the county saying oh, hey, what do you got? You know what fast would you pull trying to stuff them on us? So I don't see the them opening them with welcome arms, but we'd like to put something together, but it hasn't worked. It hasn't worked in the past. Thank you. Mr. Graveville. This isn't like a Fairfax corner or even out near the government center where you have trails and you have green space and you have kind of an oasis off of the beaten path of Lee Highway or 50 or Germantown or any of those roads or West Oxtail Road. You're proposing 400 rental apartments, albeit somewhat upscale, in a sea of asphalt and buildings and nothing really that's walkable. I mean you can argue that you can walk to some shopping in close proximity, but how do you how do you successfully market this and attract people if they had to choose between something like a Fairfax corner in someplace like this? Well, in fill properties, we found are quite a bit easier to market than Greenfield developments, because you already have an existing core of people that live here, work here, and drive by Fairfax full of hardly how I mentioned before, drive by, unfortunately to my mass transit preference, drive by is our number one source of residents. Half of our traffic stops in because they saw our community. So you couldn't really pick two better streets to be on from that perspective. We've developed several communities in very similar locations to this, where we've replaced C's of parking with high-end, high-density communities, and have been very successful at it. The one I mentioned before on Edselroad in 395 was an Ames shopping center, terribly defunct shopping center, and one of our best performing developments in the history of our company. And so I think that when you have an infill opportunity like this, we just have such a huge market that's already captured. So whether it's empty nesters who've lived in the city of Fairfax for 20 or 30 years and don't want to walk up steps anymore, I want to take an elevator downstairs to get a cup of coffee. Now there's a huge depth of that market out there at the same time. We've got a university and we've got young people moving out of there, but they're familiar with the city of Fairfax and they want to hit cool places to stay. I'm not at all worried about the marketing of this. Even if we're marketing at the exact same time as Archstone, we've had that experience before. And that's actually a benefit because they're advertising at the same time that we're advertising. We're bringing more bodies into the market. And so I feel very comfortable from that aspect. Thank you. So, if I can just follow up with aspect. Thank you. Mr. Jones? If I can just follow up with Mr. Greenfield's comments because I think he brazes a point that he provided. I guess I'm clarity to which is that when you look at this project, it's smack dab in the middle of, see if asphalt to use the term. And I guess one that's opposed to a green field is opposed to a green field, correct. We're trying to have greener pasture here in the city of Fairfax, even though it's the C of asphalt, nevertheless. Is there a way to, and I don't know if they're gonna probably pick on me over the, is there a way to try to greenify the area there and make it more inviting to get people in there? Because I think the concern that I look at from this perspective is that, Mr. Brat, you have your dealership, the menu we've got this issue, how do we bring people in? And that's why I asked about the linear park. That's what I think Mrs. cross asked about the open space is you know what's I know we're going to be building green building which is think is great and that if I could see you know parking lot full of Prius is that would be a wonderful thing. How do we get them there? At how do we you know from an aesthetic standpoint get people who are coming through the highway and around 50 to see this as not something that's just plopped down in the middle of this triangle. Well, I will say that the development of this site plan is going to take a lot more work than what we've put into it today. And this is the first presentation and we're frankly excited to hear some commentary about it because of the data just been us sketching it up. But in the development of what you see here, I think we have taken into some of those points. So if you'll notice the parking lot, the gas station, certainly the last thing you want to look at as a residential unit. We've set those residential buildings well back on the same occurrence off of Lee Highway where we've got the Clover property to the west and we've got the Sustle of It's Retail. We've set those residential buildings way back. The residential buildings are all focused on the town center, the circular drive and the ground floor retail. On the west side we have our parking garage, similar to our stones, which is a multi-level parking garage. So we don't have any units that actually face over the back of the Virginia Dominion Power Parcel. The units in the courtyards of these are actually going to be the highest renting units. We do very high-end courtyardsards and those are very well-appointed. Back to the east side adjacent to the townhouse condos. Those are actually pretty attractive buildings. There's some pretty nice landscaping there. So I think that we've taken a lot of first steps, but there's certainly an evolution that we'll be working through to get everybody comfortable with that? Yeah, just keep in mind, too. This is also the highest point if I recall correctly when you're going up. It affects full of R2. So from a aesthetic standpoint, it goes to the question that we were asking before about setting the precedent for what we're going to want the area to look like. So thank you for your comments. Just one last comment that captures you continue to plan and move forward. I can tell you if we want to try to find a way to eliminate some of the community concern that will come out of here. Having lived through these discussions over a long period of time, aligning Bevin from the residential community to Bevin into your project will not be perceived as a positive. That community lives in fear of it becoming a major cut through its people. If you drive down Germantown Road you understand the bottleneck and the traffic and so I'll just