More details emerge on Skyline revitalization project

The project calls for less concrete and more green space.

Developer Robert Seldin, the CEO of Highland Square Holdings, plans to repurpose three office buildings at Skyline Center in Bailey’s Crossroads as residential/work space units, while transforming the concrete setting into an engaging urban park.

Seldin and land use attorney Mike Van Atta described their concept for the mostly vacant buildings during a virtual meeting of the Bailey’s Crossroads/Seven Corners Revitalization Corporation April 21.

Three Skyline buildings would become live/work spaces.

Van Atta, of McGuireWoods, said the project will transform Bailey’s Crossroads into an “innovation corridor.”

In 2011, Van Atta says, the three buildings were 95 percent occupied and were valued at $195 million. Then the Defense Department agencies and defense contractors moved out as part of the federal government’s base realignment and closure process. Now the buildings are 95 percent vacant and valued at just $27.5 million.

Seldin is working with the Wolff Co., which purchased the three buildings last year. At about the same time, Somerra Road Inc. purchased the other buildings in the Skyline Center.

Meanwhile, the Mission Lofts project Seldin developed at 5600 Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads has been completed, and the first four tenants are ready to move in.

That building features a live/work concept in which tenants can choose to use their units as a residence, office, or both. Seldin will establish the same uses for the three buildings at Skyline.


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The three Skyline buildings will have up to 720 units, including 43 affordable dwelling units. Seldin initially considered reserving one building for seniors, but that is up in the air as a result of the difficulties such residences are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan calls for retail, restaurants, and other amenities on the ground floor of all three buildings.

The three buildings are high quality but have the appearance of boring, joyless impenetrable fortresses, Seldin says. He plans to make the site more welcoming and attractive by improving the facades, installing new operable windows, and creating a green park-like setting that invites outdoor gatherings.

The grounds would be humanized by creating a sense of place, adding berms and mounds, and turning the top of a “desert-like, windswept parking lot” into a lush, green space. An existing grove of crepe myrtles would be retained.

Related story: Planning moves forward for live/work concept at Skyline office buildings

The number of parking spaces on the property would be reduced from 1,525 to 1,410.

The site could eventually host outdoor movie nights, Seldin says, noting that there used to be a drive-in movie theater on the other side of Leesburg Pike.

The Mason District Land Use Committee will consider the proposal at its April 28 and June 28 meetings. The Planning Commission hearing is tentatively scheduled for July 15. The Board of Supervisors hearing would be July 28.

Adaptive reuse projects like this one can be completed three time faster than a traditional new construction project, Seldin says. The interior renovations would take 12 to 15 months.

Seldin says the project will spur additional activity in the rest of the Skyline Center.

People think the most exciting revitalization is happening near Metro stations, he says, but “the most interesting things going on Fairfax County will be in Mason District.”