10340 Democracy Lane
Pre-ApplicationPrivate Development · 10340 Democracy Lane, Fairfax, VA 22030 · topic history · city record ↗ · on the map
280 units · 6 stories · 3.22 acres
In plain terms: the project would add roughly 479 residents and about $1.0M a year in new property tax, but serving those residents costs money too. Counting the city services that actually grow with new residents, that nets out to roughly break-even, anywhere between a net cost of about $1.2M a year and a net gain of about $1.1M a year across the assumption ranges. Fixed citywide costs are not charged to new residents; school costs follow the project's own student estimate.
Where the effects land
The economic map shows total captured spending by business location and named reporting clusters. The walk map uses a tighter extent around walk-arriving capture and the street segments assigned new resident walk trips; the bike map (when present) shows bike-arriving capture across the city — bikes reach farther, so it spreads wider and thinner. Dollar heatmaps are clipped to CR (Commercial Retail) zoning, and each map is scaled to its own data, so colors are not comparable across maps.
Summary
The proposal at 10340 Democracy Lane would redevelop an approximately 59,983-square-foot office building with surface parking into a six-story multifamily residential building of up to 280 units on approximately 3.22 acres in the City of Fairfax, Virginia. This analysis estimates 252 to 272 new households and 378 to 598 new residents at stabilization. The headline fiscal finding under the marginal-cost framing is a net annual fiscal impact ranging from approximately −$1,230,011 to +$1,065,543, with a central estimate near breakeven; that wide range reflects genuine uncertainty in service costs and assessed value rather than a clear fiscal surplus or deficit. The three assumptions to which the results are most sensitive are: (1) average household size for new multifamily units, with a range of 1.5 to 2.2 persons per unit; (2) occupancy rate at stabilization, ranging from 0.90 to 0.97; and (3) the assessed value per residential unit, anchored by three City of Fairfax apartment comparables ranging from $359,599 to $458,932 per unit.
View metric methods and calculations →
Adjust the assumptions
Every estimate above rests on named assumptions with published ranges. If you have better local knowledge, move the sliders — adjusted values use the exact formulas of the pipeline, bounded by each assumption's sensitivity range. Travel and destination-choice parameters are excluded (they require a full model re-run). Nothing is saved or submitted.
Assumptions
share of proposed units occupied at stabilization
persons per occupied new multifamily unit for a typical studio/1BR/2BR mix
new-construction multifamily rents draw higher-income households than the area median
CES line items are national averages; ±15% covers regional and vintage drift
scales new residents into all-purpose daily walk trips for the foot-traffic flow allocation
existing commercial sqft -> displaced jobs; a higher value yields fewer displaced jobs per sqft
proposed retail sqft -> on-site jobs
median assessed value per unit across 3 apartment-class comps, 25th-75th percentile bounds
assessed $/sqft applied to proposed retail space; refine with commercial comps in a follow-up
assessed $/sqft applied to proposed non-retail commercial space (office, medical, bank). Previously omitted, which valued every proposed office at zero
drives the school-cost component when the education transfer and enrollment are pinned (school-split cost model); otherwise informs the school note only
share of the NON-school per-capita cost that scales at the margin (school costs follow the student estimate directly under the school-split model)
rough-estimate input: converts new households to taxable vehicles for the personal property levy
rough-estimate input: average taxable value per vehicle; no project-specific fleet data exists
Requires a full model re-run
These parameters sit inside the travel/destination-choice model, so their effect on the results is not a simple rescaling — they cannot be adjusted live.