lay that out there, not an issue of discussion today but I think you're going to be well served to find a creative way not to align it or to align it in a way that would not encourage or allow somebody to jump off on Germantown Road when it gets congested, come down through Bevin in the residential, cross 50, and then hit Bevin to get over to the Camp Washington 29 area. So I'll just throw that out there. But we've been through that dialogue many, many times over a long period of time when this has been talked about. Let me just echo the same comments I said at the conclusion of what I called phase one of this discussion or phase two. But thank you all for being here. You know, Mr. Bray, you've been a long time involved, both resident for many, many years and certainly a business for for a long time involved both resident for many, many years and certainly a business for a long time. And it's hard not to get excited about the caliber of the folks you've brought to the table. And certainly you're continued interest in the city of Fairfax. And we thank you for your time and energy tonight. Appreciate it. With that, thank you. What we're going to now do is sort of direct our conversations internally. You know, we started out a discussion tonight and what I'll call a conceptual discussion or a visionary discussion in terms of the document that kind of creates the vision that we would anticipate in Fairfax Boulevard. You know, if you look at that document, the two priorities were Norfax and Camp Washington. And the second phase of this discussion has been really related to the reality of the plan, the stakeholders that make up those two priority centers and both Norfax and Camp Washington in terms of the status and where they are and the frankness of framing the issues and the concerns and the comments and the partnering is hopefully beneficial to everybody. What we need to do now, I think Mr. Hudson, Mr. Sisson has talked a little bit about, where do we go from here and actions on terms of the city's side of the equation. And there's a lot of them. And we've just covered a lot of territory in a very, very short period of time. I've tried to write down an outline that I'll just propose we go down through, but it's almost overwhelming when I look it down through all the things that we really need to talk about. But I think we owe it to ourselves to force that dialogue so that we can continue to move this important, because the one thing I've heard consistent with all of these discussions is timing is important. I think if you talk to any developer at any level, they'll tell you timing is the most important part of any process. In one case, we've got a plan in our center that we've identified that's been in the works for several years, the other case has been in the works for a year or so. You've got a decision point that's going to have to be made in terms of a investment in a retail center versus a more master plan oriented. If I can use that phrase, development and then if you move up to Camp Washington, you've got a master plan, oriented development versus cutting into a lot of parcels and selling it off because none of these folks can afford to carry the properties. And we're fortunate that we've got that as long as we've had. So let's just talk about it. This is not in any particular order, but the first is, certainly on the city side of the equation, I wrote down the ordinances in place to allow this to happen. I think we've had discussions over a long period of time about what comes first. The card of the horse in terms of do we need form base codes, do we need changes to our ordinance to allow this process to unfold before we start hearing actual development plans, which we've heard in big pictures tonight. And so, Mr. Hudson, I would turn to you to sort of help us paint that course. What I heard was I think in the short term, in the priority projects that are ready to go, we can find a way to work within our current zoning ordinance that allow it to happen. If I read the document correctly, we already said that the connectors could work within our current zoning ordinance, although we identified the nodes or the centers is needing the form base code over a period of time. And so can you kind of share with us your vision of how we tackle that and if there's a need to tackle that and is there a way of timing is important to do it within our existing ordinances while we work on something more long term. Right. Short answer is yes we can do what we need to do immediately under our existing ordinance. We are, as I said, we are looking at and looking at the feasibility of an overlay ordinance that gets us somewhere in between the process of somebody coming in and asking for a dozen exceptions just to do what we're asking to do. Somewhere between that situation and a form-based code. And we think we can accomplish that fairly short order. But it would be something to the, in the order of a redevelopment overlay district kind of principle, much as we've done with the old town fair facts. Ultimately, notwithstanding the negative comments or negative experiences that people have suggested they've had with the Columbia Pike Form Based Code, I still view that as the form based code approach as a valuable incentive that will help us fill out these centers. So I think there are three levels to go. And the initial projects will just go with the exception process. In the meantime, in the background, we'll be developing a redevelopment overlay district that we will bring to you and to the city, into the Planning Commission for Discussion Consideration. And if it does, what you believe it needs needs to do then I'd suggest that we go with that the form-based code they were exactly right it's a longer term kind of thing and it's something that involves the planning commission and ultimately the BAR as well so that's more of a longer range objective but I but that that's the approach, I would suggest. Short range, existing mid-range. Let's look at the overlay district long range form base code. And do you have currently the resources to develop the overlay or whatever the terminology just use overlay districts and longer termterm form-based codes, or are we going to have to have a dialogue, Mr. Sissin, Mr. Hudson, in terms of how we get those resources. I