Gallery at City Center

Project description

The project site consists of four parcels — identified as 57 4 02 041, 57 4 02 054, 57 4 02 053, and 57 4 02 051 — located at 4085, 4101, 4103, and 4117 Chain Bridge Road, totaling 3.86 acres. Project documents describe the existing use as office. The proposal would redevelop the site into a rental multifamily residential community with up to 392 dwelling units, of which 24 units (six percent of the total) would be designated as affordable. The development would include up to 7,747 square feet of retail space and up to 29,639 square feet of office space, in buildings reaching up to six stories in height, with height tapering down toward University Drive. A total of 655 parking spaces are proposed (637 structured plus 18 surface). The project is currently under review by the City of Fairfax. Minor document-to-document variation exists in several figures: unit counts range from 392 to 395 across submissions, with the most recent Draft Proffer (April 7, 2026) controlling at 392 (up to 395 per Proffer 8.C); parking totals range from 655 to 671 across submissions; and building height is described as six stories in the second submission and five stories tapering to four in the first.

Economic effects

New demand. New households are estimated at 353 to 380 (central: 372), computed as proposed units multiplied by an assumed occupancy rate (central 0.95, range 0.90–0.97). New residents are estimated at 529 to 837 (central: 670), computed as households multiplied by persons per multifamily unit using Rutgers CUPR bedroom-mix multipliers (central 1.8, range 1.5–2.2 persons per unit).

Aggregate household income for the incoming residents is estimated at approximately $79 million to $107 million per year (central: approximately $94 million), computed as households multiplied by the mean income of site tract 51600300500 ($224,337, from Census ACS 5-year 2024, B19025/B11001) and a new-construction income premium (central 1.125, range 1.0–1.25), which reflects that new-construction rents tend to attract higher-income households than the area median.

Spending by category. Annual new household spending by category is estimated using BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023 data, scaled by Engel-gradient elasticities per income category. The top spending clusters are comparison retail (apparel and household furnishings, $2.95 million to $5.32 million per year), entertainment ($2.50 million to $4.61 million per year), and restaurants and bars ($2.31 million to $4.07 million per year). Grocery spending is estimated at $2.44 million to $3.93 million per year, convenience retail at $0.46 million to $0.76 million per year, and personal services at $0.67 million to $1.20 million per year.

Where spending is likely to land — Huff capture (screening estimates). The Huff capture figures below are screening estimates. They are computed using a joint destination-and-mode choice model in which each retail point of interest is an individual destination, and the probability of choosing a destination and travel mode follows the form P(j,m) ~ A_j × w_m × exp(−b_m × t_mj), applied to the CES category spending totals. The results rank where new spending is likely to land and provide sensitivity bounds; they are not predictions.

The top clusters by estimated annual capture are:

• Fairchester Drive & Hill Street: $2.94 million to $5.16 million per year (central: $3.91 million), with grocery and comparison retail as the leading sub-categories within this cluster.
• Chain Bridge Road & North Street: $2.10 million to $4.77 million per year (central: $3.31 million), with entertainment and restaurants & bars as the leading sub-categories within this cluster.
• Fair Lakes Parkway & Fair Oaks Mall: $0.96 million to $1.46 million per year (central: $1.28 million), dominated by comparison retail.
• Mathy Drive & Pickett Road: $0.71 million to $1.12 million per year (central: $0.93 million).
• Blenheim Boulevard & Fairfax Boulevard: $0.51 million to $0.74 million per year (central: $0.65 million).

The Huff model estimates that approximately 59% to 66% of all retail spending and approximately 63% to 71% of food-away-from-home spending would land at destinations inside the City of Fairfax boundary, computed as the share of Huff-model capture at destinations inside the city boundary.

Project's own ground-floor retail. The project's 7,747 square feet of ground-floor retail competes as a destination in the Huff model. Annual capture at the project's own retail is estimated at $30,000 to $69,000 per year (central: $51,000), using the own retail's square footage converted to a POI-equivalent attractiveness (central 2,000 square feet per equivalent POI, range 1,500–3,000). This is a screening estimate. Of that capture, spending arriving on foot is estimated at $8,900 to $46,600 per year (central: $25,300), computed as the walk-mode share of the joint Huff choice at the own-retail destination.

Foot traffic. New annual spending arriving on foot at all destinations is estimated at $231,000 to $6.45 million per year (central: $1.33 million), and by bike at $9,800 to $1.06 million per year (central: $169,000). The wide ranges on both figures reflect the sensitivity of mode-split assumptions. The foot-traffic index change across the 10 nearest commercial street segments is estimated at 0.3% (relative index). This foot-traffic figure is a screening estimate computed by allocating exact marginal trip flows from the site — using POI-weighted destinations and exponential walk-time decay along shortest paths — against a seeded sampled baseline betweenness index of today's population; it is not a calibrated pedestrian count.

Jobs. The net on-site job change is estimated at 70 to 138 jobs (central: 100), computed as retail jobs added plus office jobs added minus existing jobs removed. Because no existing commercial square footage is recorded for the site, jobs removed is estimated at zero. Retail jobs added are estimated at 11 to 19 (central: 15), computed as proposed retail square footage (7,747 sq ft) divided by square feet per retail job (central 500, range 400–700). Office jobs added are estimated at 59 to 119 (central: 85), computed as proposed office square footage (29,639 sq ft) divided by square feet per office job (central 350, range 250–500).

Fiscal effects

Current real estate tax. The four project parcels currently generate $165,674 per year in real estate tax, computed as the current assessed value multiplied by the applicable rate, drawn from the City of Fairfax Real Estate Assessment Database (Patriot WebPro, 2026).

