A delivery-and-service facility for Lucid Motors luxury electric vehicles may be coming to Tysons Galleria.
Fairfax County Planning Commission members on Oct. 20 unanimously recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve a special-exception request by Tysons Galleria Anchor Acquisition LLC to build the 27,642-square-foot facility on the lower level of the former Macy’s department store at the mall’s northern end.
The operation would be located within the former store’s footprint and feature “contemporary-style” architecture, including a glass storefront that wraps around a corner of the building, officials said. The applicant would not make any additions to the building or change its gross floor area.
The facility would operate seven days per week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and have up to 20 employees on site at any given time. There would be a five service bays, a vehicle-pickup area, a place to display vehicles and a customer area in front.
No vehicle sales would occur at the facility and no body or paint work would be performed on vehicles there.
The applicant would use 40 spaces in an adjacent parking garage for vehicle delivery and servicing. Tysons Galleria still would have plenty of parking remaining, said county officials, who noted that while the mall was approved for 2,855 spaces, it provides 3,144.
Based in California’s Silicon Valley, Lucid Motors makes electric vehicles and supplies batteries for Formula E racecars. If approved, the company’s Tysons Galleria site would be its first in the Washington area, said Bernard Suchicital, a land-use planner from Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh who represented the applicant at the public hearing.
“This will be a big step forward in helping to further improve the environment and offer customers and area residents an alternative choice to the internal-combustion engine,” Suchicital said.
Maintenance for the Lucid Motors vehicles largely includes “just swapping out batteries, putting a little bit of grease on the wheels and polishing the paint,” he added.
The company’s base vehicle starts at about $75,000, so it is unlikely that the site would receive an overwhelming amount of customer traffic, said Planning Commission member John Ulfelder (Dranesville District).
The new facility would have 10 electric-vehicle charging stations that would be available not only for its customers, but also to other visitors at the mall, Suchicital said. Nine of the stations would be “Level 2” models, which charge vehicles in about four hours, and one station would be a faster-charging “Level 3” model, he said.
Lucid Motors also hopes to have a showroom at Tysons Corner Center, said Planning Commission member Phillip Niedzielski-Eichner, who moved to recommend approval of the proposal.
“As such, Tysons Galleria, Tysons Corner Center and Lucid Motors capture the spirit of Tysons’ continued evolution toward a modern urban center driven by innovation, rebirth, repurposing and resiliency,” he said.
The Board of Supervisors is slated to review the applicant’s proposal on Nov. 9.