would just say the fortunate part is we have people that are ready to move. And I can't overemphasize that. The ironic part of this dialogue, if we can't eliminate roadblocks, whatever they may be, and allow this process to unfold quickly and at their timing, not necessarily our timing, this process actually will do almost a disservice to the endgame of getting a master plan and to develop. And I don't know where that balance is, but I think in whether we have the answers tonight or not, whether we have the answers tonight or not, we're going to have to frame, do we have the resources in place to do it in a timely basis so that we can keep up with the demand as it unfolds. I'll just throw that out there as a talking point in terms of something we're going to have to wrap our head around. All right. One thing that I see is probably the most lacking in resource, the resource that we don't particularly foot level look at each of these centers, the 1,000 foot look at it. We've got the sort of dober coal conceptual look at it. We've got to get in the north facts and we've got to do some planning work that is based more site specific on looking at property lines and ownership and looking specifically at where these road grids ought to be going. And then evaluating what specific is on almost a site specific basis, what has to happen with the drainage and what has to happen with the overhead utilities. The little things that we, you don't think about when you're up real high, but when you start to actually look at these redevelopment things and start to put redevelopments together, then those become real issues sometimes. So I think you're still some, use the phrase, meet left on the, on the planning turkey and it's looking at it more specific. Let me just wrap my head around that concept. Me left on the planning turkey. Yeah, or don't stick a fork in it yet. It's not quite done. How about that? It's um... Well, I guess the question I'm trying to get at is I know when we went through this budget process and I know Mr. Greenfield you provided some of the leadership in terms of when we pulled out money from the bid that was sitting there and I believe there was a specific allocation of money to go out higher outside $100,000 outside, I assume that's the money we would identify and we would be using that to sort of jumpstart. I guess my concern is, and I just know out of experience, and it's no negative reflection on anybody, is that we're going to have to be careful to remove the obstacles and not allow our process or create obstacles, Especially when we have willing people, assuming we're comfortable with the vision, and we haven't had that discussion, or the reality of the division, is we just need to make sure that whatever that planning is, whether short term we work in, our current own ordinances with a special exception, kind of a midterm plan is what I heard is that we're gonna do the overlay districts to get specific focus in some of these centers with a longer term plan. I'm working on form-based code or some version of it. I assume longer base plan is a year or two not five or six years. Otherwise this game's going to be overweight. Yeah that's correct's correct. I suggest the approach, we do have some of that money that was identified through the business improvement district funds that we use those funds to do the closer level planning work that we feel needs to be done. We can at least in some conceptual form, if not fairly well, rubbed out form or sketched out form, come to you in September and talk to you about an overlay, redevelopment overlay district and what that might be able to do for us as an interim step before we get to the form base code. That's the approach I would suggest. And then at that point maybe we could also focus in on what we have identified in terms of implementation or resources that we can and will bring the bear on clearing the path for appropriate redevelopment in these three nodes specifically and what we believe would be necessary enhancements to that or additions to that. So is everybody comfortable with what I'm hearing is sort of a short term work within the existing ordinances through the special exception midterm which sounds like the fall come up with an overlay district that will allow us to really focus on the various centers or nodes with a longer term, although not so long that it doesn't become a useful tool. Some version of a form-based code that will lead us in certainly we haven't talked about perfect circle and all the other things that probably will be a secondary and not happen as quickly as some of the prime discussions we've had tonight. Is everybody sort of comfortable with that process? Yes, see, yes on this side, yes on this side. Okay. So I think we've sort of wrapped our head around that. The second one I wrote down is the transportation component, which clearly the city probably has a first-line obligation in terms of addressing. And I will say to, you know, when we had this discussion a year ago and we wrote this Forge Bage document, it sure seemed like a very easy, obtainable solution in terms of the infrastructure because we had the Northern Virginia region authority, pot of gold that had gone through the legislative process. It was going to generate, I don't remember the number now, $456 million of cash flow into the city specifically for transportation components that we could then use to fund a bond in the multi-millions of dollars to make this happen and make it happen quickly. That's not available right now. Anybody's guess maybe those of you who are closer to it have a better insight into it. When that tool will come back to us and it leaves only one tool left if I follow the process and that's the commercial search yards that we can impose which we chose not to this year. I know Fifx County, I believe Arlington County and may those may have been the two that struck their neck out and did it. Initially is a source of revenue, but if we look at the North Facts component, the road system, which I think will be a fairly important, and I'll just call it the University Drive Extension and may not be exactly where University Drive is, and we may not want to call it that, but the road that curves up and around and then maybe even extends in a tee up to Eaton is a fairly important