Circle Gateway

Project description

The site consists of two parcels — PIN 48 3 08 002 B and PIN 48 3 08 002 A — at 3226 and 3250 Blenheim Boulevard (formerly addressed as 3226 and 3250 Old Lee Highway; the street was apparently renamed). At the time of the most recent project document (the June 5, 2026 pre-application briefing), the parcels are improved with two existing commercial buildings. The buildings formerly housed a Lotte Plaza and a 7-Eleven; as of the 2026 document they are leased to HomeTrends and Class Design Cabinetry. The existing square footage of those buildings is not reliably established in the available documents (extraction confidence: low).

The proposal, as described in the June 2026 pre-application briefing — the most authoritative document available — is an 11-story mixed-use building with an overall height of approximately 118 feet 10 inches. The building would contain 261 multifamily rental apartments dispersed on floors 4 through 10, of which 16 units (6% of the total) are designated as Affordable Dwelling Units. The ground floor includes 16,530 SF of street-front retail. The project status is listed as unknown in the city's project directory as of the retrieval date. An earlier 2022 conceptual plan described 230 units; the 2026 figure of 261 is preferred here as the more recent staff-level document.

A note on site geometry: the two parcels are stated in project documents to total 1.64 acres. The parcels as resolved through address geocoding yielded an area of approximately 1.38 acres, a 16% discrepancy from the stated figure; subsequent re-resolution placed the area at approximately 1.66 acres. The 1.64-acre figure from the project documents is used throughout this analysis.

Economic effects

New demand. At a stabilized occupancy rate of 0.90–0.97, the 261 proposed units are estimated to yield 234.9–253.17 occupied households, computed as proposed units multiplied by the occupancy rate. Applying Rutgers CUPR bedroom-mix multipliers (Listokin et al. 2006) for multifamily housing — at an assumed 1.5–2.2 persons per occupied unit — yields an estimated 352–557 new residents, with a central estimate of 446.

Spending and cluster capture. Each spending category is estimated by multiplying households by BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023 category figures, then scaling by an Engel-curve elasticity applied to an assumed new-construction income premium (range 1.0–1.25 times the site-tract mean household income of $195,124 from ACS tract 51600300200). The top spending categories are comparison retail ($1.7M–$3.1M/yr), entertainment ($1.4M–$2.6M/yr), and grocery ($1.5M–$2.5M/yr).

The Huff capture figures reported below are screening estimates. They are computed through a joint destination-and-mode choice model: for each retail point of interest, capture probability is proportional to destination attractiveness weighted by a walk- or drive-time decay factor, with the form P(j,m) ~ A_j × w_m × exp(−b_m × t_mj). Individual POI results are then aggregated to named geographic clusters for reporting. These figures rank where new resident spending is likely to land and provide sensitivity bounds; they are not predictions.

The five clusters drawing the largest estimated annual capture from new residents are:

The Huff model estimates that 57%–62% of total new-resident retail spending across all categories lands at destinations inside the city boundary (in-city capture share: all retail, range 0.569–0.624). For the restaurant-and-bar category specifically, the in-city share is estimated at 62%–70%.

Project's own ground-floor retail. The 16,530 SF of on-site retail is entered into the Huff model as a competing destination, scaled by an assumed equivalence of 1,500–3,000 SF per POI. The model estimates that the project's own ground floor captures $41,017–$102,418 per year of the new residents' spending (central: $71,724), with the restaurant-and-bar, comparison retail, convenience retail, and personal services categories present in the capture ledger. This is a screening estimate subject to the same model assumptions as the cluster figures.

Foot-traffic index. New resident walk trips are estimated at 176–1,114 trips per day (central: 446), computed as new residents multiplied by an assumed daily walk-trip rate of 0.5–2.0 trips per resident. The model allocates these trips as exact marginal flows to the nearest commercial street segments using a walk-time decay and POI-weighted destinations; the resulting foot-traffic index on the 10 nearest commercial street segments changes by 0.1% relative to a sampled baseline betweenness index of today's pedestrian population. This is a screening estimate: the baseline uses a seeded sampled index, not calibrated pedestrian counts, so the figure should be read as an order-of-magnitude directional signal rather than a precise measurement.

Jobs ledger. The existing sqft of the two commercial buildings is not reliably established (extraction confidence: low), so the model yields zero displaced jobs from removed space (existing jobs in removed space: 0.0, range 0.0–0.0). On-site retail jobs added are estimated at 23.6–41.3 (central: 33.1), computed as proposed retail sqft divided by an assumed 400–700 SF per retail job. Net on-site job change is therefore estimated at 23.6–41.3 jobs.

Fiscal effects

Current tax baseline. The two existing parcels (48 3 08 002 B and 48 3 08 002 A) currently generate $55,820 per year in real estate tax, computed as current assessed value multiplied by the FY2027 city real estate tax rate. This is the fixed baseline against which the projected tax is compared.

