Paul VI

Project description

The site currently contains the Paul VI Catholic High School, a private non-profit high school occupying approximately 190,532 square feet, plus two residential parcels including the John C. Wood House, all owned by the Diocese. The three parcels have been consolidated into a single 18.51-acre site. The approved project, as stated in the August 21, 2018 Master Development Plan and associated narrative (the authoritative final submission), proposes a total of 266 residential units — comprising 144 multifamily residential condominiums in a four-story building, 115 townhomes, and 7 single-family detached homes — along with 20,000 square feet of commercial/retail space. The project documents establish that no rental units shall be developed or offered; all residential units are for-sale. The project is currently under construction. Unit counts and configurations evolved across multiple plan submissions between 2017 and 2018; the 266-unit figure reflects the approved final plan.

Economic effects

The 266 proposed units are estimated to generate 247–263 new occupied households at stabilization, applying an occupancy rate assumption of 0.93–0.99. Applying Rutgers CUPR residential demographic multipliers by bedroom mix to those households yields an estimated 396–632 new residents, with a central estimate of 516. Aggregate annual household income for the new population is estimated at $42.7 million–$63.2 million per year, computed as households multiplied by the mean income of site census tract 51600300100 (ACS B19025/B11001, $149,926) and a new-construction income premium of 1.15–1.60, reflecting that for-sale condominium buyers tend to anchor to purchase price at incomes above the area median.

New annual spending by category is estimated using households multiplied by BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2023 category averages, scaled by income ratio raised to a category-specific elasticity (Engel scaling). The largest spending pools are comparison retail ($1.6 million–$3.2 million per year), grocery ($1.5 million–$2.5 million per year), restaurant and bar spending ($1.3 million–$2.5 million per year), and entertainment ($1.3 million–$2.7 million per year).

The Huff model — applied as a screening estimate — allocates new resident spending across individual retail points of interest using a joint destination-and-mode choice, where each destination's attraction is weighted by its size and discounted by a per-minute travel-time decay (walk decay parameter 0.05–0.15 per minute). Clusters are a reporting rollup of individual POI results. The top clusters attracting new spending under this screening estimate are:

• Fairchester Drive & Hill Street: $2.1 million–$4.4 million per year, led by grocery, restaurant, and comparison retail
• Chain Bridge Road & North Street: $825,000–$1.9 million per year, with notable entertainment and restaurant components
• Fair Lakes Parkway & Fair Oaks Mall: $616,000–$1.1 million per year, dominated by comparison retail and entertainment

The Huff model estimates that 58%–66% of all modeled retail spending from new residents lands at destinations inside the city boundary (all-retail in-city capture share), and 63%–73% of restaurant and bar spending lands inside the city (food-away in-city capture share). These are screening estimates and are not predictions.

The project's own 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail is included as a competing destination in the Huff model. Under that screening estimate, the on-site retail is projected to attract $41,764–$100,743 per year of the new residents' spending, computed using the own-retail square footage converted to a POI-equivalent attractiveness measure (assumption: 1,500–3,000 square feet per equivalent POI) and the same joint destination-and-mode Huff choice.

New annual spending arriving at nearby businesses on foot is estimated at $143,124–$4,014,390 per year; this wide range reflects the sensitivity to the walk-mode share and walk-decay assumptions. The foot-traffic index is estimated to increase approximately 0.1% on the 10 nearest commercial street segments, computed as exact marginal trip flows from the site against a sampled baseline betweenness index of today's population. This foot-traffic figure is a screening estimate based on modeled walk trip flows, not calibrated pedestrian counts.

On the jobs ledger: the existing 190,532 square feet of school and associated commercial space implies 381–762 displaced on-site jobs, computed as existing commercial square footage divided by an assumed 250–500 square feet per office-equivalent job. The proposed 20,000 square feet of retail implies 29–50 new on-site retail jobs, computed as proposed retail square footage divided by an assumed 400–700 square feet per retail job. The net on-site job change is therefore estimated at −331 to −734 jobs, reflecting a large displacement of school-related employment with only partial replacement by retail positions. No office square footage is proposed, so no office jobs are added.

Fiscal effects

The current assessed value of the site parcels, drawn from the City of Fairfax Real Estate Assessment Database (WebPro, 2026 vintage), yields a current real estate tax of $2,133,655 per year, computed as current assessed value multiplied by the FY2027 real estate tax rate. A note in the assessment data indicates that the current parcels have been re-subdivided as part of the redevelopment and that current assessed values may reflect the built or under-construction project rather than the pre-development baseline; accordingly, the real estate tax increase metric understates the true increment relative to what the school parcel generated before construction began.

Projected assessed value is estimated at $121,838,000–$184,890,000, computed as 266 units multiplied by assessed value per unit ($443,000–$665,000, from 100 condominium comparable sales in the city's assessment database for units built since 2011) plus 20,000 square feet of retail at $200–$400 per square foot. This yields a projected real estate tax of $1,306,713–$1,982,945 per year.

