2050 Eastern Gateway Concept Plan - City of Falls Church

Introduction and Vision
The Project
A group of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban
planning graduate students from Virginia Tech’s Alexandria
Center worked for the City of Falls Church Economic
Development Authority to create a vision and plan for the
Eastern Gateway area in the City of Falls Church. UAP 5124, a
planning studio class, offered the students the opportunity to
apply their academic pursuits to a real-world client and
community in transition. The City of Falls Church was enthusiastic
to have a fresh set of eyes study an aging commercial area
that offers a great opportunity for redevelopment during the
next 40 years.
The UAP 5124 students assumed a build-out date of 2050 for
the proposed Eastern Falls Church Gateway plan. The class
broke the proposed development plan of the approximately
65-acre site into three plan areas to be redeveloped through
the rezoning application process. The studio assumed that
transportation improvements would occur creating a new road
network and enhanced transit, walking, and bicycling facilities.
The students also assumed that a mixed-use zoning district
would be created for the area that permitted increased
densities, building heights and urban design.
The planning studio spent several weeks studying appropriate
urban design densities, speaking with the members of the Falls
Church planning and economic development departments and
local developers and regional experts on planning. The studio
conducted a site visit to the Eastern Gateway site prior to the
development of the overall concept plan. Once the limits of the
overall concept plan area were defined, three plan areas were
identified for study. The plan areas were defined as the Koons-
Syms area, the Eden Center area, and the Roosevelt-Wilson
area.
The 27 members of the studio organized in groups that
developed plans, models, and analysis for the densities, heights
and uses within the three area plans, architecture concepts for
the buildings, streetscape designs, a multimodal transportation
network, and an overall economic development analysis. On
December 10, 2009, the studio class developed a presentation
for the Falls Church Economic Development Authority to discuss
the concepts and analysis for the Eastern Gateway. Finally, the
studio drafted text that provided a detailed analysis and a
description for each plan area and included a narrative on the
streetscape design, transportation network and economic
analysis. Plans and architectural drawings were developed for
each of the area plans to provide an illustrative example of the
proposed development described by the text. The analysis and
plans were compiled into this report and provided to members
of the Falls Church Economic Development Authority.