Projected real estate tax. The projected assessed value of the completed development is estimated at $97.2M–$126.4M (central: $98.8M), computed as proposed units multiplied by an assessed value per unit, plus retail sqft multiplied by an assessed value per sqft, plus office sqft multiplied by an assessed office value per sqft. The per-unit value is drawn from three City of Fairfax apartment-class comparable properties built since 2011 (parcels 48 3 02 011 A, 57 1 02 031 C, and 57 2 20 006 A), yielding a range of $359,599–$458,932 per unit with a central of $360,983. The retail component uses a screening range of $200–$400 per sqft; no office square footage is established for this project (extraction confidence: low), so the office component contributes $0. Applying the FY2027 city real estate tax rate to the projected assessed value yields projected real estate tax of $1,042,056–$1,355,569/yr (central: $1,059,224), an increase of $986,236–$1,299,749/yr (central: $1,003,404) over the current site tax.

Other recurring revenue lines. Several additional revenue lines are estimated; those marked as rough estimates carry wide assumption-driven bounds and should be treated as order-of-magnitude figures:

• Personal property tax on resident vehicles (rough estimate): $87,312–$376,413/yr (central: $200,711), computed as new households multiplied by assumed vehicles per household (1.0–1.8) multiplied by assumed average vehicle assessed value ($9,000–$20,000) multiplied by the city personal property tax rate. No project-specific vehicle data exist; this is a rough estimate.
• BPOL business license tax on project retail (rough estimate): $1,218–$9,846/yr (central: $3,924), computed as proposed retail sqft multiplied by assumed gross sales per sqft ($250–$600) multiplied by the city BPOL retail rate, adjusted by a net-new share (0.15–0.50) to account for spending displaced from existing city businesses.
• Business tangible property tax (rough estimate): $2,731–$10,240/yr (central: $5,462), computed as proposed commercial sqft multiplied by assumed equipment value per sqft ($4–$15) multiplied by the city personal property tax rate. This line is not displacement-adjusted because fixtures and equipment are physically new to the city.
• Meals tax on captured in-city dining: $38,243–$76,252/yr (central: $55,083), computed as restaurant-and-bar spending multiplied by the in-city capture share multiplied by the city meals tax rate, drawing directly from the economic module's Huff run.
• Meals tax on the project's own restaurants (rough estimate): $8,223–$155,079/yr (central: $44,147), computed as ground-floor sqft multiplied by assumed sales per sqft multiplied by an assumed restaurant share of retail (0.3–0.7) multiplied by the city meals tax rate, then adjusted by the net-new share.
• Local sales tax share on captured in-city retail: $20,091–$37,637/yr (central: $28,006), computed as in-city captured retail spend multiplied by the local sales tax share, drawing from the Huff run.
• Local sales tax on the project's own retail (rough estimate): $6,091–$49,231/yr (central: $19,621), computed as ground-floor sqft multiplied by assumed gross sales per sqft multiplied by the local sales tax share, adjusted by the net-new share.

Service cost — two methods. This analysis presents service costs under two named framings, deliberately bracketing the plausible range:

The naive per-capita method allocates all citywide General Fund costs to new residents in proportion to population: new residents multiplied by the non-school General Fund per-capita cost ($5,254, derived from the FY2027 adopted budget as ($207,912,496 − $76,429,791) / 25,026 residents) plus estimated students multiplied by the net local cost per pupil ($19,961, derived as ($76,429,791 tuition − $14,492,271 state education revenue) / 3,103 students). This yields an annual service cost of $2,111,677–$3,551,418/yr (central: $2,761,619). This method overstates costs for infill development because it allocates fixed citywide costs — roads, administration, and facilities already in place — to new residents as if they were fully incremental.

The marginal-cost framing applies a marginal cost factor (range 0.25–0.55, central 0.35) to the non-school per-capita figure, reflecting that many city services do not scale proportionally with additional residents in an already-served area, while school costs continue to follow the project's own student estimate directly. This yields an annual service cost of $723,283–$2,234,604/yr (central: $1,237,471).

School costs are identical in both framings: 13–31 estimated K-12 students (central: 21), computed as 261 units multiplied by an assumed student generation rate of 0.05–0.12 students per unit (Rutgers CUPR high-rise multifamily multipliers), multiplied by the net local per-pupil cost of $19,961, yielding $260,485–$625,164/yr (central: $416,776).

Net fiscal range. Combining the revenue lines with costs across both framings, the net annual fiscal impact ranges from −$2,401,273 to +$1,291,164/yr. Under the marginal-cost framing alone the range is −$1,084,458 to +$1,291,164 (central: +$122,887); under the naive per-capita framing alone it is −$2,401,273 to −$97,230 (central: −$1,401,262). The sign of the net impact is uncertain and depends materially on which cost method better describes the city's actual cost structure for this type of infill development. No applicant or city staff fiscal estimates are available in the project record for this analysis to compare against.

Not evaluated in this version

Analyses of the proposed bike-lane corridor, trail connections, broader pedestrian and vehicular connectivity improvements, environmental effects (stormwater, tree canopy, urban heat), and comparisons to comparable completed developments elsewhere are deferred and have not been computed in this version of the report.