Recomputed estimates
Economic
| Metric | Published | Adjusted | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| New households | 266 | 266 | — |
| New residentsheadline | 479 | 479 | — |
| Aggregate household income | $58.39M | $58.39M | — |
| New annual spending: grocery | $2.14M | $2.14M | — |
| New annual spending: restaurant_bar | $2.01M | $2.01M | — |
| New annual spending: retail_comparison | $2.57M | $2.57M | — |
| New annual spending: retail_convenience | $401k | $401k | — |
| New annual spending: personal_services | $584k | $584k | — |
| New annual spending: entertainment | $2.17M | $2.17M | — |
| Annual capture: Fairchester Drive & Hill Street | $2.48M | $2.48M | — |
| Annual capture: Chain Bridge Road & North Street | $2.05M | $2.05M | — |
| Annual capture: Fair Lakes Parkway & Fair Oaks Mall | $766k | $766k | — |
| Annual capture: Mathy Drive & Pickett Road | $625k | $625k | — |
| Annual capture: Blenheim Boulevard & Fairfax Boulevard | $504k | $504k | — |
| On-site jobs removed (existing space) | 171 | 171 | — |
| On-site retail jobs added | 0 | 0 | — |
| Net on-site job change | −171 | −171 | — |
| New annual spending arriving on footheadline | $777k | $777k | — |
| New annual spending arriving by bike | $110k | $110k | — |
| Implied spending per resident walk trip | $4 | $4 | — |
| New resident walk trips per day | 479 | 479 | — |
Fiscal
| Metric | Published | Adjusted | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projected assessed value | $101.08M | $101.08M | — |
| Projected real estate tax | $1.08M | $1.08M | — |
| Real estate tax increaseheadline | $1.01M | $1.01M | — |
| Personal property tax on resident vehicles (rough estimate) | $215k | $215k | — |
| Meals tax on captured in-city dining | $61k | $61k | — |
| Local sales tax share on captured in-city retail | $32k | $32k | — |
| Annual school cost within the service-cost estimates | $447k | $447k | — |
| Annual service cost — marginal framing | $1.33M | $1.33M | — |
| Estimated K-12 students | 22.4 | 22.4 | — |
| Net annual fiscal impact — marginal framingheadline | −$5,714 | −$5,714 | — |
Adjusted values are exact recomputations of the model's central estimates for the assumptions above — the same arithmetic the pipeline runs, evaluated in your browser. Published ranges, maps, and the narrative report are not recomputed here.
Full analysis
Project description
The site, parcel 57 2 20 4E 001, is currently developed with an approximately 59,983-square-foot office building with surface parking. The applicant — listed as Capital City Real Estate in the January 23, 2026 project narrative, with Wire Gill LLP as legal representative — proposes to rezone approximately 3.22 acres from CR Commercial Retail to accommodate a new residential development. The project documents describe approximately 260–280 residential units fully contained within a six-story building, with 458 structured parking spaces proposed. The maximum unit count of 280 is used throughout this analysis per extraction rules. No retail or office square footage is proposed; the project does not include ground-floor commercial space as described in the available documents. Affordable unit count and tenure (for-sale vs. rental) are not established in the project documents; tenure is not modeled as a confirmed characteristic. The project is currently at the Pre-Application stage. Extraction confidence is high for the proposed unit count, number of stories, site acreage, and parking spaces; confidence is low for affordable units and for the existing assessed value, which is not stated in the available documents.
Economic effects
New demand. Applying an occupancy rate of 0.90–0.97 to the proposed 280 units, this analysis estimates 252 to 272 new households, with a central value of 266. Multiplying households by the Rutgers CUPR bedroom-mix persons-per-unit multipliers for multifamily product yields an estimate of 378 to 598 new residents, with a central value of 479. Because tenure is unconfirmed, rental defaults are used for household size and the income premium; for-sale product would raise both figures.
Spending categories and cluster capture. New resident spending is estimated by multiplying households by BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023 category amounts, scaled by an income ratio raised to a category-specific Engel elasticity. The top three spending categories by central value are comparison retail ($1,847,537–$3,330,166/yr), grocery ($1,637,067–$2,639,271/yr), and entertainment ($1,541,673–$2,841,554/yr). Restaurants and bars follow at $1,464,548–$2,581,577/yr.
Retail capture by cluster. These figures are screening estimates. The Huff model allocates new resident spending to individual retail points of interest using a joint destination-and-mode choice in which probability is proportional to destination attractiveness and a walk- or drive-time decay factor; results are then rolled up to named commercial areas for reporting. They rank where spending is likely to land given current retail geography and are not predictions of actual business-level sales changes.
- Fairchester Drive & Hill Street: $1,853,473–$3,271,990/yr (central $2,478,436), led by grocery capture
- Chain Bridge Road & North Street: $1,314,527–$2,961,154/yr (central $2,054,380), with notable restaurant and entertainment capture
- Fair Lakes Parkway & Fair Oaks Mall: $572,515–$865,136/yr (central $765,785), dominated by comparison retail
- Mathy Drive & Pickett Road: $476,395–$769,362/yr (central $624,686)
- Blenheim Boulevard & Fairfax Boulevard: $387,698–$642,814/yr (central $504,423)
The Huff model estimates that 59.8%–68.1% (central 62.7%) of all retail spending and 63.4%–74.2% (central 67.6%) of food-away-from-home spending would land at destinations inside the City of Fairfax boundary.
Project's own retail capture. The project as described includes no ground-floor retail space. Accordingly, the Huff model assigns $0/yr in annual capture to the project's own ground-floor retail across all scenarios.
Foot-traffic index. Using exact marginal trip flows from the site allocated to the 10 nearest commercial street segments, compared against a seeded sampled betweenness index of today's population, the model estimates a foot-traffic index change of 0.1%. This is a screening estimate; the baseline is a sampled index, not calibrated pedestrian count data.
