Manassas Park to reveal new plans Tuesday to develop the city’s downtown

A mix of new retail and residential buildings are envisioned in Manassas Park, Northern Virginia’s youngest city, all in an effort to attract new residents and shoppers to the area.

City Manager Laszlo Palko will unveil to the city’s Governing Body an updated concept plan for phases three and four of the city’s development plans for the area between Manassas Drive and the Manassas Park Virginia Railway Express station. A public meeting will be held at Manassas Park City Hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, 2020. 

The planned development area for phase three is where the city hall building currently sits. The current city hall would be demolished and a new one built, along with several other buildings which would include new spaces for restaurants, offices, and retail. 

Also included would be a new plaza that would sit between the new city hall and a proposed nine-screen movie theater that would be considered the anchor of the development since the hope is that it would be the main attraction to bring people to the downtown area.

The private-public partnership would include McLean-based real estate developer Norton Scott for Phase Three. Norton Scott is currently developing 424 acres in Loudoun County for a project called Kincora which is similar in scope and design to the planned Downtown development. 

The plans would also include new residential townhouses that would be built as stacked housing. The concept of stacked housing combines the ideas on condos and single-family housing as one unit. 

These units would be built by Toll Brothers, which has been developing new homes in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William counties. 

The developer to be used in Phase Four would be Aksoylu Properties, a Manassas based developer who was one of the major developers of shopping centers on nearby Liberia Avenue in Manassas. Aksoylu also owns the Artena apartment building, which is part of phase two of the downtown development. The second phase will also include new office space, apartments, and a new Montessori school.

An abundance of new parking spaces is also included in the plans. Potomac Local News recently reported on negotiations between the city and VRE to move a parking garage. The city wants the location of the proposed garage to move closer to the development area to provide additional parking during late hours. 

Additional parking would be included in the Phase Three area as well as the Phase Four area which lays between Manassas Drive and Connor Drive. 

Adding more parking is a lesson learned from the failed first phase of the downtown development, known as City Center, a mix of apartments and street-level retail spaces that opened more than 10 years ago across from city hall. According to Palko,  City Center suffered from a lack of parking and as a result, couldn’t attract the necessary businesses to populate that area into a profit-maker for the city.

A public hearing for the downtown development project will be held at the Manassas Park City Hall at 7 pm at 1 Park Center Court in the City. Because of the coronavirus pandemic and federal social distancing requirements instituted to stop the spread of the virus, residents who want to attend are encouraged to instead watch the meeting live on the city’s YouTube channel or the city’s Facebook page. 

Comments and questions regarding the development can be e-mailed to the City Clerk at [email protected].