Fairfax plots urban overhaul for Baileys Crossroads
From the Washington Business Journal
By Joe Coombs
Dec. 8, 2006

Joanne S. Lawton

Changing history: Frank Sellers, president of the Baileys Crossroads/Seven Corners Revitalization Corp., says the area around Columbia Pike and Route 7 needs to be modernized.
View Larger

It's been home to a buffalo trail, the headquarters of a circus operation and one of the region's first shopping malls. Now, the area around Baileys Crossroads appears poised for its next metamorphosis.

Fairfax County officials are creating a new identity for about 400 acres that includes Baileys and Seven Corners. They've already rezoned some parcels to encourage new residential, retail and office development.

An Urban Land Institute panel was set to wrap up a weeklong study of the area Dec. 8. The nine-member ULI panel examined the potential for economic revitalization of the area, which is only 10 minutes from D.C. but replete with older commercial properties that haven't seen any large-scale development for decades.

"Very little has happened here since the 1950s, aside from a shopping center or two," says longtime resident Frank Sellers, president of the Baileys Crossroads/Seven Corners Revitalization Corp. "People need to realize that there's a vibrant economy here, we've got higher incomes and a strong community. People who live here don't want to go to Tysons Corner just to reach a destination, and we'd like to see some kind of response from the private sector."

As the commercial real estate boom in Greater Washington continues, several developers aren't waiting any longer to tap into the potential they see for Baileys Crossroads, centered at the junction of Columbia Pike and Route 7 on the county's eastern side.

Arlington-based Weissberg Corp. is one of the companies that has filed redevelopment plans for the area. The developer wants to bring residential, retail and possibly office space to a Columbia Pike site now home to a Peruvian restaurant and an auto service station.

"We'd like to move pretty quickly," says company President Nina Weissberg, who filed plans this month. "Anything close to D.C. has become so important. Baileys Crossroads was originally very suburban, with a lot of wide-open parking lots and retail. But the urban environment has encroached on the suburbs, and the existing properties need to transfer their identities to the urban formula."

Other plans include a proposed 2.2 million-square-foot residential, office and retail development at a site on Route 7, which now houses a Gold's Gym and the Burlington Plaza shopping complex.

Fairfax County officials put that plan on hold, pending the results of the ULI study. The panel included development experts from California, Florida, North Carolina and other locations around the country.

The Baileys' region has quite a history, according to county records. A buffalo trail that stretched from Alexandria to Leesburg once passed through land where Route 7 now roams, and in the 1850s New York entrepreneur Hachaliah Bailey established the winter headquarters for his circus there, hence the neighborhood's name.

The former Seven Corners Shopping Center on Route 50 was one of the area's first malls, and President Eisenhower took Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev there in 1953 to show him an example of the new prototype of American retail. The property has since been converted to a shopping complex with a Home Depot and Barnes & Noble.

E-mail: jcoombs@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/258-0827

© 2006 American City Business Journals Inc.