New resident spending arriving on foot at nearby retailers is estimated at $125,483–$4,051,683/yr (central $776,744), computed as the walk-mode share of the joint destination-and-mode Huff choice summed over nearby businesses. The wide range reflects sensitivity to the walk-time decay parameter (β = 0.05–0.15/min) and walk-mode preference assumptions. Restaurants and bars account for the largest share of the central walk-arriving figure. Spending arriving by bike is estimated separately at $6,216–$699,336/yr (central $110,228), computed as the bike-mode share carved from the drive remainder of the same Huff choice.
Jobs ledger. The existing approximately 59,983-square-foot office building supports an estimated 120 to 240 on-site jobs (central 171), computed by dividing existing commercial square footage by an assumed 250–500 square feet per office job. The proposed project includes no retail or office space, yielding zero on-site retail or office jobs added. The net on-site job change is therefore estimated at −120 to −240 jobs (central −171). This represents a displacement of employment, not a prediction of where those workers relocate.
Fiscal effects
Current tax. The current real estate tax on the site (parcel 57 2 20 4E 001), drawn from the City of Fairfax Real Estate Assessment Database at the FY2027 rate, is $70,708/yr.
Projected assessed value and real estate tax. Projected assessed value is estimated by multiplying proposed units by an assessed value per unit derived from three City of Fairfax apartment comparables built since 2011: $360,982/unit (400-unit property, 2020), $359,599/unit (403-unit property, 2022), and $458,932/unit (268-unit property, 2022). Applying the range $359,599–$458,932 per unit to 280 units yields a projected assessed value of $100,687,792–$128,501,090 (central $101,075,100). Multiplying by the FY2027 real estate tax rate produces a projected real estate tax of $1,079,877–$1,378,174/yr (central $1,084,030). Because no retail or office square footage is proposed, the ground-floor commercial and office value components are each $0. The real estate tax increase — computed as projected minus current tax — is estimated at $1,009,169–$1,307,466/yr (central $1,013,323).
Other recurring revenue lines.
- Personal property tax (rough estimate): $93,668–$403,815/yr (central $215,322), computed as new households × assumed vehicles per household × assumed average vehicle assessed value × the city personal property tax rate. No project-specific vehicle data exist; this should be treated as order-of-magnitude only.
- Meals tax: $41,785–$86,158/yr (central $61,168), computed as restaurant spending × the in-city capture share from the Huff run × the city meals tax rate.
- Local sales tax share: $22,643–$44,039/yr (central $32,029), computed as in-city captured retail spending × the local-option sales tax share.
Service cost — marginal framing. The marginal-cost method applies a marginal cost factor of 0.25–0.55 (central 0.35) to the non-school per-capita cost for services that scale with new residents ($5,254 per resident per the FY2027 budget), plus the school-cost component directly. The school cost is estimated as 14 to 34 students (central 22, at 0.05–0.12 students per unit per Rutgers CUPR high-rise multifamily multipliers) multiplied by $19,961 net local cost per pupil (computed from the FY2027 adopted tuition contract net of state education revenue). Together, the marginal non-school service cost and the school cost produce a total annual service cost under the marginal framing of $775,936–$2,397,276/yr (central $1,327,555). This method understates costs if a service-capacity expansion is triggered; the marginal cost factor's range is intended to carry that uncertainty. The school component alone accounts for $279,447–$670,674/yr (central $447,116) of the service cost estimate.
Net annual fiscal impact — marginal framing. Computed as incremental new recurring revenue minus service costs for services that scale with new residents, the net annual fiscal impact ranges from −$1,230,011 to +$1,065,543/yr, with a central estimate of approximately −$5,714/yr. The central estimate is near breakeven, but the range spans a meaningful potential deficit to a meaningful potential surplus. The result is most sensitive to the marginal cost factor, the assessed value per unit, and the students-per-unit assumption.
No external published fiscal estimates are available. The extraction notes record that a Council packet staff report dated 2026-07-28 was identified but contained no figures; accordingly, no comparison to a published external estimate is possible for this version.
Not evaluated in this version
Several analyses are deferred and not included in these results. Bike-lane corridor and trail connectivity assessments, broader multimodal network analyses, environmental impact analyses (including stormwater, impervious surface, and tree canopy effects), and comparable-places analyses examining outcomes at analogous redevelopment sites have not been computed. These topics will be addressed in subsequent analytical phases as additional data and methodology resources become available.
