Loudoun Leaders Frustrated By Slow Transit-Oriented Development, But ‘We Know The Market Will Catch Up’

Over the past few decades, Loudoun County’s population has grown exponentially. From 1992 to 2022, the number of people living in the Northern Virginia county spiked by more than 350%, according to census data.  

That growth has now been accompanied by rapid transit, as Metro's Silver Line opened nearly two years ago with new stations connecting Ashburn to Dulles International Airport, Reston and Tysons. The county has envisioned its new Metro stations as hubs for the kind of mixed-use development that has arisen in D.C. and its closer-in suburbs. 

But Loudoun County's residents remain frustrated about traffic and disappointed by the lack of amenities as development has proceeded at a slower pace than expected, leaders and developers said Wednesday at Bisnow's Future of Loudoun County event. 

The mixed-use, dense and multimodal vision for Loudoun’s future is within reach, panelists said, but it will take some time — more time than the county had initially anticipated. 

The county's anticipated transit-oriented development boom was hampered in part by poor timing. The new stations delivered in the middle of a pandemic that dramatically shifted the office market and, in turn, office-centric mixed-use hubs. Construction and labor costs then started skyrocketing, and the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates, which drove most development to a standstill. 

Comstock Cos. has built the first phases of its Loudoun Station mixed-use development at the new terminus of the Silver Line, but it has more on the boards. The Reston-based company is shovel-ready but waiting for the economic climate to become more fertile. 

“Loudoun County needs more density, and Comstock is zoned and ready to build a tremendous amount of growth in and around the stations between office, residential, retail and eventually a hotel,” Comstock Vice President of Leasing Jessy Toor said at the event, held at Comstock's BLVD Gramercy East building at Loudoun Station. 

“But we’re watching the market and watching interest rates and construction costs, and patient, and we're ready to go when the time is right.” 

While county leaders want to see development progress, they say the decisions about the type of development shouldn't be taken lightly. 

“We have land,” Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall said. “We have land to build still.”

But she stressed that what is built is important, saying she would “completely push back” on anyone who believes development around Metro stations should be anything other than “innovative, dynamic industry development.” 

The decision around what to do with one of those transit-oriented sites remains with data center mogul Chuck Kuhn. His company is under contract to buy the 225-acre Waterside development site entitled for mixed-use at the Innovation Center Metro station. 

While plans haven’t yet been presented, Kuhn told the Washington Business Journal that it would include standalone flex and light industrial uses adjacent to residential and other types of commercial, with “little to no office,” probably no stadium and no data centers. 

Randall told the WBJ that she would “absolutely” vote down any industrial proposal at the site and it would be “development malpractice” to do otherwise. 

Developments like data centers, flex and industrial shouldn't be part of the mixed-use, transit-oriented vision, she said at Bisnow's event.

“We have places for that, but along the Metro is not what that is for,” Randall said. 

Randall said the county is “actively” courting mixed-use development, but she knows that it won’t happen all at once.

“But we know the market will catch up and it is coming, so that is what we're focused on doing,” she said.

While many developments have stalled, one project did move forward this week. An expansion of the mixed-use One Loudoun development broke ground Wednesday, with plans to add 86K SF of retail, a hotel, at least 23K SF of offices and 400 residential units to the Ashburn neighborhood. The phase is set to include an Arhaus, Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, Bartaco, and Tatte Bakery & Café. 

In addition to development, transportation infrastructure is lagging behind. With Loudoun’s population still growing and not expected to level off until after 2030, the Silver Line was just one component of its overall transportation vision. 

“We are still playing catch-up when it comes to the infrastructure that we've been trying to keep up with the growth,” Northern Virginia Transportation Authority CEO Monica Backmon said.

The NVTA is focusing in Loudoun on multimodal transportation. She said the authority has invested more in Loudoun County than anywhere in the entire commonwealth, but the problems with real estate development in recent years have spelled out the same trouble for transportation construction.

“When we program $1 today, by the time the applicant, the county, is ready to go to construction, that dollar is no longer worth the dollar,” Backmon said.

Loudoun County Assistant Director of Economic Development Colleen Kardasz said the county's rate of growth is “unprecedented,” but it is “still catching up, legislatively, in terms of infrastructure.”

Among the more macro issues on everyone's mind was one that was a touch smaller in scale: the question of when Loudoun will get a location of fashion retailer Zara. Randall had brought up the issue in her opening remarks, and it was raised again during the question-and-answer portion.

The closest Zara to Loudoun County is, painfully for many of the panelists and attendees, in Tysons. 

“They're looking for the critical mass and they’re looking for the co-tenancy,” said Comstock's Toor, whose background is in shopping mall leasing. “So while mixed-use development is growing and starting to thrive in Loudoun County, it’s still fairly newer in Loudoun County. And so we’re still building that mass and building that co-tenancy to attract those retailers.”