Proposed adult daycare/banquet hall project delayed over parking concerns

The Kids’ Choice Center. [Photos from Ilryong Moon’s presentation at the Planning Commission hearing]

A Fairfax County Planning Commission decision on the proposed Sunflower adult daycare facility and banquet hall facility proposed for Annandale scheduled for Jan. 25 has been deferred to March 1 to provide more time to resolve parking and other issues.

The project would replace the Kids’ Choice Sports Center at 4317 Ravensworth Road. The Ravensworth Auto gas station next door would be torn down to provide additional parking.

This gas station would be demolished.

Both of those properties are owned by Helen and Young Bae, who also own the Han Gang restaurant next door to Kids’ Choice.

The Bae’s want to retain the foundation and steel frame of the Kid’s Choice structure and construct a building on the site that would be used as a daycare center for seniors during weekdays and a banquet hall on evenings and weekends. The gas station would be demolished to make room for additional parking.

During a Planning Commission hearing Jan. 25, the owners’ attorney Ilryong Moon, who also serves as an at-large member of the Fairfax County School Board, said the project would provide 80 parking spaces, which would be more than sufficient under county rules. The center would have 13 to15 mini-buses to transport all daycare clients to the center.

While the building would have a maximum capacity of 275 daycare clients, Moon said the owners agreed to limit the number of seniors to 250 for the first two years to assess the parking situation. The capacity of the banquet hall would be reduced from 300 to 150.

And in light of concerns raised at a Jan. 23 meeting of the Mason District Land Use Committee, Moon agreed to modify the proposed hours. The daycare program would end at 4 p.m., rather than 5, to make sure the participants are gone by the time the banquet hall opens at 6 p.m.

When the daycare center is open, the banquet hall would be used as a dining hall and activity room for the seniors.

Kelly Atkinson of the Department of Planning and Zoning, said staff approved the project but had concerns that the proposed number of parking spaces would be inadequate to meet staffing ratios required by the state licensing board.

At the hearing, Greg McGillicuddy, chair of the Annandale Central Business District Planning Committee, and Annandale Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vicki Burnham expressed numerous concerns about the project, including the use of poor quality building materials, inadequate space for outdoor recreation, and potential traffic backups, as well as insufficient parking.

McGillicuddy disputed Moon’s parking calculations and said the project needs to provide at least 87 parking spaces. He also said the proposal doesn’t meet the state mandate calling for a center of that size to provide 25 bathrooms big enough to accommodate assistants for the seniors. As a result, it might fail to quality for a state license.

Representatives of the adjacent office building on the corner of Ravensworth and John Marr Drive and the Annandale Smiles dental practice across the street expressed concerns about overflow parking on their property.

Moon argued that many of the employees would take a bus or carpool, which would reduce the need for parking spaces.