Method notes & caveats
- Huff capture is a screening estimate computed per business location (every retail POI is an individual destination) and aggregated to named areas for reporting; it ranks where new spending is likely to land, with sensitivity bounds — it is not a prediction.
- Residential tenure (for-sale vs rental) is not established in the project documents; rental defaults are used for household size, occupancy, and the income premium. For-sale product would raise all three.
- The project's own retail is included as a competing destination; its capture estimates how much of the residents' spending the ground floor itself can hold on to.
- Displaced use: Office building with surface parking (approximately 59,983 sq ft office building). Any spending that originated on-site today is assumed negligible relative to the new residential demand.
- Bike-arriving capture models cycling as a third mode alongside walking and driving: the bike preference is taken from the drive remainder (walk shares are unchanged), and bikes reach ~3-4x the walking distance per minute of travel time.
- Foot-traffic flows are exact allocations of the new residents' modeled walk trips; the % comparison uses a sampled index of today's walkers, not calibrated pedestrian counts.
- Walk-in capture per business is the walk-arriving share of the NEW residents' spending under a joint destination-and-mode choice: walking competes with driving per destination, so businesses beyond practical walking range receive effectively none of it and the rest of the spending arrives by car. It is not total pedestrian commerce. Comparing a business's walk-in capture to its total capture shows how much of its projected gain depends on being within walking distance of the project.
- Personal property tax is a rough estimate: the city rate is pinned, but vehicles per household and average vehicle value are assumptions, not observed data. Pinning per-household budget actuals would replace this estimate.
- School costs use the split model: 22 students (14-34) x $19,961 net local cost per pupil ≈ $447,116/yr in the service-cost estimate — a development generating fewer students carries proportionally lower costs instead of the school-heavy citywide average.
- Service costs use the marginal framing: only services that scale with new residents, plus the project's own students at the net local cost per pupil. It understates costs if a service-capacity expansion is triggered; the marginal cost factor's range carries that uncertainty.
- The revenue side includes the rough-estimate personal property and BPOL lines: leaving them at zero would understate revenue for taxes the city does levy, but both carry wide assumption-driven bounds.
Data sources
- City project directory record · 2026-07-18
- Project document: January 23, 2026 Project Narrative (PDF, 121KB) · current
- Project document: January 23, 2026 Concept Plans (PDF, 984KB) · current
- Project documents (extracted spec) · current
- Rutgers CUPR residential demographic multipliers (Listokin et al. 2006), multifamily · 2006
- Census ACS 5-yr 2024 (B19025/B11001, site tract) · 2024
- BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023, average annual expenditures per consumer unit · 2023 · line items: grocery: Food at home; restaurant_bar: Food away from home; retail_comparison: Apparel and services + household furnishings and equipment; retail_convenience: Personal care products and services (products share); personal_services: Personal services incl. laundry/cleaning, haircare services; entertainment: Entertainment; income scaling uses per-category expenditure elasticities grocery=0.45, restaurant_bar=0.85, retail_comparison=0.95, retail_convenience=0.6, personal_services=0.9, entertainment=1.05 (Engel gradients per CE quintile tables)
- Derived: new residents x NHTS walking trip rate · 2022
- OpenStreetMap walk network + ACS population + merged POI layer · current · exact shortest-path flow allocation; baseline sampled betweenness k=2000, seeded
- City of Fairfax Real Estate Assessment Database (Patriot WebPro) · 2026 · parcels 57 2 20 4E 001
- City real estate tax rate · FY2027
- City of Fairfax Real Estate Assessment Database (Patriot WebPro), apartment comps built since 2011 · 2026 · 3 apartment comps: 48 3 02 011 A (2020, 400 units, $360,982/unit); 57 1 02 031 C (2022, 403 units, $359,599/unit); 57 2 20 006 A (2022, 268 units, $458,932/unit)
- City personal property tax rate · FY2027 (rate unchanged; also FY2024 Rates & Levies, code 311210) · PPTRA car-tax relief is a fixed state block grant, so marginal vehicles yield the city the full levy
- City meals tax rate · FY2027
- Local-option sales tax share · statutory (Va. Code § 58.1-605)
- City General Fund budget + school tuition contract · FY2027 · non-school: ($207,912,496 - $76,429,791) / 25,026 residents = $5,254 per capita; schools: ($76,429,791 tuition - $14,492,271 state education revenue) / 3,103 students = $19,961 net local cost per pupil (FY2027 adopted (Education page — FCPS tuition contract, final tuition bill estimate))
- Rutgers CUPR residential demographic multipliers (Listokin et al. 2006), high-rise multifamily · 2006
Computed Sep 14, 2026 · narrative by claude-sonnet-4-6 over deterministic model output (v3)