A large commercial building previously slated for redevelopment on Columbia Pike has a new owner with a new focus on revitalizing the property.
The Elkins Building at 2801 Columbia Pike — currently home to a half-dozen businesses including Art & Framing Club, Sicilian Pizza and Urban Pets Paws — changed hands for $5.9 million on Dec. 29, property records show.
Leith Khanafseh, managing partner at the new owner, Khana Companies, told ARLnow that he has no immediate plans to revive Christopher Companies’ proposal to turn the building into a seven-story building with 88 housing units and ground-floor retail.
“If we’re going to redevelop it, it’s going to be further down the road,” he said.
Instead, Khanafseh is more interested in restoring “local mom and pop” businesses to the building’s retail bays, including the ones formerly occupied by Papillon Cycles and Acme Pie Co., which relocated elsewhere on Columbia Pike because of the now-abandoned redevelopment plans.
“Immediately, what we want to do is really revitalize the building in its current form,” Khanafseh said.
Signs advertising retail spaces for lease are posted in the vacant windows. The managing partner said he’s received several inquiries, but has “nothing definitive” at this point.
The Arlington County Board approved a Form-Based Code use permit for the site in November 2024. Christopher Companies’ plans for the site included 88 condo units, underground parking and 6,593 square feet of ground-floor retail.
It took project leaders about three years to receive this county approval, but rising costs on imported construction materials like cement and steel began to affect the project’s outlook.
“It’s my understanding that the prices were coming in too high,” Angela Kostelecky, senior architect at Devereaux and Associates, told ARLnow in May 2025. “I think it seems to be happening with a lot of projects these days, so I’m not surprised.”
Next door, meanwhile, a previously abandoned redevelopment project at 2601 Columbia Pike is getting a fresh start. The Arlington County Board gave final approval to revised plans for that property last month, clearing the way for the development of a 6-story mixed-use property with 271 apartments and about 15,000 square feet of retail space.
