Falls Church News-Press Spring Real Estate Issue 2021

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

R EA L E STATE

SPRING 2021 | PAGE 11

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Lack of Shopping in F.C. Is Fixed by Density, But May Not Be a Fit for City

BY MATT DELANEY

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

The City of Falls Church seemingly has it all — well, just about everything. While the City has great local restaurants, an abundance of grocery stores and every kind of fitness and medical professional you could dream of within two square miles, there doesn’t seem to be many retail shopping options inside the City proper.

Let’s be fair. There is Road Runner Sports in West Falls Plaza that has plenty of athletic gear on its racks. Local momand-pop shops such as Stylish

Patina, Zoya’s Atelier and Matt’s Bridal are also parts of the City’s retail fabric with their diverse offerings. Doodlehopper 4 Kids has plenty of toy options for children. And small businesses where you can geek out, such as Super Bit Video Games or Victory Comics, are also merchandise retailers.

But what about a Finish Line or an Anthropologie? Or a Marshalls or TJ Maxx? Or even a Home Goods or Macy’s serving as the anchor client for one of the new projects in varying stages of development throughout the City? What is it about the City that it can be flush with

so many options, except retail merchandisers? The answer is, there’s just not enough of people for them to be sold on it.

“Retailers such as Urban Outfitters, for example, have very sophisticated revenue forecasting that’s based on location, demographics, foot traffic, number of trips in the store, as well as location, adjacent or near other types of retailers that they know will increase traffic to their store,” Falls Church City Council member Ross Litkenhous said.

He works with merchandising clients in his day job in the commercial real estate industry. “We just don’t have a lot of foot traf-

ROAD RUNNER SPORTS in West Falls Plaza is one of the few merchandise retailers within the City of Falls Church, and is successful because it serves a niche clientele. (P����: N���-P����) fic in the City to support those types of companies that need to make those kinds of sales per square foot to make their business models work.”

Litkenhous said the problem is two-fold. One, there isn’t

enough surface parking for those kinds of retailers to think they could be a draw outside of the City limits. And two, there just aren’t enough people period.

Continued on Page 12

INSIDE: Apartment Living During Pandemic ���� 13 | F.C. City, Pimmit Are Top Suburbs ���� 16 | F.C. Real Estate Market #s (insert) ����� 16

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R EA L E STATE

PAGE 12 | SPRING 2021

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

F.C. Has Opportunity to Prove Shopping Appeal With New Developments Continued from Page 11

Litkenhous did clarify that possible merchandisers don’t qualify their opinions with metrics — for instance, they don’t say things like “We need X amount of people and Y amount of parking to come here” — but even small businesses will do their own research and realize that it’s not the right fit for them.

Whether or not a lack of merchandise retailers is even a problem, though, is still up for debate.

“If you take a little broader view of the City of Falls Church, we sit between all Bailey’s Crossroads, Tysons Corner and Merrifield — all of which have those kinds of things in abundance,” local developer and Economic Development Authority chair, Bob Young said.

“We’re a city of roughly 15,000.

And I don’t see why any retailer, particularly given the shrinking footprints of brick and mortar stores, would think that they could survive in a small place like Falls Church.”

In his 20 years working in the City, Young said he’s never had

GETTING A MOVIE THEATER has been a mission for F.C. City Council at the Founders Row site, but some worry it won’t have the foot traffic to justify it like the Angelika theater does in nearby Merrifield. (P����: N���-P����) a broker suggest that one of his buildings have a Levi’s or a men’s clothing store fill its space. Filling this role in the market isn’t something that Young feels is a musthave for the Falls Church — especially since those kinds of stores

are contracting, not expanding, in the current economic climate. And he also doesn’t think that not luring in big name clothing or shoe stores is a knock against the City’s aspiration to have everything a person needs within a walk or bike

ride from their front door.

However, Young did say that, if anyone could convince a merchandise retailer to come into the City, it would be developers at either Founders Row or the West End projects.

