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Fairfax County must move faster and think more creatively to shrink an office market burdened by millions of square feet of space that may never attract significant leasing again, real estate leaders told county supervisors.

Barry Bass, cofounder of Silverline Equities, estimated that roughly 10% of the county’s office inventory—about 18 million square feet—should be converted to other uses or demolished.

Still, he said the office sector is not headed for extinction. Some existing tenants are beginning to seek more space, creating opportunities to modernize well-located buildings.

“The right office buildings in the right locations” remain candidates for renovation, Bass said during a June 16 briefing before the Board of Supervisors’ Council for Economic Opportunity. Other properties, however, may no longer be viable as offices.

Bass’s Falls Church City-based investment firm buys older office buildings and updates them to improve their leasing prospects. He described the current market as a rare opportunity to improve properties that still have a future.

Rob Ward, executive vice president of Clark Construction, agreed that some buildings should be removed from the market.

“Some of these buildings shouldn’t be here any more,” Ward said. “The question is, how do we transition these buildings in the best possible way?”

Converting offices into housing or hotels is one option, but Ward cautioned that such projects can be technically difficult and expensive. In some cases, he said, conversion is less practical than commonly assumed, making demolition and redevelopment more realistic.

Empty buildings weaken the broader leasing market while cutting into developers’ revenue and the commercial real estate taxes collected by Fairfax County.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said the discussion reinforced work already underway to identify the approximately 10% of office properties that officials believe will never be fully occupied again.

“We need to focus not just on conversion, but on outright development,” McKay said.

Bass and Ward urged the county to be more flexible when property owners propose replacing commercial buildings with housing, whether through conversion or complete redevelopment.

“I would encourage openness and creativity,” Ward said. “Do something different that is not being done across the country.”

Bass said Fairfax’s approval process for repurposing and redeveloping buildings takes too long. McKay added that political resistance has sometimes prevented the county from embracing unconventional solutions, saying opposition from “a couple of loud people who are living next door” can derail development proposals.

Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said residents need a clearer understanding of the office market. Many people assume vacant buildings will eventually secure new tenants, he said, even though some properties are likely to remain empty.

“A lot of folks don’t understand what’s happening,” Lusk said.

Fairfax began addressing obsolete office space before the pandemic. In 2018, supervisors approved policy changes intended to accelerate planning reviews for office conversions.

At the time, the county estimated it had 18 million square feet of vacant office space. That included 607,000 square feet in designated suburban areas, with almost half of that suburban vacancy concentrated in 25 buildings. Nearly all were constructed during the 1970s and 1980s.

The pandemic then accelerated remote and hybrid work, reducing the number of employees commuting five days a week. The market has also experienced a “flight-to-quality,” with tenants leaving older suburban properties for newer buildings offering amenities and convenient transit access.

Ward said many local offices now reach about 65% occupancy in the middle of the week, with fewer workers present on Mondays and Fridays. That represents a substantial shift from pre-pandemic patterns.

Fairfax is in a stronger position than many other cities and counties, Ward said, but an office vacancy rate well above 20% remains a serious problem.

The county has launched planning studies examining redevelopment opportunities in office-heavy sections of Tysons and Reston East. Those reviews followed requests from property owners seeking comprehensive plan amendments that would permit housing or mixed-use projects.