Lerner pitches more development around Dulles Town Center after selling its stake in the mall
April 30, 2021 | Alex Koma, Washington Business Journal
Just a few months removed from selling its stake in the Dulles Town Center mall, Lerner Enterprises is developing one of its few remaining vacant parcels surrounding the commercial center.
The Rockville developer filed plans in Loudoun County earlier this month to build 60 townhomes on a 4.1-acre parcel just north of the shopping mall at the intersection of Stefanie Drive and City Center Boulevard. Lerner plans to include eight affordable for-sale units as part of the project.
These new townhomes would sit not far from some of the developer’s existing residential communities and build on the company’s larger holdings in the area, encompassing about 554 acres surrounding the mall. That includes about 1,500 apartments and townhomes, a Courtyard by Marriott hotel and 200,000 square feet of office.
Those holdings included the Dulles Town Center mall itself until last fall, when Lerner and health insurer Cigna sold their stake in the property (one of the largest retail centers in the D.C. region). At the time, the developer said it still had 600 apartments and 250,000 square feet of retail under development in the Sterling area alone.
This latest townhome project will require a rezoning from Loudoun officials to proceed, swapping out a “planned development – commercial center” designation for a purely residential zone. That would remove the need for the project to include any ground-floor retail or other commercial uses.
In the application, Lerner’s land-use attorneys at Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley and Walsh PC say the swap is appropriate because “not every property can, or should, accommodate commercial uses.” The area is designated as “Suburban Mixed Use” under the county’s newly revised comprehensive plan, which would ordinarily mandate some commercial, but Lerner’s lawyers argue the nearby retail provides more than enough options.
“A literal interpretation of the plan, which would require every application to comply with the desired mix of uses, would result in a glut of commercial uses that would not be supported by the amount of households in the immediate area,” the attorneys wrote in the April 1 application.
A shift from retail in favor of more residential has been popular among developers of similar properties in the county. The new comp plan cleared the way for more residential construction in select corridors, and many builders have rushed to take advantage — the pandemic has also depressed retail demand, bolstering the trend further.
Lerner’s project is set to be referred to staff for a more detailed review by the end of May, and will then require additional county approvals after that to move ahead.