component if we're going to follow the concept and the spirit of the master plan that said I think no more than 600 feet in between blocks of it's going to be pedestrian friendly and you use the road system to do that and that begs first question is Assuming we're still committed now. I will say I was pleased to hear unless I misunderstood on the Camp Washington project The development team is willing to provide the road the internal road infrastructure To get it out to I think you've said a wonderful benchmark for the other team here to step to the plate and match it and I appreciate that. But the reality is it's still a city responsibility and it's a very expensive responsibility and it's a responsibility. I think almost has to happen early on as opposed to later in that begs the discussion of how and who pays for it Did I miss anything on that and you know, I don't know the solutions in terms of the paying for it anymore You're referring to the plus two or the internal road now now right now that well the plus two we fall into that category wherever we do You know last time we were talking about we were talking about a hundred million dollars to do right the master plan road Which is a plus two in certain portions the developer would be responsible for that hundred million. Thank you No Yeah, this is one of those things is to go shaded it depends on what you you know, if it's going to be a private street for instance, there's nothing to say that these have to be 50 foot right of ways and standard streets. They could be roads that are internal to a development or group of developments. They could be privately maintained. And as a result, they would be privately constructed and wouldn't be any right of way or anything like that associated with them. In some cases it would be in the city's benefit I think to have public streets going through these things. So it's, you know, it's just a case by case thing. I don't think there's any way to really deal with it other than the plan for them at this point. Well, just beg, that's the first I ever heard we'd even consider private streets for the main internal road system, you know, the university drive extension. I mean, those are going to have to be public streets that will carry volumes of traffic. Yeah, right. Anything about the master plan and I'm not sure that's a development responsibility or the developers barring their camp Washington think it's a developer responsibility and then that begs the question, who pays for it when it doesn't about a development? University Drive will go along the west side of the development project we heard into the middle of No Man's land in terms of the landowner that's not playing ball right now and alongside in between two of those. So I think the assumption that the developer is going to pay for that. And if we don't have a plan, seems a little bit short. Sure. Well, I think it's going to be a case by case basis. I think a lot of times what we end up getting is a right of way dedication if it is going to be a public street and the city constructs the street. I mean, there's just a lot of different ways to approach this. Mr. Greenfield. of a process. I'm screen fill. I have staff for four combination of all the problems. Sure. Some public where university connects over to Eaton, but then that as you come in off of university, if you take this parcel, for example, and you make that jog left and go between the Marriott and other pieces that aren't going to be developed, maybe that is a private road that's internal similar to a, you know, a Fairfax corner or similar to a Reston Town Center where you have some internal streets that are private, but some of the connections to get there are the public pieces of it. I would also ask, and I didn't ask this of the developer, but how could we look at potentially vacating the portion of eaten place and before transportation folks fall off their chairs? We're just exploring here. But we vacate the portion of eaten place between where university could connect over to eaten and back around to Fairfax Boulevard. Freeing that up to push the project back a little bit, you still have access to the office buildings that are back there, but then you could also potentially accommodate these six lanes, not the five, two, but the potential for an additional east-west lane from Eaton. That lighted Eaton all the way up to 123, which would then take the pressure off of not having that one connection from 50 all the way over to 66. So they would be able to continue west on 50 and then turn right and take a north on to 123 and head back up towards 66. But that additional lane in each direction, just in that small strip, will handle the capacity for losing that little piece over by eating. But then you give a little bit more developable area by being able to push this project back. Can we take a look at that? Sure. Heads up and down, Mr. Versosa. Well, I think, and I'll just say it again, that all of this is going to have to come together pretty dog-going quickly. I mean, we're talking about the road, infrastructure, whatever it looks like, is going to be the grid, but then allows the development to take place within the blocks that are left over. And if, you know, in this document, we basically had one road that was internal within Norfax from university give or take, whether it aligned directly all the way through to jump back out on chambered road, and then the tea that went up to eat in place. If I remember right, that was the road, internal road that we were talking about being on the city side. But if that concept may make all the sense in the world, but it begs the question, how do we get to it quickly in a way that makes sense that doesn't again become a delaying factor or an element that's outside our control that turns this thing south. We, if I could get the... Well, we'll work with the transportation folks and we'll hook up with whatever consultants we need to and we'll get it back to you. I get that. I'll just say we had this very discussion a year ago and we still haven't hooked up with any transportation folks and the road system is going to be whatever it takes us is going to be an important factor. And if these folks start designing it based on the concept we've got now and we're willing to consider the idea that