The real estate tax change computed as projected minus current is estimated at −$826,943 to −$150,710 per year — that is, this analysis projects the real estate tax yield on the site to be lower after redevelopment than at the current baseline, for the reasons noted above regarding baseline valuation.

Other recurring revenue lines modeled include:

• Personal property tax on resident vehicles (rough estimate): $91,951–$391,534 per year, 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 exists; treat as order-of-magnitude.
• BPOL business license tax on project retail (rough estimate): $1,478–$11,927 per year, computed as proposed retail square footage multiplied by assumed gross sales per square foot ($250–$600) multiplied by the city BPOL retail rate, then multiplied by a net-new share (0.15–0.50) reflecting that receipts displaced from existing city businesses would not add to net BPOL collections.
• Business tangible property tax (rough estimate): $3,304–$12,390 per year, computed as proposed commercial square footage multiplied by assumed equipment value per square foot ($4–$15) multiplied by the city personal property rate.
• Meals tax on captured in-city dining: $36,457–$80,961 per year, computed as restaurant spending multiplied by the in-city capture share from the Huff model multiplied by the city meals tax rate.
• Meals tax on the project's own restaurants (rough estimate): $9,977–$187,849 per year, computed as ground-floor square footage multiplied by assumed sales per square foot, multiplied by an assumed restaurant share of retail space (0.30–0.70), multiplied by the meals tax rate and the net-new share.
• Local sales tax share on captured in-city retail: $19,813–$40,996 per year, computed as in-city captured retail spending multiplied by the local sales tax share under Virginia Code § 58.1-605.
• Local sales tax on the project's own retail (rough estimate): $7,390–$59,635 per year, computed as ground-floor square footage multiplied by assumed sales per square foot multiplied by the local sales tax share and the net-new share.

Two service-cost methods are applied to bracket the plausible cost range.

The naive per-capita method allocates the full citywide General Fund non-school cost per resident ($5,254 per capita, derived as the FY2027 non-school General Fund appropriation of $207,912,496 minus the school tuition contract of $76,429,791, divided by 25,026 residents) to new residents, and adds school costs based on an estimated 13–43 new K-12 students multiplied by a net local cost per pupil of $19,961 (derived as the $76,429,791 tuition contract minus $14,492,271 in state education revenue, divided by 3,103 students). This method allocates fixed citywide costs proportionally and produces the upper-bound cost estimate: $2,344,989–$4,170,034 per year.

The marginal framing recognizes that fixed services do not scale with infill development. It applies a marginal cost factor of 0.25–0.55 to the non-school per-capita cost before adding school costs at the same per-pupil rate. This produces the lower-bound cost estimate: $785,353–$2,675,803 per year. The two methods differ because the naive per-capita approach treats every new resident as triggering the full citywide service cost, while the marginal approach recognizes that roads, administration, and other largely fixed services do not expand proportionally with infill residents.

Spanning both methods, the net annual fiscal impact range for this analysis is −$4,826,606 to −$150,772 per year. The project is estimated to run a net cost to the city under both framings; the difference between the framings is large, and actual outcomes will depend on how much service capacity the city must expand in response to this development.

Two applicant-submitted fiscal impact statements are on record and are reported here as published. The March 28, 2018 Fiscal Impact Statement states a net annual balance of $733,000 to $1,145,000 (quoted: "BALANCE ($300,000) $733,000 $1,145,000"). The November 16, 2017 Fiscal Impact Statement states a net annual balance of $761,000 to $1,193,000 (quoted: "BALANCE ($300,000) $761,000 $1,193,000"). Those documents also project assessed values of $180,226,000 (March 2018) and $188,638,000 (November 2017), respectively.

The ranges from this analysis and the applicant's published figures do not overlap: this analysis produces a net cost of −$4,826,606 to −$150,772 per year, while both applicant statements project a net benefit of $733,000–$1,193,000 per year. The directional disagreement is methodologically traceable. The applicant statements appear to have been prepared under a pre-development baseline in which the school parcel generated little or no taxable assessed value (consistent with a tax-exempt institutional use), whereas the current-assessment baseline used in this analysis draws from 2026 WebPro records that reflect the under-construction project at its current assessed value — a baseline that is likely elevated relative to the pre-development school parcel and that, as noted in the assessment data itself, understates the true increment. On the cost side, the applicant statements likely use a different cost-allocation methodology than either framing in this analysis; neither the applicant's revenue assumptions nor its cost methodology are fully visible in the submitted documents. The external estimates are reported as published and have not been combined with the figures in this analysis.

Not evaluated in this version

Analyses of the proposed bike-lane corridor, trail connections, broader pedestrian and vehicular connectivity, environmental and stormwater impacts, and comparable-places benchmarking are deferred and have not been computed in this version of the report.