Huntington Condo Association Votes To Terminate Itself To Make Way For 1,500-Unit Development

A condo association near Alexandria's Huntington Metro station has just terminated itself to make way for a major transit-oriented development, a decision it says is the first of its kind in the U.S.

The group of Huntington Club Condomium owners voted with 87% support to end the association to make way for a 1,500-unit mixed-use development from IDI Group and Streetsense. 

The 19-acre site currently consists of 364 garden-style condos, built in 1967 as apartments and converted to condos in 1979. The condo association began exploring possibilities for redevelopment in 2005, given the site's Metro-adjacent location and the aging quality of the buildings. The group obtained an amendment in a 2013 update to Fairfax County's Comprehensive Plan that allowed more density at the site. It then issued a request for proposals in 2014 and selected IDI Group. 

IDI and Streetsense, in a proposal unveiled last month, plan to build 1,013 condos, 533 apartments, 65 townhouses, 446K SF of office space, a 119K SF hotel and 17K SF of retail. The team expects construction to begin in 2019 and will then build the development in phases until 2030.

Some of the condo owners will elect to be bought out, while others will choose to live in the new development.

“We were very fortunate that the Fairfax County government supported this project, despite never having seen a condominium try to redevelop itself,” Huntington Club Redevelopment Committee Chair Ross Irwin said in a release. “We took it as far as we could on our own, and we got to a point where we needed to partner with the right developer.”