Mill Creek Residential Trust, the principal at Founders Row, has been “second-to-none” when it comes to curating retail clients, according to Young. He pointed to their success in helping establish the Mosaic District’s shops within Merrifield. To see if they could pull that same feat off with Founders Row is “a great test” to him. Regency, meanwhile, is the retail partner for the West End project, and Young said they’re one of the biggest in the country.

“If anyone could bring them, they could. I just don’t think they will,” he added.

Targeting retail clients for any of these projects isn’t a prudent strategy to Litkenhous. For example, with Founders Row, Litkenhous said the City was insistent on bringing a movie theater to the site. Even as the project lost its commitment from Studio Movie Grill last fall after it went bankrupt, the City plowed ahead with its plans to bring in another theater by the end of 2021/beginning of 2022. So Litkenhous said

Continued on Page 15

Listed and Sold During Lockdown

206 Primrose Lane Front

1951 Sagewood Unit #220

2402 Simpkins

Sold For $21,000 Over List

Sold For $28,500 Over List

9617 Laurel Oak

17899 Sands

56 Years In Falls Church

Treena Rinaldi 703-927-3863

712 W. Broad St. Falls Church, VA 22046 www.korterealty.com 703-532-7704

Mostafa Shah 703-217-6519

PAGE 14 | SPRING 2021

R EA L E STATE A Falls Church News-Press Advertorial

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

M e e t Fa l l s C h u rc h’ s Re a l E s t a t e E x p e r t s Albert Bitici - Keller Williams - Metro Center

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Tori McKinney - Keller Williams - Metro Center Being a Realtor® perfectly blends Tori’s passion for Falls Church and finding her clients their dream home.

After moving to Falls Church in 1998, she immediately immersed herself in community advocacy as a Housing Commissioner and ongoing public school volunteer and sponsor. Since 2010, Tori has directed her philanthropic efforts to the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation, whose mission is preserving, presenting, and celebrating the African American Legacy.

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Treena Rinaldi, Korte Realty Korte Realty, the 56 year old family real estate firm on West Broad Street in Falls Church, is the business of Treena Rinaldi, along with Mostafa (Mosi) Shah. Treena’s mother, Katreen Korte, started the firm back in 1965. Now a 30-year veteran in the industry, Rinaldi said she learned a lot about the business from her mom.

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Ken Trotter - TTR Sotheby’s International Realty Ken Trotter is the founder and principal agent of the Silver Line Group and regularly recognized as one of Washington, DC’s top producing Realtors®. While the heart of the Silver Line Group’s practice is in Falls Church, the team also regularly represents buyers and sellers along the Silver Line corridor from DC to Dulles.

Ken was a successful litigation attorney prior to becoming a Realtor, and he drew upon that experience when establishing the guiding principles behind the Silver Line Group’s professional service: “We focus on making our clients’ interests our sole priority and zealously strive to achieve the best results for our clients in every transaction.”

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Shopping in F.C. Continued from Page 12

the City passed a “theater tax” to subsidize that kind of business.

He said it’s “a bit of a dangerous precedent” to set when the City is acting against market forces. He also said it could work, and the Council has the authority to do it, which they acted on — “but then if the business can’t be supported based on the foot traffic, and then the sales in that store go down and it ends up closing, then you’re stuck with an empty space,” he added.

In Young’s opinion, specialty stores are the best bet when it comes to finding shopping in Falls Church. He took a trip out to Middleburg recently, and found a high end kids clothing store occupying about an 800 square foot space.

That would fit into Falls Church’s market, but he went on to say that those kind of owners are usually locals who live in the City. He’s not sure if someone would be able to support themselves or a family just off their business alone and also live in Falls Church as a retail merchandiser.

For Litkenhous, if the City wants to make itself more appealing to commercial retail clients, they’d need to commit to higher density within its limits. He thinks that’s a hard sell considering how Pearson Square, which was one of the first major mixed-use developments Falls Church took on as it was trying to change its reputation, ended up dropping its plan to be a luxury condominium and instead became multi-family affordable rentals.

