Skanska Tops Off NoVa Office Project

3901 N. Fairfax Drive. Image courtesy of Skanska

Skanska has topped out the nine-story, 201,000-square-foot office development at 3901 N. Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Va. The project, designed by CallisonRTKL, is slated for delivery next year.

When its imminent groundbreaking was announced in September 2021, the $129 million building was already being positioned as a model workplace for the post-COVID world. Targeting LEED Gold, WELL Core V2 Gold and WiredScore Gold certifications, 3901 N. Fairfax Drive is the first WELL precertified new construction project in Northern Virginia.

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Upon completion, the 191,000 square feet of office space will be supplemented by 10,000 square feet of retail. The building’s amenities will include three levels of below-grade parking with nine EV charging stations, a 37-space bike room, conference space, a 3,600-square-foot fitness facility and more than 12,000 square feet of outdoor space across a rooftop terrace, private tenant terraces and a plaza. Avison Young spearheads office leasing at the property, while retail leasing is handled by H&R Retail.

The 1-acre development site is in the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, which features plentiful restaurants, high-end retail and green space, as well as convenient access to Interstate 66 and North Glebe Road. Both the Virginia-GMU Metro Station and the Ballston-MU Metro Station are nearby.

A complicated office market

The Northern Virginia office market is complicated right now, with overall vacancy trending upward (to 21.0 percent), a surge in negative absorption (1.5 million square feet, largely because of federal office space retrenchment), and a record amount (2. 5 million square feet) of sublease space, according to a first-quarter 2023 report from Avison Young.

On the other side of the scales, up to 7 million square feet of office space could be heading toward conversion into other uses, primarily residential.

However, the market has strong fundamentals that can help it navigate the current economic instabilities, and some important companies decided to make the area their home. Last year, Boeing decided to relocate its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington and Hilton committed to staying in—and substantially upgrading—its global headquarters in a 320,000-square-foot office tower in McLean, Va.