Mr. Greenfield just laid out that's gonna have to happen pretty soon otherwise that boat's gonna have left the dock and I just worry about how we pull it all together and a timely fashion where we actually do it and then the cost to pay for it. Mr. Meyer? Yeah. You had said you made a comment, Mr. Mayor, about the fact that there's some adjacent property owners on the west side of what could become a university extension, not at this point being partners in this process. As you go through this and you're looking at the alternatives, you just laid out, if you can think of any way that you could incentivize those non-participants to come to the table and do it rather quickly, there could be some benefits to everybody. The city, the existing applicants or proposals, and the non-players. And that might actually inform us a little bit more as to how we might treat those roads. Whether it be public private, there's their width and everything else. I agree with what Mr. Greenfield had said about the need to add additional capacity on Route 50. I'm not as keen about the idea of obtaining that additional capacity at the expense of eating. But I'm certainly open to everything. But I do believe that if we want to deal with what's in front of us today, I think the mayor is absolutely correct the time is of the essence. And this might be a time when the staff sharpens their pencils and puts it on even more hours than you already do. But I think this is ironic that we're having this discussion at this economic time. And that speaks volumes about the potential of these projects and also about the long-term fundamentals of the city, which I think are quite strong. Ms. Cross. Well, now it's off. It's off. Two things about transportation. In this, the issue down to this particular location, this might be the perfect place for a public price to build this road with public private funds. I would hope that staff would take a look at that. The other option to consider is using the EDA capabilities to finance something of this order. I know that they want to play a role in this redevelopment along the corridor, and I think we might explore options with them in terms of funding. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I just had a one question. You're going to push your button there, the TV won't ever hear you. That's on there now. I guess the question I had and related transportation was twofold. One is from a developer standpoint, do they need the roads first before they put the development in? Number two, how do we pay for the roads to get in there? Because if we're talking about working on a relatively, I won't say short schedule because these projects have been in the works for a while, but the question is how do we get to that point, especially considering that funding is, as should I say, lacking out there in the real world. And I agree on this as cross-and-pop-private partnership might be great. It's just in my professional experience, those types of projects and maybe the transportation folks over there can speak otherwise. I mean doing one or two roads of our size is pretty small potatoes. And so that's the concern I have is how are you going to get somebody to come here and how are they going to make any money? I think we're going to be putting tolls on university or Eden to get people there. So I know it's sort of a rhetorical question to some extent, but I think it's something we should consider because we've been having budget discussions as well and at the same time we're here talking about how we're going to need to be able to fund a road which everybody's shaking their head the road needs to go in first for the development okay well we've had a figure out how to pay for the roads of the road can go into the development can go up notwithstanding all the other aspects of the project you know I know I myself and other colleagues will you to be creative, but I think it is something for staff to consider as well. How can we get that? I agree, maybe the EDA is a possibility. Are there other funding mechanisms out there? But fortunately with the MBTA funding, not available, it makes it much more difficult. And also, is there a cost estimate to the roads or a structure? I mean, we're sort of assuming that we're talking single digits here. But, I mean, just toward Mason Boulevard cost. I'm on this side of the table. I mean, we're talking, last time we were throwing out numbers, it was in hundreds of millions. Yeah. So, yeah. So, it's just something they consider as and you know, we're talking obviously taking it in chunks. It's, some it's going to be less, but, than hundreds of millions, but still it's a lot of money. Well, and I think you're trying to say what I was trying to say and you probably did it better than I did, but I guess to get to the next phase to figure out what roads and where they go and what configuration somebody is going to have to do that at some cost. And I haven't heard a discussion yet of where that money comes from and who does it. And I'll just say it again, it was not as important of a discussion a year ago because we thought we had that stream of money identified. It doesn't. I guess now even if a year from now we decided to impose the commercial tax rate. And we followed suit with Fairfax County. I'm guessing we're only talking about generating a couple of million bucks a year at most to that form of. do that form of financing. And so I guess in the short term, and we had this very discussion in Landstown, was the need to hire a transportation consultant to come in and say, this road makes sense in this configuration. And here's where five two works, and here's where it doesn't. And it's going to cost you $100 million to do this. And how do we get that done? Because we're a year later, and we're not any farther, and I don't see a plan either funding-wise or mechanism-wise to get there. Well, we can... I think the staff needs to go away from this table tonight, and refine and work on this list that you've put before us. I think one of the things we've got to add to this is who should bear the burden of this connector street or of university. I think that needs to be carefully looked at. If the road is being put in to enhance the value of private development, then I think clearly that leads us in a direction of who