The Botanist

Project description

The subject parcel (PIN 47 4 02 02 002A1) is located within the WillowWood Office Plaza area of the City of Fairfax, Virginia. The existing condition on the rezoned lot is a surface parking lot associated with the office plaza; an existing five-story brick building of 24,408 square feet is identified in project documents as the existing structure on the broader site. The proposed project consists of 260 total units of multifamily rental housing in a seven-story building (a special exception height of 81 feet was requested), with approximately 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The gross site area is ±129,130 square feet (±2.96 acres), per the June 2024 General Development Plan tabulation sheet. The project is described in the June 2024 Statement of Support and Proffers as "development of multifamily rental housing consistent with the SAP recommendations." As of the date of this analysis, the project is listed as under construction in the City of Fairfax project directory.

Unit count history: the original December 2022 submission proposed 270 units; subsequent submissions reduced the count to 268 and then 260. The figure of 260 units is fixed by the June 2024 Proffers and General Development Plan, which are the controlling documents used here. The number of affordable units and total parking spaces are noted in project materials but are not confirmed by verbatim extraction and are therefore not reported as spec figures in this analysis.

Economic effects

New demand. At a stabilized occupancy rate of 0.90–0.97, the 260 proposed units are estimated to yield 234 to 252 new households, computed as proposed units multiplied by the occupancy rate. Applying Rutgers CUPR bedroom-mix multipliers (persons per multifamily unit) to those households produces an estimated 351 to 555 new residents, with a central estimate of approximately 445.

Spending pool. Aggregate household income is estimated by multiplying the projected household count by the mean household income of site Census tract 51600300200 ($195,124, from ACS 5-year 2024 tables B19025/B11001) and a new-construction income premium (range 1.0–1.25). Annual household spending by category is then estimated using BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023 national averages, scaled by Engel-curve elasticities per category (grocery 0.45, restaurants/bars 0.85, comparison retail 0.95, convenience retail 0.60, personal services 0.90, entertainment 1.05), applied as: households × CES category spend × (income ratio)^elasticity.

Where spending is captured — screening estimates. Destination capture was modeled using a Huff gravity approach over individual retail points of interest, with a joint destination-and-mode choice of the form P(j,m) ~ A_j × w_m × exp(−b_m × t_mj), aggregated to named commercial clusters for reporting. These are screening estimates: they indicate the likely direction and relative order of capture, with sensitivity bounds, and are not predictions. The top five named clusters by estimated annual capture are:

• Fairchester Drive & Hill Street: $1,945,000 – $3,721,000/yr
• Chain Bridge Road & North Street: $876,000 – $1,757,000/yr
• Fair Lakes Parkway & Fair Oaks Mall: $618,000 – $965,000/yr
• Blenheim Boulevard & Fairfax Boulevard: $416,000 – $728,000/yr
• Mathy Drive & Pickett Road: $323,000 – $484,000/yr

Across all in-city destinations, the Huff model estimates that approximately 57–64% of food-away-from-home spending and approximately 57–64% of all retail spending lands at establishments inside the city boundary, computed as the share of Huff-weighted capture at destinations inside the city boundary.

Project's own ground-floor retail. The 5,000 square feet of proposed ground-floor retail competes as a destination in the same Huff run. The estimated annual capture from the project's own new residents at that space is approximately $11,500 to $27,700 per year — a screening estimate reflecting the small size of the space relative to the surrounding retail environment. The walk-arriving portion of that capture is estimated at $3,500 to $19,000 per year, computed as the walk-mode share of the joint Huff choice at the on-site destination.

Foot-traffic index. The change in the foot-traffic index for the 10 nearest commercial street segments is estimated at approximately 0.1% (relative index), computed as the exact marginal trip flows from the site against a seeded sampled baseline betweenness of today's population. This is a screening estimate: the percentage comparison uses a sampled index of today's walkers, not calibrated pedestrian counts.

Jobs ledger. The existing 24,408 square feet of commercial space, divided by the assumed sqft-per-office-job range (250–500 sqft/job), implies a loss of approximately 49 to 98 on-site positions. The proposed 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, divided by the assumed sqft-per-retail-job range (400–700 sqft/job), implies approximately 7 to 13 new on-site retail positions. The net on-site job change is therefore estimated at approximately −36 to −90 positions, computed as retail jobs added plus office jobs added minus existing jobs removed. No office space is proposed, so the office-jobs-added term is zero. The existing surface parking lot is assumed to generate negligible on-site employment as a baseline.

Fiscal effects

Current tax. The current real estate tax on the subject parcel (PIN 47 4 02 02 002A1), computed as current assessed value multiplied by the real estate rate divided by 100, is $69,246 per year.