He said that about-face poisoned the conversation about the mixed-use projects going forward because it became a net fiscal drag on the City in the form of high public service costs — such as accounting for the amount of children going to schools from that building. Litkenhous believed that that project alone was indelible in people’s problems with density.

“The truth of the matter is, if you want a vibrant retail environment, a vibrant business community with street level, retail businesses, office buildings, the only way that that happens is to have more feet on the street, or having more parking readily available,” Litkenhous said.

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SPRING 2021 | PAGE 15

THERE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH surface parking for big department stores, like Nordstrom or Bloomingdales in Tysons Corner, to justify setting up shop in Falls Church. (Photo: News-Press)

+ Hard Drive Destruction

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PAGE 16 | SPRING 2021

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

F.C. City, Pimmit Hills Ranked as Top Suburbs Nationally in Report

by

Matt Delaney

Falls Church News-Press

For established homeowners in the City of Falls Church, it’s not surprising to learn that the City is one of the more coveted — and competitive — places to live in both the Washington, D.C. region and nationally. But Pimmit Hills, right outside of City limits, is another up and comer that’s starting to garner major attention.

Falls Church and Pimmit Hills were ranked the second and third most livable suburbs in the U.S. in Realtor Magazine’s April edition. The rankings, which were compiled by home renovation loan provider RenoFi, looked at more than 600 suburban areas in 50 major cities across the country based on eight livability metrics — median household income; household income growth; home prices; home price growth; property tax rate; crime rate; unemployment and clinician to patient ratios.

This didn’t come as a surprise to Nicholas Lagos, an associate broker at Century 21 New Millennium who works both parts of town regularly.

“Falls Church and Pimmit Hills flow into each other,” Lagos said.

“Obviously one is here in the City and has its own school system, but people are often looking for something in the Fairfax County, Arlington or Falls Church school systems. Even when they don’t have children, they like these neighborhoods because the value of the homes appreciate favorably.”

Lagos mentioned how the average listing price for Falls Church City was around $750,000 and sales were up 77 percent from March 2020 to March 2021. For Pimmit Hills the jumps were even more dramatic, according to Lagos — sales jumped by 132 percent year-over-year, with the averaging listing price going from $599,000 to right around $697,000. And that’s without a ton of inventory to begin with.

Pimmit Hills has been a somewhat remarkable story with its growth. Lagos said it really took off in the last 10-12 years, and it’s because it’s one of the few places inside the Capital Beltway that you can get a decently priced home with a good-sized lot. The

1,600-plus home neighborhood has plenty of room for expansion as well, and Lagos said many buyers are gobbling up the singlelevel homes and building them out to be two, or sometimes, three story homes. The fact that there’s good proximity to Tysons Corner for shopping, Orange and Silver Metro lines and, again, quality schools make it an easy choice for people.

One of the unique advantages of Falls Church City, as noted in the rankings, was it’s high patientto-physician ratio. It’s noted as one of the best in the nation, per the report, giving it an added bonus for all types of populations that reside within City limits.

“Our immediate metro area is seeing a resurgence of people who are choosing not to move out of the D.C. area because we have top rated hospitals and good longterm care,” Lagos said. “All the facilities someone would need are here. That, along with the quality of living and decent weather, we’re seeing more people retiring in place here where before they would’ve gone to Florida or somewhere else.”

Faces of Falls Church

JORDAN RUBIN is a journalist working for Bloomberg and recently relocated to the Hillwood section of Falls Church from Washington, D.C. When asked if he was feeling optimistic that the pandemic was coming to an end he replied that he felt it is, “on the way out if everyone does their part,” (Photo: J. Michael Whalen/JMichaelWhalen.com)

Falls Church Area Housing Market — 1st Quarter 2021 Report Zip Code Area Median Price Number of Homes Sold

Average Days on Market

22046

City of Falls Church $865,500

22

22041

Bailey’s Crossroads

$334,500

24

15

22042

Sleepy Hollow

$615,024

37

5

22043

Pimmit Hills

$682,500

30

7

22044

Lake Barcroft

$567,000

17

11

16