Fairfax School Board to vote on use of eminent domain to acquire office building
“The Fairfax County School Board will vote next month on whether to use eminent domain to acquire a vacant office building in Falls Church and convert it into an elementary school to alleviate severe crowding in the area.
If approved Dec. 5, the School Board’s use of eminent domain — a power guaranteed to the board by the Virginia Constitution — would probably mark the first time in decades that the board used the controversial legal action to acquire local property.
The site, at 6245 Leesburg Pike near the Seven Corners shopping center, is a foreclosed five-story brick commercial office building that has been vacant since 2012. The 3.4-acre property “would be retrofitted and converted to a vertical design school in order to provide relief for the severely over-crowded Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts & Sciences,” according to school documents.”
Shapiro, T. Rees. Washington Post 19 November 2013.