Projected real estate tax. The projected assessed value is estimated at approximately $94,496,000 to $121,322,000, computed as: units × assessed value per unit + retail sqft × $/sqft + office sqft × $/sqft. The assessed value per unit range ($359,599 – $458,932/unit) is drawn from three City of Fairfax apartment-class comparables built since 2011 (parcels 48 3 02 011 A, 57 1 02 031 C, and 57 2 20 006 A) retrieved from the City's Patriot WebPro assessment database. Applying the projected assessed value to the city real estate tax rate yields a projected annual real estate tax of approximately $1,013,000 to $1,301,000, of which the residential component contributes the large majority. The net real estate tax increase over the current site tax is estimated at approximately $944,000 to $1,232,000 per year, computed as projected minus current real estate tax.

Other recurring revenue lines. Additional revenue lines estimated on an annual basis include:

• Personal property tax (rough estimate): $87,000 – $375,000/yr, computed as new households × assumed vehicles per household × assumed value per vehicle × personal property rate/100. No project-specific vehicle data exist; this is an order-of-magnitude estimate.
• BPOL business license tax on project retail (rough estimate): approximately $369 – $2,980/yr, computed as proposed retail sqft × assumed gross sales per sqft × BPOL retail rate/100 × net-new share, with a displacement adjustment for resident spending that would have occurred at existing city businesses.
• Business tangible property tax (rough estimate): approximately $826 – $3,097/yr, computed as proposed commercial sqft × assumed equipment value per sqft × business personal property rate/100.
• Meals tax on captured in-city dining: $37,178 – $76,786/yr, computed as restaurant spending × in-city capture share × meals tax rate, using results from the economic Huff run.
• Meals tax on the project's own restaurants (rough estimate): $2,490 – $46,929/yr, computed as ground-floor sqft × assumed sales per sqft × assumed restaurant share × meals tax rate × net-new share, with a displacement adjustment.
• Local sales tax share on captured in-city retail: $19,989 – $38,696/yr, computed as in-city captured retail spend × local sales tax share.
• Local sales tax on the project's own retail (rough estimate): $1,844 – $14,898/yr, computed as ground-floor sqft × assumed sales per sqft × local sales tax share × net-new share, with a displacement adjustment.

Service costs — two methods. Two cost framings are used, and the report presents both because neither is fully correct in isolation.

The naive per-capita method allocates all city General Fund costs to new residents proportionally — residents × non-school General Fund per capita ($5,254/resident, derived from FY2027 adopted budget) plus estimated students × net local cost per pupil ($19,961/student, derived from the FY2027 FCPS tuition contract net of state education revenue). This method produces an annual service cost of approximately $2,104,000 to $3,538,000. It is an upper-bound framing because it allocates fixed citywide costs — roads, administration, and other infrastructure that does not meaningfully expand with a marginal increment of infill residents — fully to the new population.

The marginal framing applies a marginal cost factor (range 0.25–0.55, central 0.35) to the non-school per-capita cost, on the basis that fixed services do not scale with new residents, while school costs continue to follow the student estimate directly. This method produces an annual service cost of approximately $721,000 to $2,226,000. It is a lower-bound framing because it may understate costs if service-capacity expansions are actually triggered by project-level growth.

School costs — estimated K-12 students of 13 to 31 (computed as units × students per unit, using Rutgers CUPR high-rise multifamily multipliers) × $19,961 net local cost per pupil — are identical under both framings, totaling approximately $259,000 to $623,000 per year.

Net annual fiscal impact. Under the naive per-capita method, the net annual fiscal impact is estimated at approximately −$2,444,000 to −$314,000 per year (incremental new recurring revenue minus upper-bound cost framing). Under the marginal framing, the net is estimated at approximately −$1,132,000 to +$1,070,000 per year. Taking both methods and their assumption bounds together, the combined net annual range is approximately −$2,444,000 to +$1,070,000.

Comparison with city staff estimates. City staff, in reports presented to both the Planning Commission (April 22, 2024) and the City Council (July 9, 2024), estimated that "this proposal would bring a net fiscal benefit of between -$250,000 and +$306,000 annually with an average of $56,000." The same range and average appear in the July 9, 2024 Agenda Cover Memo. These are published as-is and are not combined with the estimates above.

The city staff range of −$250,000 to +$306,000 and this analysis's combined range of −$2,444,000 to +$1,070,000 overlap: both ranges include the −$250,000 to +$306,000 band. However, this analysis's range is substantially wider in both directions. On the cost side, the naive per-capita framing here allocates all fixed citywide expenditures to new residents, which drives the lower bound further negative than the staff model; city staff fiscal models for Virginia jurisdictions typically apply a cost framing closer to the marginal approach, which would explain a portion of the gap. On the revenue side, the personal property tax estimate here carries a wide assumption-driven band (dependent on vehicles per household and average vehicle value) that contributes to the upper bound exceeding the staff figure. The staff methodology is not fully documented in the available project materials, so additional methodological differences cannot be identified from the record.

Not evaluated in this version

Analyses of the proposed bike-lane corridor improvements, trail connections, broader multimodal connectivity, environmental and stormwater effects, and comparable-places benchmarking have not been completed and are deferred to a subsequent version of this report.