2050 Eastern Gateway Concept Plan - City of Falls Church

Size
The approximately 65-acre Eastern Gateway site includes the
12 acre Oakwood Cemetery and 58 acres, or 2.5 million
square feet, of developable land. Table 3.1 on the following
page provides detailed acreage and square footage
information for each parcel within the three areas of interest
within the Seven Corners Gateway Site and for Oakwood
Cemetery.
History of Development
A Sprawling Commercial Center
Though the City of Falls Church was established in 1875, it was
around 1948, when Falls Church became an independent city,
that the Eastern
Gateway began to
develop into what it
is today. As the
Washington, D.C.
metropolitan area
began to expand in
the mid 20th
century, the City of
Falls Church was
well-positioned to
accommodate the
impending suburban development. Due to its location at the
intersection of several major arteries connecting it to
Washington, D.C. to the east and expanding Northern Virginia
development to the west, Falls Church welcomed its first
suburban-style shopping center in 1953. While the 1953 Seven
Corners Shopping Center is not located within Falls Church, its
early success encouraged similar suburban development, with
single-use buildings, vast surface parking areas, and limited
access to public transportation, to spring up and spread.
The site and the surrounding areas in Arlington and Fairfax
Counties grew to become the typically auto-oriented mid-20th
century suburban commercial development, where patrons could
conveniently drive their cars directly to strip shopping centers,
car dealerships, and large grocery stores. But in the last
decade, there has been a shift away from suburban autooriented
commercial development in favor of more traditional
main street-type development. This has led to the demise of the
development typical of the Falls Church Eastern Gateway site.
For example, shortly after the Seven Corners Shopping Center
was built, a Jelleff’s Department Store at 1000 E. Broad Street
was built in 1956. Typical of suburban retail development, the
store was surrounded by a sea of surface parking. Eventually,
Jelleff’s closed its Falls Church store in favor of more popular
locations such as the developing Tysons Corner. In 1978, the
store building was taken over by the Syms Corporation, which
was successful until it too closed the 1000 East Broad Street