should pay the majority of the cost. But you all know the condition of our finances right now. So we might be looking at having to borrow some additional funding to do the preliminary engineering. Well, maybe we can leave this action item then to follow up what you just said on you guys need to chew on it for a little bit and kind of come up with a plan. But I'm thinking we need a report back in September timeframe on all these items, not just that one, but certainly that's going to be, you know, when you game, when you start looking at the city side of the equation versus the developer side or some combination thereof, and I'll just say I get a road going through a development and it benefits that development and you have a willing developer who wants to build it, but the road system that I've seen that we talked about goes through multiple parcels of property, some of which see no value in what we're doing and won't benefit from it. And I'm guessing we're then talking about condemning land and building roads that may or may not be funded, but that's why you guys are going to have to frame that for it. Yeah, and we could look at all kinds of cult sharing arrangements too. Absolutely. Okay, the last part of the transportation component, and hopefully this will be an easy one, but in our four-page document, we talked about the five-two lane configuration between Eaton Place and 123. We clearly heard tonight that at least in the mind of the developer, that's not a plus. In fact, it's probably a negative and probably takes too much property to allow them to do what they want to do in the argument on the linear park to help on the stormwater drainage. I guess the question I would ask is I'm not sure we were so focused that we had a concrete solution there, but when I heard tonight is we're going to have to be a little flexible in terms of whether or not the five two works on that block. And if so, how and still allow the development to go forward and if not where and that gets into the transportation consultant thing. But clearly the 5-2 has some challenges on this block that we were talking about, Norfax East, that we're going to have to roll up our sleeves with the development team and start having that dialogue and does it work and doesn't it work. And if it doesn't work, I certainly have no pride of authorship, but that does deviate from where we were a year ago. The last thing that I just wrote down was twofold. One is, I express the concern about in the leap of faith in terms of, where do you start this thing? And if you can't get it all consolidated to start, you take the leap of faith and you get it started. And clearly on both sides of all the presentations we heard, there are arguments. You got to start somewhere and starting is a good thing, not a bad thing. And the question I've got is I personally would feel much more comfortable with that dialogue if I knew what the rest of the lock was going to look like. You know, what we don't have, we have a developer's plan on the east side, we have a hotel's plan on the north side, and I'm talking about Norfax East. And then everything else that we sort of talked in broad terms, it retails works kind of closer to the 51-23. And I'm wondering, and I'll just show this out and I look at our experts that we're here tonight is I'm wondering if we can't get the staff to team up with the stakeholders and collectively use those resources to develop a whole block if it could be built out in an ideal world and what that would look like because I think it's going to be a lot easier going to the community and say here's our vision. We're going to build phase one and phase two and phase three is still yet to come, but I think it's going to be a much easier sell to have that plan, even if it's rough, and what the McCade property would look like in the Exxon property, the Bank of America property. And I'm just wondering if we couldn't rely in this case on the development teams that are stakeholders in this to work with staff and use your expertise to help us do it, which I think will help sell your project. So I just throw that out as kind of a way to go because right now we don't have it. And how do we get there and we talked about limited funds and we've got a whole team of experts here who understand it and Mr. Hudson does that make sense that maybe in the next couple of months you could reach out to the partners and certainly they'd have to be willing to share those resources but sort of master plan this block. Sure. I mean, incorporating the hotel and the apartment on the block. Yeah, I think that's absolutely essential. Especially if we're doing the Marriott project and the Archstone project in advance of any more refined work on that triangle, which I think is appropriate given the circumstances. But I think what you're talking about going back in and setting up a plan, which in the rest, where in the rest of this triangle develops is essential to creating a place. It's absolutely needed. So you'd be glad to do that. And the last big... Well, and I'll just say this, the last big question that we have to wrap our head around is what we've heard is the anchor of both of these plans and both of our centers of real apartments. And at some point in time we're going to have to either give a green light, a yellow light, or a red light, or these plans all fall apart. And you know, it begs the question is, in general terms, are we comfortable with the first two projects out of the box being an upscale rental apartment sort of component with some limited retail to get the master plan kicked off until there's more consolidation and going and that's not a small question but it's going to be an important question and I certainly think some dialogue tonight in that regard would be I know helpful the teams that are sitting here but I think to start the process I certainly would welcome comments in that regards Mr. Greenfield I Think it's going to be important for us to be able to see And be able to go out into the community with a vision. I know the master plan has a vision for the different the nodes and what could go there, but you know now we've got a couple of applicants coming before us talking about what they'd like to do with their sites and what could go there, but now we've got a couple of applicants coming