Combined Properties
DRAFT proposal, Rose Hill Shopping Center
The Rose Hill Shopping Center is one of many retail and business sites going through Fairfax County's Site-Specific Plan Amendment process this year, and the neighborhood's civic association has some things to say about it.
The Rose Hill Shopping Center is one of the larger neighborhood-focused shopping centers in the area. Combined Properties believes the shopping center can be a better service to the community as a mixed-use development combining retail and residential.
Rose Hill Civic Association members are asking for limits on height, the guarantee that a grocery store will be part of the plan and a request that residences for seniors will be part of the plan.
"A portion of the residential development could be set aside for personnel needed to operate the center and essential public workers, including entry-level police and fire fighters, school employees and teachers, health care, etc.," the Rose Hill Civic Association leadership posted on the RHCA website. "The new center should also be compatible with the overall comprehensive plan for the area, including adjacent commercial and residential properties, and reflect suggestions from the community about the type of shops and businesses needed."
Prior to this week's RHCA meeting, the lawyer representing Combined Properties, Gregory Riegel of McGuireWoods LLP, sent a letter to the RHCA emphasizing the company's commitment to work with the community and listen to their concerns. However, the letter also state that the shopping center is at a point in its lifecycle where Combined Properties can transition the shopping center.
"If it becomes clear that an outcome in this [SSPA] process is not achievable, the retail center would continue to operate in its current state, and the opportunity to move Rose Hill forward would be lost for the foreseeable future, making it very difficult to justify meaningful reinvestment in the center. By comparison, a retail oriented mixed use development provides alternative and enhanced revenue streams that can transform Rose Hill and ensure it remains a community serving asset," Combined Properties wrote to RHCA leaders. (The full letter is posted on the RHCA website here.)
In the original SSPA nomination proposal, Combined Properties wrote:
“The existing single-story retail structure presents as an outdated, auto-oriented concept that contradicts Fairfax County’s goals and objectives that favor community based, mixed-use development as a means to combat the County’s housing shortage and revitalize the local economy. ... This nomination request provides the opportunity to advance a number of well-settled planning objectives that include the provision of housing, reducing impervious surface, providing new open space areas and amenities, and creating a more engaged streetscape that will ultimately reposition the shopping center as a modern mixed-use anchor for the neighborhood.”
Construction would start in 2027, when the current businesses leases expire. (Learn more here.)
