After being empty for more than 20 years, a major development for the Victory Center property at 5001 Eisenhower Avenue just got approved.
On Saturday, and without discussion, City Council approved sweeping plans for the first phase in the redevelopment of the 10-acre site. The plan calls for the conversion of the 11-story Victory Center building from office to residential.
Saturday’s Council meeting was the last for outgoing Mayor Justin Wilson and Vice Mayor Amy Jackson, and the Victory Center item was the second-to-last on the docket. Wilson saved city staff and the applicant, developer Stonebridge, from providing a presentation, and after a quick motion by Jackson, which was seconded by Council Member John Taylor Chapman, Council unanimously approved the proposal.
“Obviously we just passed a very, very significant land use decision for the city — adaptive reuse of the Victory Center,” Wilson said. “I don’t want anyone to think that the 10 seconds we spent considering that on the dais was reflective of the importance of the decision. It is a very important decision. We’ve been working on this for quite a while. Thank you to our partners and the applicant.”
Stonebridge bought the Victory Center property in 2019. It now plans to convert the existing office building into 377 units at various levels of affordability:
- 82 units would be available at 50-60% of the Area Median Income (AMI)
- 189 units would be available at 80% AMI
- 106 units will be available at 100% AMI
The project site is less than 800 feet east from the Covanta Waste-to-Energy plant and a third of a mile from the Van Dorn Metro station. It’s the former home of the Army Material Command, which left in 2003. The building was renovated in 2008 and spent the next fifteen years in contention for new federal tenants with other Northern Virginia properties.
The complete development will require multiple approvals from Council.
The second phase is the construction of 80 townhouses on 1.84 acres west of the existing building. The third phase is construction of a multi-unit building on the 1.92-acre western area of the site. The fourth phase is construction of streets in and around the new development.
