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“While several of the uses could be permitted under the existing CR District zoning classification, the proposed CU District permits the proposed hotel use by-right. … The CU zoning classification is consistent with the recommendations of the Comprehensive Plan and is appropriate for the proposed development,” according to Ox hill’s application.

As proposed, the concert hall would be located across from the Fairfax County Judicial Complex on Chain Bridge Road. The venue’s entrance would be located on South Street, which Ox Hill plans to extend in order to create a new connection between Chain Bridge Road and University Drive.

The art galleries would be located on the west side of the site along Chain Bridge Road. One of the galleries would be adjacent to the National Bank of Fairfax Building, which the developer plans to preserve and repurpose to become the home of the second gallery.

The seven-story hotel would be located on the east end of the project site and oriented toward the South Street extension. The hotel’s primary point of entry would be at the intersection of Sager Avenue and University Drive.

Ox Hill plans to construct a below-grade parking garage under the two buildings accessible from Sager Avenue. An interim surface lot also be located across South Street. The garage will provide 436 parking spaces, serving the hotel, concert hall, and the commercial/retail spaces. The applicant plans to develop the surface parking area as part of a future phase of the project, adding 140 more parking spaces.

Ox Hill’s application includes several special exception request, including one to allow the seven-story hotel to exceed the three-story/36-foot maximum height established for the HOD District.

The applicant is also seeking a waiver of the inter-parcel vehicular access between parcels requirement. Since the hotel and concert hall will be separated by the proposed South Street extension, the applicant contends that the waiver is appropriate. The application also includes a special use permit request for the concert hall.

In an exclusive interview, Fairfax Patch spoke to Christopher Smith, managing principal at Ox Hill Companies, about the company’s vision for The Ox Fairfax – Block A project

PATCH: What made Old Town Fairfax an attractive location for this project?

SMITH: The City of Fairfax is a place that should have these types of projects. It’s in the center of Fairfax County just outside of Washington, D.C. The demographics are fantastic. The economy here is typically quite resilient. It is also a place that has not experienced the same kind of development that you’ve seen all over Northern Virginia and the D.C. area in general.

It has been missed by development for a lot of reasons in the past and I felt like the demographics and the politics and the world around the City of Fairfax had evolved to a point where it needed to finally embrace a significant development. The city, much to the credit of city planning and all the participants in that, know that the city needed an anchor and an entertainment draw. I really played off that concept to give the city something even maybe better than it had previously imagined.

Do you have concerns about the existing infrastructure supporting a development of this size, particularly the roadways?

First of all, it is the City of Fairfax, so there’s going to be traffic regardless. The world is also changing. There’s a lot less people driving cars. There’s more Ubers, obviously electronic vehicles and eventually we’re going to big driverless vehicles. I think the world is going to change to actually help that situation anyway.

But in the short term, what we’re doing actually is perfect for the city in the sense that we’re not building dense housing that’s going to create thousands of vehicles every day going in and out. We’re not building something that is just creating a volume of traffic for the sake of it. Hotels’ traffic are not generally very impacting on the city’s traffic, people come and go at different times. We’re also building stuff that avoids the high traffic periods. We’re not building an office building that would bring people in during the height of rush hour. We’re building things that people come into the city for and will enjoy and perhaps live here and walk to it or park here and then leave.

What about traffic and parking in connection with the concert hall?

The concert hall will not have all the people that attend a performance parking in that block. There’ll be other parking garages and lots throughout the city that will enjoy the opportunity to potentially [benefit from] people coming in for concerts. That walking traffic from other parking garages and lots will actually create the foot traffic that a lot of the retail in the city has been looking for and wanting.

In a way, it’s the kind of the perfect project to spread around the economic development throughout the city. Rather than building something concentrated just for the sake of making money and then you move on, this is going to be something that provides economic activity and revenue to the city for many, many decades to come.

How do you see the relationship of something like this working in tandem with what’s already at George Mason University?

I’ve been working with the university since 2018, trying to work together to come up with what is needed in the city. We ultimately decided on a for-profit concert hall, rather than a nonprofit theater. The university has great nonprofit productions on campus. This facility will be much different in the sense that it’s going to be run professionally by an operator that does this. It is going to have some of the premiere names performing here, professional for-profit acts. It’ll be a different kind of entertainment experience than what you see in the Center for the Arts on campus.

George Mason University built a 143-room conference center, the Mason Inn back in 2010, which closed in 2013. Do you have concerns not only about the concert center but about there being enough business to support a large conference center or a hotel in the center of the city?

We wouldn’t be doing it if we did. All the studies that we’ve done have come back very positively. Regarding the hotel, there’s need for even greater number of rooms than we’re building.

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From a conference perspective, the university has conferences and I think most of their conferences are now in Prince William where they have a greater facility for that. I think they would like to have more conferences in Fairfax. Putting something off campus gives them an opportunity to do some really interesting conferences. There’ll be a lot of corporate conferences, with a hotel as well helping that, that will also want to be around the concert hall, the entertainment and the other things that we’re going to be building. So we don’t have any concerns about the popularity and the ability for these to function properly and profitably.

What type of feedback have you gotten from the city government?

First of all, I just want to say that Mayor Catherine Read has been a fabulous partner to work with on this. She has been a great supporter and we really love working with her. … A lot of the council members have been really very supportive and helpful, and including the previous mayor, Mayor Meier, was also very helpful as well and getting us moving along. Politically speaking, they’ve been great to work with and definitely see the vision and see what we’re trying to do.

Knowing that all development projects like this take longer than one expects, what do you see as the timeline of this project?

Timeline-wise, we’re looking for approval for the concert hall by the end of the calendar year. We are expecting that process to build it go beyond another another two years. So, we’re looking at delivery in 2026.

Look at how our economy has changed every year. It’s really very difficult to predict what we’re going to be doing in the future. As of today, what we have is financeable based on current conditions. I don’t think it could get any worse. I hope it doesn’t.

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