before us talking about what they'd like to do with their sites. And candidly, with all due respect, both of you rental apartments will forever change the dynamic of the city. The city I grew up in is one that it's always been mostly owner-occupied townhouses, single-family, some rental apartments, garden- style apartments, not what you're talking about, you're talking about something that'd be much more scale. And then the more recent trend has been condominiums. And all those people tend to be much more engaged and involved in the community, whereas when you talk about rental, those people are here for a few years, the real estate market changes, they move out of the rental apartments and they go buy a house or a townhouse somewhere maybe it's closer into the city. Maybe it's in the city of Fairfax. Maybe it's further to the west but they're not as committed to the city of Fairfax and not as interested in what goes on here. So this will be the first domino. Once this domino falls, everything else can go the same way and is that what we want to see in the city of Fairfax? So I mean, they're interesting proposals. I've always thought that some portion, if you look at the Vaskin Robbins Shopping Center, some refer to that as another shopping center, but we'll leave that other eating establishment on the equation tonight. But if you look at that location, I always thought when you look at that location, I always thought when you look at it in the hole, that a portion of that would be residential, whether it was retail or or excuse me rental or or for sale, you know, that that's driven by the market. But then I also thought we'd see retail and we'd see some office and you're going to see a hotel and a combination of things that works and creates a pedestrian friendly environment enough for just the people that would live there but the people that are in the neighborhoods surrounding it, more to the south and more to the east, they could walk there and take advantage of some of those shops and other amenities that would be there. The same is true for Camp Washington. You don't have as much residential to you cross 50. It's already existing for people to go across and take advantage of it. But I think that it would be interesting to see as we work with the development teams and staff as to how all of this could be built out in the next several years. It'll be 2011 before you are beginning to occupy there. That's a lifetime in the development community. At least that's what we're being told in terms of residential market turning around. So it'll be interesting to see what you would think with your best ideas that we could expect on both of these parts. I thought. Other thoughts? Just comment on this. Restments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think this is a real dilemma for us because on the one hand, this does get, jump started, some redevelopment on the corridor, but we already have another project that wants to build rental apartments in the city. And if we all these three added up, we probably got 1,000 rental apartments coming on. That's a significant percentage of our total housing stock in the city. And rental apartments in the short run are nice. But over the long run, they tend to go downhill. I mean, look at all the apartments we've got now all started out as nice units many of them did at least. And they've all gone downhill. And I think we really need to take a serious look at is it worth jump starting the some some development on the corridor to have rental units which will be very nice when they're built, but there's no guarantee they're going to stay nice. Other comments? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Say something I'm quite certain I'll never say again. I'm pleased that we scheduled a special work session tonight. I think it is helpful to sort of flush these issues out for the community and discuss kind of what your visions are for these particular parcels, but we are only showing one little piece of the puzzle tonight to the community and that's why I think it is, as you said, essential that if we can get a vision for how you would do that, it would be helpful for us to understand where some of the flash points may be, but also to present what we think might be consistent with a longer term vision of what we want in Fairfax Boulevard to look like, not just two years from now, but 10, 15 years from now. You know, I'm excited to be working with everybody to be developing what is some degree of consensus for what a long-term vision should be because I think we need to provide that guidance to the community and get feedback and input. You know, we heard from Mr. Britt tonight about and I regret the retraction of the automobile market and the the gerrymandered nature of the district and fires that have occurred. But those are, you know, circumstances that we find ourselves in, but they also present some opportunities for us. And if we can develop that consensus, there are some real opportunities. Two things really stood out to me tonight. One, as you talk about Mr. Rasmussen talked about the input or the impact of rental units, there's also a downside to Mr. Britt say, you know, without the ability to go forward, he's going to do things that make good business sense and he's going to chop it up and we're going to lose the opportunity to shape what we want this to look like. I mean, he's going to do what anybody would do in that circumstance and sell parts to the best bidder and make a good deal for himself and same with Mr. Donigan. He's got other opportunities that may be inconsistent with where we all want to go in a consensus. So that was the first thing. The second thing that we didn't really touch on was that the positive impact that this could have on our tax base. We are trying to augment the tax base and deal with a very difficult budgetary situation not only next year but probably next couple years. This, somebody I believe made the point that we want to take land that currently exists and make it more valuable. And the benefit to making land more valuable is also beneficial to the rest of the citizens and keeping residential tax rates low. And attracting new business into this community. So I think we do have concerns we've got to work through traffic is certainly an issue and how