Motorists using W. Broad Street (Route 7) eastbound through Falls Church will find road construction ongoing through at least early June.
Work will impact the 1000 block of W. Broad between the West End Plaza shopping center and the intersection with West Street.
The month-long roadwork is connected with construction of the Modera Falls Church mixed-use development, which will combine 280 apartment units and 22,000 square feet of retail space.
“This work is extensive because it gets into the sub-surface of the road,” City Manager Wyatt Shields said at the Monday (May 12) City Council meeting.
Single lanes of the eastbound roadway will be closed in three phases, one at a time, city officials said. Work is starting with the right lane, followed by the left lane and then the left-turn lane.
The lane closures will be in effect 24 hours a day.
The project is funded by Mill Creek Residential, developer of the Modera property, with oversight from the city government.
“We are doing everything we can to make sure this work goes as quickly as possible,” Shields said. “But we do acknowledge that it’s going to be disruptive.”
Access to businesses in the corridor will remain open during construction, but city officials suggested motorists simply traveling through consider alternate routes, where possible, due to congestion.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience,” Mayor Letty Hardi said.
At the same time, the new sidewalk built by the developer adjacent between the property and W. Broad Street has been torn out and is being relaid. It was at the wrong grade, Shields told Council members, with the error caught during the inspection process.
Development proposal raises concern from neighbors: A proposal to put 12 townhouses on a half-acre in the 100 block of S. Lee Street is drawing concern nearly a month before it begins working its way through Falls Church’s community-engagement process.
Madison Homes filed plans with the city in March to rezone two parcels at 106 and 108 S. Lee Street from residential to transitional. The change would allow the existing single-family homes on the sites to be razed and replaced by a new residential development.
The proposal drew flak from Thomas Yazgerdi, who lives across S. Lee Street from the site and voiced his concern at Monday night’s City Council meeting.
“I’m worried this development will just add to the changing face of our neighborhood from a quiet place of single-family homes to a crowded, noisier, more expensive, stressful place to live,” Yazgerdi said.
Council members are slated to get their first look at the proposal during a Monday, June 2 work session.
Council members need to take community concerns seriously, Council member David Snyder said.
“We really need to examine the issues our citizens have brought to us,” he said. “Hopefully we’re going to go through each and every one of their questions and concerns.”
Snyder requested that, if the developer was allowed to speak at the June 2 meeting, local residents also be allowed to participate. Mayor Letty Hardi pushed back on that, noting there were multiple avenues for the public to weigh in as the process unfolded.
“We are very early on” in the effort, she said.
The two lots sit one block south of W. Broad Street, separated from that main thoroughfare by commercial properties. All the other surrounding parcels currently are occupied by single-family homes.
