The Alexandria City Council upheld the certificate of appropriateness for a contentious development in Old Town after an appeal was filed by residents claiming that it will be an eyesore that destroys the historic nature of the area.
Council voted 6-1 upholding the certificate of appropriateness approved by the Board of Architectural Review in May, with small conditions.
The proposal to convert the non-historic 1970s-era office building into a four-story apartment building has been contentious.
Old Town resident Scott Corzine was among the speakers at Tuesday night’s meeting challenging the validity of the certificate of appropriateness. Corzine and a small group of neighbors also unsuccessfully sued the city to reverse Council’s January decision approving the special use permit (SUP) for the project.
Corzine said that the project was rammed down the throats of neighbors, and that increasing the allowable Floor Area Ratio from 1.25 to a maximum of 2.5 will only benefit the developer.
“We got here because neither the city nor the developer would come to the table for a reasonable compromise, preferring to ram this development down the throats of an organized citizenry that is unanimously opposed to it and challenging in a court,” Corzine said.
The developer, 301 N. Fairfax Project Owner LLC, wants to demolish the existing three-story office building on the property that was built in 1977 and replace it with a 50-foot-tall building with 48 one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments, a 67-space below-grade parking lot and a rooftop terrace.
The building owners, William Thomas Gordon III and his son William Thomas Gordon IV, bought the property for $4.6 million in 2014 from an office product and furniture dealer, according to city records.
City Council had little discussion on the matter. Council Member Kirk McPike made the motion, which was seconded by Vice Mayor Amy Jackson. City Council Member John Taylor Chapman was the lone dissenting vote, and refused to answer questions on his vote. He also was the only Council member to vote against the SUP in January, citing that he needed more information on the legal case against the city.
“It’s very clear what we have in front of us,” said City Council Member Canek Aguirre. “I don’t want to relitigate anything but just for the public’s awareness, for some of the issues that were brought up we went into very much detail around all of these things at the January 20 public hearing. So, just to throw that out there for folks that might be confused as to why we’re not giving more commentary at this time.”
