What to Do with the City's Underused Strip Shopping Centers?
Recommendations from a Commercial Corridor Revitalization Study include code changes to incentivize mixed-use redevelopment.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Fredericksburg City’s elected and appointed officials continued a conversation this week about how to revitalize underused strip shopping centers on U.S. 1 and Route 3.
At City Council’s work session on Tuesday, consultants from the firms RHI and W-ZHA presented the results of Phase 2 of a Commercial Corridor Revitalization Study commissioned by the city.
This phase of the study, which was completed in May, examined the city’s form-based code and unified development ordinance to determine whether and how they allow for redevelopment of shopping centers into vertical, mixed-use, walkable developments.
The city adopted the form-based code and the T5-C overlay district in June of 2021 specifically to “foster the retrofit and redevelopment of automobile-oriented large-scale suburban and strip-mall shopping centers into mixed use nodes with a walkable urban fabric through good planning principles,” according to the ordinance.
To date, however, none of this kind of development has occurred, and Ben Valente, an urban planner with RHI, said that’s because the numbers and standards prescribed in the ordinance do not match the vision for redevelopment.
“We’re looking for the code to not only allow for the redevelopment, but to encourage it,” he said. “Make it the most easy and desirable option for developers to take.”
Valente, and Sarah Woodworth of real estate advisory firm W-ZHA, presented five recommendations for changes to code that they said could incentivize mixed-use development—permit higher density and taller buildings by right in the T5-C overlay district, allow for less of the total square footage to be reserved for commercial use, make open space requirements “more fitting for urban environments,” and consider incentivizing affordable/workforce housing.
Many of these recommendations are driven by the price of developed commercial parcels. Woodworth said her team looked specifically at Greenbrier Shopping Center on Route 3 and Village North Shopping Center. She said the assessed value of these parcels ranges from $520,000 to $1.6 million per acre—much more expensive than an undeveloped parcel.
The current unified development ordinance allows up to 12 residential dwelling units per acre by right in the T5-C overlay district, which developers don’t find economically viable given the assessed value of the land, Woodworth said.
She said townhome developments “drive more value to the land than multifamily—three or four times the value.”
“That’s why you’re seeing [townhome developments] on these shopping center sites and not multifamily—because they can support these higher land prices that these [former] commercial sites require,” Woodworth said.
Decreasing the required amount of commercial square footage that is required for a special use permit—currently 20%—could also incentivize developers, she said, because it’s challenging to get the market to support large swaths of commercial development.
Woodworth acknowledged the word “density” can have negative connotations to some residents of a community.
“Let’s talk about density,” she said during the discussion that followed the presentation. “We’re not talking about 12 story or 15 story buildings. You’re not that market. We’re talking about density that is close to what you already have. It’s the difference of having one extra story [five instead of four.] It’s a product that has a higher first floor that you can put retail in.”
The consultants also recommend that the city develop a master plan for the entirety of the transect that encompasses the shopping centers along Route 3 and create a local economic revitalization zone, which is authorized by state code and which would “open the doors to mechanisms such as tax increment financing and tax abatement as ways to encourage redevelopment,” Valente said.
Councilors and members of the Economic Develoment Authority—who also participated in Tuesday’s discussion—said they are interested in continuing the conversation.
The Planning Commission will also discuss the revitalization study at its next regular meeting in August.
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