Location | Northern Virginia
Under Design
Size | 390,000 SF (Retail)
For this Northern Virginia Town Center Repositioning, Nahra was tasked with developing a placemaking and architectural master plan renovation strategy. The existing Center is unique in that it combines a traditional grocery anchored shopping center with a town center planning concept. The overall goals, among many, are to more strongly connect the concepts, improve the pedestrian and storefront experience, increase usage of outdoor spaces and modernize the building aesthetics.
To improve the pedestrian connection between the two development phases, Nahra proposed an open Paseo concept through an existing building, with activated retail along all frontages. Retail café space was expanded via parklets, dedicated retail café areas and other sidewalk zones utilizing former parking spaces, underutilized landscape areas and other design interventions. Given the large scale of the existing buildings, Nahra developed a surgical approach to the façade improvements with a focus on high impact, low cost alternations. Layered on top of all this is a robust events and art program.
