Master Plan

AFRH has completed a Master Plan for its Washington Campus to leverage its real estate assets, which will be the basis for facilitating and directing future development by the private sector and AFRH. Private development on the site will create an independent revenue stream for the Home which will allow the Home to construct the next generation of facilities it will need for the next generation of American heroes.

The Home is an extraordinary place: in the services it provides to America’s retired veterans, its history and historic resources, its natural beauty, and its pivotal location among tightly knit neighborhoods, the medical area to the south and the educational institutions to the west. AFRH has taken these characteristics into account in creating the AFRH-W Master Plan.

Through the execution of the AFRH-W Master Plan, residents of the Home will continue to enjoy the site’s bucolic open spaces, while taking advantage of new amenities. Nearby neighborhood residents will also benefit from new retail and service uses and will find new open space available to the public in the form of a 20+/- acre park in the heart of the Home’s historic pasture, various smaller open spaces, and linear parks for bike and pedestrian paths that will connect the site to the adjacent neighborhoods and institutions. Large scale development has been concentrated in the southeast portion of the campus, away from the adjacent historic neighborhoods to the west.

Through the Master Plan, AFRH contemplates the mixed use development of portions of its site with a potential range of uses encompassing residential, office, research and development, institutional, medical, retail, and hotels. The Master Plan also allows for new facilities for the Home. AFRH is contemplating creating a new facility on the northern part of the campus to replace functions now housed in the LaGarde Building, but has not completed its feasibility analysis of that proposed change. A new facility would allow AFRH to have all of its operations in close proximity and to consolidate some functions, such as the food service. In the long term, AFRH may also construct housing for married couples and expand its dormitory space.

Most of the uses proposed in the Master Plan will not be constructed by AFRH but by private sector and/or institutional entities. Development of these uses will generate revenue for AFRH, which will be deposited into the AFRH Trust Fund and used to continue the operations of AFRH and ensure the ongoing provision of services to retired military personnel.

AFRH submitted its Final Master Plan to NCPC for their review and approval. In preparing its Final Master Plan, AFRH took into consideration comments received from NCPC on its draft Master Plan, received through its ongoing public outreach process, information from the environmental review process, and concepts proposed by the selected developer for Zone A. NCPC approved the Final Master Plan at its July 10, 2008 meeting.

The updated Final Master Plan (2008) can be downloaded here.

The NCPC Commission Action can be viewed here.