An Orr Partners-led venture wants to revive and expand plans to redevelop a hotel in Rosslyn.
The Arlington County Board previously greenlighted two high-rises there, totaling 183,000 square feet. Having recently acquired another parcel adjacent to the site, Reston-based Orr now wants to build a 422,000-square-foot multifamily building instead.
The project began in 2017 with six adjacent parcels, totaling 1.9 acres, located at 1501 Arlington Blvd. and 1523 Fairfax Drive. They’re currently home to a 141-room Red Lion hotel — officially, the Red Lion Hotel Rosslyn/Iwo Jima — and the 14-unit Ellis Arms Apartments, both 1950s-era buildings. In 2019, the County Board approved their redevelopment as a 12-story, 160-room hotel and a 10-story, 48-unit multifamily building — about 183,000 square feet in all — plus a 136-space parking garage. But construction stalled due to Covid.
Orr acquired those parcels in March in zero-dollar transfers from LLCs belonging to a person named Nehal Patel. The firm has entered a joint venture with the Patel family and ELV Associates Inc., a Boston firm, to develop the site, founder and chair David Orr said in an email.
Orr Partners acquired another adjacent lot located 1501 N. Pierce St. — currently home to the 14-unit Williamsburg Apartments — from a JBG Smith Properties affiliate in March for $3.25 million. Orr filed a rezoning application with the county last week to incorporate this seventh parcel into the project, amending drastically what’s approved for construction there.
The new parcel adds only one-third of an acre, but Orr’s application proposes much greater density — 423 multifamily units in an eight-story, nearly 422,000-square-foot building, plus a 267-space partially below-grade parking garage, according to an application document.
Building a low-rise, wood-frame building instead of the high-rises originally approved “will allow us to produce more affordable and efficient apartment units that will be more in harmony with our neighbors at Parc Rosslyn [Apartments] and the Belvedere Condominium,” David Orr said.
Instead of building a parking garage where part of the Red Lion building is currently located, as the 2019 plan called for, Orr would renovate an existing below-grade parking structure and add levels above.
The project will pursue LEED Gold certification in exchange for bonus density under the county’s 2014 Green Building Program.
Orr is Greater Washington’s 12th-largest commercial real estate developer, according to Washington Business Journal data. Its other projects underway include a redevelopment, dubbed Joyce Apartments, of an auto parts store in Arlington and Benchmark Senior Living West Alex in Alexandria.
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