A deal to acquire a sprawling 225-acre tract of land in Northern Virginia is nearing completion.
Local real estate mogul Chuck Kuhn, who is also the founder and CEO of JK Moving Services, has signed a contract to obtain Waterside’s progression from a subsidiary of the Gudelsky Group for an as-yet-undisclosed price, according to the Business Journal.
The Waterside is located in Loudoun County, Virginia, near the new Innovation Center Silver Line metro station, and lately benefits from 3 million square feet of mixed-use development. The assets include the Chantilly crushed stone quarry, which Gudelsky also owns.
Waterside’s assets have been consistently courted and courted by large acquisition deals in recent years. In 2018, Loudoun County and the state of Virginia submitted the site as part of their joint bid for Amazon Headquarters 2; The e-commerce giant eventually split its second headquarters between Crystal CityArray Virginia and Queens, New York.
Four years later, in 2022, Washington commanders set out to acquire the site while the professional football team searched for a new site for the stadium, but Gudelsky ultimately refused.
Kuhn has bought and sold land in Loudoun and Prince William counties in recent years for the development of knowledge centers. That includes 124 acres in Prince William that he negotiated with Microsoft in March for a whopping $465. 5 million, after paying just $47 million for it in 2020.
However, Kuhn’s goal for Waterside, the approval of the agreement, does not seem to come with an average development of knowledge. Kuhn will submit a conceptual plan to Loudoun County later this quarter, he told the Business Journal, which will include residential, commercial, free-standing flex, soft commercial and some entertainment and workplace developments.
Kuhn and Gudelsky did not respond to requests for comment.
In any case, Loudoun County officials seem to have less and less patience with knowledge center assignments. The county Board of Supervisors indicated last month that it would likely reject BlackChamber Group and Fairfield Residential’s proposal for a mixed-use housing and knowledge center allocation in Sterling, Virginia.
Loudoun County lawmakers also began contemplating a law this year that would restrict where knowledge centers can be built in the county, as well as what they look like, while requiring them to expand their own power source rather than connecting directly to the local electrical power networks.
Nick Trombola can be contacted at NTrombola@commercialobserver. com.
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