Projected real estate tax. The projected assessed value of the completed development is estimated at approximately $148 million to $196 million (central: $153 million), computed as units multiplied by assessed value per unit, plus retail square footage multiplied by assessed value per square foot, plus office square footage multiplied by assessed value per square foot. The residential component relies on three apartment-class comparables from the Patriot WebPro database — parcels assessed at $360,982, $359,599, and $458,932 per unit respectively — yielding a central value per unit of $360,983 (range: $359,599–$458,932). Commercial and office per-square-foot values are screening-range assumptions (retail: $275/sq ft, range $200–$400; office: $300/sq ft, range $200–$450). The projected real estate tax is estimated at approximately $1.59 million to $2.11 million per year (central: $1.64 million). The resulting real estate tax increase — projected tax minus current tax — is estimated at approximately $1.43 million to $1.94 million per year (central: $1.47 million).

Other recurring revenue lines. Several additional revenue lines are estimated, all subject to material assumption uncertainty:

• Personal property tax on resident vehicles (rough estimate): $131,000 to $565,000 per year (central: $301,000), computed as new households multiplied by assumed vehicles per household (central 1.4, range 1.0–1.8) multiplied by assumed average vehicle assessed value (central $14,000, range $9,000–$20,000) multiplied by the city personal property tax rate. No project-specific vehicle data exists; this is an order-of-magnitude estimate.
• BPOL business license tax on project retail (rough estimate): $566 to $4,597 per year (central: $1,829), computed as proposed retail square footage multiplied by assumed gross sales per square foot (central $400, range $250–$600) multiplied by the city BPOL retail rate, multiplied by a net-new share factor (central 0.30, range 0.15–0.50) to reflect that a portion of on-site receipts displaces spending from existing city businesses that stop paying BPOL at their prior location.
• BPOL business license tax on project office (rough estimate): $35,600 to $94,800 per year (central: $59,300), computed as proposed office square footage multiplied by assumed gross receipts per square foot (central $500, range $300–$800) multiplied by the BPOL professional/financial services rate. This figure is not displacement-adjusted, as professional and medical practices are assumed to serve regional demand.
• Business tangible property tax (rough estimate): $6,200 to $23,200 per year (central: $12,400), computed as proposed commercial square footage multiplied by assumed equipment value per square foot (central $8, range $4–$15) multiplied by the city business tangible property rate.
• Meals tax on captured in-city dining: $65,300 to $130,800 per year (central: $94,900), computed as restaurant-category spending multiplied by the in-city capture share from the economic Huff run, multiplied by the city meals tax rate.
• Meals tax on project's own restaurants (net-new, rough estimate): $3,800 to $72,400 per year (central: $20,600), computed as ground-floor square footage multiplied by assumed sales per square foot, multiplied by an assumed restaurant share of retail (central 0.50, range 0.30–0.70), multiplied by the meals tax rate, multiplied by the net-new share.
• Local sales tax share on captured in-city retail: $34,600 to $66,300 per year (central: $48,800), computed as in-city captured retail spending multiplied by the local-option sales tax share.
• Local sales tax on project's own retail (net-new, rough estimate): $2,800 to $23,000 per year (central: $9,100), computed as ground-floor square footage multiplied by assumed gross sales per square foot, multiplied by the local sales tax share, multiplied by the net-new share.

Service costs — marginal framing. Two distinct methods are used to estimate service costs, as noted in the analysis.

The marginal-cost method — the one used to produce the net fiscal figure — estimates annual service costs at approximately $1.09 million to $3.36 million per year (central: $1.86 million). It is computed as non-school per-capita cost multiplied by a marginal cost factor (central 0.35, range 0.25–0.55), applied to new residents, plus school costs computed directly as estimated students multiplied by the net local cost per pupil. The marginal cost factor reflects the assumption that fixed city services — roads, administration, and similar — do not scale proportionally with infill development. Estimated K-12 students are 20 to 47 (central: 31), computed as units multiplied by students per unit (central 0.08, range 0.05–0.12, using high-rise multifamily demographic multipliers from Rutgers CUPR). The annual school cost component is estimated at $391,000 to $939,000 (central: $626,000), computed as estimated students multiplied by the net local cost per pupil of $19,961 (derived from the FY2027 adopted FCPS tuition contract cost of $76,429,791 less state education revenue of $14,492,271, divided by 3,103 students). The non-school per-capita cost of $5,254 is derived from the FY2027 General Fund budget.

The marginal framing understates costs if new residents trigger a service-capacity expansion; the range of the marginal cost factor is intended to carry that uncertainty. The full per-capita method — which would apply the citywide average cost across all services to all new residents without discounting for fixed costs — is not separately computed in this version but would generally yield a higher cost estimate than the marginal framing, widening the range on the negative side of the net figure.

Net annual fiscal impact — marginal framing. Computed as incremental new recurring revenue minus service costs scaled to new residents, the net annual fiscal impact under the marginal framing is estimated at approximately −$1.65 million to +$1.83 million per year (central: approximately +$160,000). The range spans both positive and negative territory, meaning the direction of the net fiscal impact cannot be determined with confidence from this analysis alone. The primary drivers of the wide range are the marginal cost factor assumption, the assessed value per residential unit, and the students-per-unit rate.

No external fiscal estimates from applicant or city staff documents were available for comparison. Staff memoranda from the January 2025 Pre-Application Briefing and the July 2026 City Council work sessions were identified but contained no published fiscal figures.

Not evaluated in this version

Several analyses are deferred from this version of the report. Bike-lane corridor effects, trail-network connectivity impacts, broader multimodal access analysis, environmental impact evaluation (including stormwater, tree canopy, and urban heat), and comparable-places analysis have not been computed and will not appear in the findings above. These topics may be addressed in subsequent versions as additional data and methodology modules become available.