we how we pay for it. Finding that the right balance between the size and scale and and you know what we want to do here in open space and I like the hearing high quality. I think we can work through those things and but I think it's, I'm pleased that we're doing this because there are very difficult choices that we've got to balance, but I think as we work through it, we can tackle them. So thank you. Thank you. I would concur with the comments why we're in the state of the city. And I think that's the reason why we're in the state of the city. And I think that's the reason why we're in the state of the city. And I think that's the reason why we're in the state of the city. And I think that's the reason why we're in the state of the city. And I think that's the reason why we're in the community is this direction that we want to go to not for if Mr. Stombre says in next two years but 10, 20, 30 years down the line. And I think we have to consider to the impact that we're going to be making in terms of not only here in the city of Fairfax but how we can start to attract those businesses from around the region. It's become a much more competitive environment, much more transient. People are looking to move closer to transit, looking to move closer to where there are shops and to where there are businesses, to where they work. And as I started the conversation with that Washington Post article, I hope you realize that the viewpoint I have is one where I see the city of Fairfax as being a green city. And when you have a green city, it just doesn't mean you build green. And I'm glad hearing from JPI that they're looking to make green building. And Mr. Downagan, if you'd like to follow suit, I appreciate that as well. I'm sure Mr. Greenfield will appreciate that because namesake. But in all seriousness, I mean I think that you, we have to look at ways to not just talk about being green and planting trees, but the development choices that we make for the future. So, I'm going to go a little bit on the limb here. I hope I don't get a cut off. But you you know my inclination is to find a way to work through this and to make it work so we can jumpstart this process and that we can get the redevelopment of Fairfax Boulevard on track in a way that isn't keeping with the community once but is also in the best interest of a long-term interest of the city. And that, I don't remember. Thank you. I don't know what that problem is, I'll just say right off the bat that it's a disappointment to me that the very first thing, first big projects on the Boulevard are proposed to be apartments. And I have lots of reservations about it. I don't think we can fully appreciate at this point the transportation impact. Both of these projects are on areas that are already terribly congested. So I think transportation studies input on that is going to be real important in my mind as to how your project is going to handle those issues. I think there are issues about infrastructure that we haven't even begun to assess. Apartment buildings of this size are going to require the sewer and water systems much beyond what's there at the present time. So those things are going to be caused to the city that it'd be difficult right now to assess but certainly significant. The public services that'll be involved with police and fire to these buildings. Pretty significant as well. Green space. None of that doesn't, isn't a huge issue for me, except that none of the, neither of these projects had very much of it, frankly. The Donnigan Project, pardon me, but that's how I'll think of it probably. Spoke at length about a linear park, but that was a park that you would like the city to undertake. And there was a significant lack of green space in the Brit project that seemed to me. So my inclination is some disappointment that this is what we're looking at. It's not all that different from what I see downtown, although I think that we're gonna be just fine down there It's not all that different from what I see downtown, although I think that we're going to be just fine down there after period of time, but what we have, we have so many restaurants in our new redeveloped area. And I think that's going to draw people, and I think it's going to, in the end, be okay. But at this point in time, it's just rather a disappointment. So if you're looking for input and I've told you what my concerns are about this many new apartments in the building or in the city and perhaps you'll be able to reassure me in months to come that it's going to be all right and you've got the facts to back it up. Then I could be convinced right now I'm on the on the negative side. Thank you. Any other if not again thank you all for coming out tonight and we'll continue to move this process in a high priority along and look forward to continue dialogue in the early fall and continued partnership with the stakeholders that were involved. Just on a housekeeping note, I just want to remind my colleagues and make sure we're still on the same page that last time we were talking about key meeting dates in September, one of the things in the staff needs to make sure we're all still on the same page on the friend and neighbor socials we had carved out, I believe. September the 27th and 28th, if I have dates right and I just want to make sure because they obviously are going to start promoting it and marketing it in the city scene that we're still on board and still okay with those two dates. I see yes over here and we're all any any reasons. I was afraid to ask that question but I mean I mean I mean I mean Saturday okay Blackbirds are a wonderful thing when we know how to use them yeah what time are they on Sunday? I don't remember the time frame too almost all day I mean mean, we were doing... Two hours apart or something. Yeah. I mean, the reality is we might as well plan on a big chunk of those two days. We're doing whatever we did last time, three or four. We did one like an 11 and one like a 1 and one like a three and whatever but we'll follow. I assume the same format we did before, but okay, it looks like we're okay with those dates. So move forward with that. Mrs. Cissin, if there are any other items, thank you all. Hopefully this has been beneficial to everybody in terms of moving the process forward. Meeting adjourned.