A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge ended the Town of Herndon’s case over its downtown five acres on September 17. Judge Tania M. L. Saylor granted Comstock Herndon Venture’s motion for summary judgment, denied the town’s, entered a final order at 8:38 that morning, and closed the case.
The docket in Town of Herndon Virginia, The vs. Comstock Herndon Venture LC, case number CL-2025-0010248, is public and free to read through the Fairfax Circuit Court’s eCaseSearch portal. The entry reads: “Final Order entered – TMLS – Comstock’s Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED and Herndon’s Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED.”
The deed stays where it has been since December 14, 2020, in Comstock’s name. Herndon spent roughly twenty-five years assembling that land, conveyed it for free to build a downtown, and asked a court to give it back. The court said no.
The judge’s reasoning went out in an opinion letter emailed to counsel the same day. That letter is not public. The case is closed at the circuit court, and Herndon has until October 19 to note an appeal.
The judge took the trial off the calendar and decided the case on the papers
On September 4, ten days before the trial was set to begin, the Calendar Control judge entered an order stating that the court had both sides’ cross motions for summary judgment under advisement and that its decision “will adjudicate the matter, mooting the need for a trial.” The order removed the September 14 trial date and set a fifteen-minute status hearing for September 25 to enter a final order. The trial was formally continued on September 8.
Herndon’s town attorney told the Town Council on September 7 that the judge had indicated she would rule imminently, that the trial date had come off the calendar as a result, and that staff would notify Council when the opinion arrived. She cautioned that any decision could be appealed.
The court issued the opinion letter and entered the final order on September 17. The September 25 status hearing came off the docket the same day.
Summary judgment is the procedure a court uses when it decides no fact in dispute requires a trial and one side wins on the law as it stands. Both parties asked for it in January and argued it on February 27. Comstock got it.
Three quarters of downtown’s parking demand sits on this block
The parcel occupies the northeast quadrant of the Elden Street and Center Street intersection, bounded by Center, Elden, and Station streets and the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. Herndon bought it in pieces from the early 1990s through 2015.
In its complaint, the town described the site before redevelopment as “blighted with rundown buildings, a culvert, and served mostly as host to 75% of the necessary parking for downtown.” That figure is the town’s own, and it measures demand rather than supply.
Anything built there has to replace that parking before it adds a single new space, which is why the approved plan put a 763-space public garage in the first phase of construction.
The parcel is still surface parking. A construction fence wraps part of it and one building is still standing. The September 17 order changes nothing on the site.
273 apartments, 761 public parking spaces and an arts center stay unbuilt
The Comprehensive Agreement Herndon signed in 2017 called for 280 residential units, rows of street-level retail, a 763-space garage, public plazas built for art exhibits and outdoor seating, and an 18,000 square foot arts center as the anchor.
The design shrank over the following seven years. The apartment count came down to 273. The garage landed at 761 public spaces. The arts center fell to 4,265 square feet in September 2024, a cut of roughly twelve thousand square feet.
None of it exists. Comstock notified the town on December 6, 2024 that it would not proceed with construction. The town exercised its right of re-entry the following January, recorded a declaration terminating Comstock’s interest in February 2025, and sued in July 2025. Our September 11 piece walks through the contract provision both sides were arguing over.
A bookstore closed for a building that is still standing
A Thousand Stories, the bookstore at 750 Center Street, announced its closing on December 4, 2024, because the building was coming down for the redevelopment. Comstock had already told the town on November 19 that it was walking away. The owners could not find a new location. The store closed. The building is still there.
Arts Herndon faced the same displacement from the same building in March 2025, after the project driving it had already collapsed. The town offered the organization part of the police station at 397 Herndon Parkway and committed $343,000 to prepare the 2,000 square foot space. Board chair Michael O’Reilly said it would not accommodate much beyond storage. Arts Herndon is still at 750 Center Street.
Town Council, the Planning Commission and the review boards all meet at 397 Herndon Parkway from October through December while the Municipal Center is renovated.
Four town planning efforts still have to route around a parcel Herndon does not own
Herndon is running a Downtown Action Plan, a Metro Gateway effort, a Washington and Old Dominion corridor initiative, and Herndon 2050, its comprehensive plan update. Every one of them assumes this block gets built.
Mayor Keven LeBlanc told FFXnow in May that the town’s groundwork for a new request for proposals was already done. “The hope is, once we have that deed back, we’ll have everything else already done in work with the community,” he said. That sequence started with the deed. On September 17 the court denied the claim that would have returned it.
Downtown keeps adding tenants around the parcel. Aslin Beer Company anchors 767 Elden Street with a rooftop bar and a restaurant partner. House of Samarkand is opening at 790 Station Street, in the ground floor space Red Kimono left empty for more than two years. The block between them stays a parking lot.
The order states the outcome and nothing else
Four questions the public record does not answer:
- Why the judge ruled this way. The reasoning sits in the September 17 opinion letter, which went to counsel by email. The Fairfax Circuit Court’s public opinion index does not carry it.
- Whether any money moves. Comstock has said it is owed several million dollars in predevelopment costs. The docket entry says nothing about payment in either direction.
- What happens to the recorded termination. Herndon recorded a declaration in the Fairfax land records on February 28, 2025 terminating Comstock’s interest in the property. A recorded instrument like that clouds title until someone releases it. Whether the final order directs a release is not on the docket.
- Whether Herndon appeals. The Town Council agenda for September 22 carries a closed session for consultation with legal counsel, five days after the order.
We have requested the final order and the opinion letter from the Fairfax Circuit Court clerk, and we have asked both the town and Comstock for comment. We will update this post as they come in.
Two clocks started on September 17: October 8 and October 19
October 8 is twenty-one days out. Under Rule 1:1 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia, a circuit court keeps control of its own final order for twenty-one days and can modify, vacate or suspend it in that window. After that the court loses jurisdiction. Filing a motion to reconsider does not extend the window. Only an order suspending or vacating the judgment does.
October 19 is the appeal deadline. Virginia Code 8.01-675.3 gives a party thirty days from a final judgment to file a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Thirty days from September 17 falls on Saturday, October 17, and Virginia’s computation rule carries a deadline that lands on a weekend to the next business day.
A notice of appeal is one short filing. It preserves the right to appeal and starts a process that runs many months. If Herndon files one, the five acres stay as they are while the Court of Appeals works.
Owners and buyers near downtown face a longer horizon
Comstock controls the timeline for these five acres, and Comstock told the town in December 2024 that it would not build the approved project.
A downtown storefront investment gets a longer horizon. The block has been pending since 2017. The wait now runs through the appeal window, a possible appeal, and whatever Comstock decides to do with property it holds free and clear. The town was describing a deed back and a fresh request for proposals as recently as May.
Parking stays as it is. Surface spaces do not disappear into a construction staging area next year. A 761-space public garage does not appear either.
The open question sits at the center of downtown, not under any one address. The Silver Line has served Herndon since 2022, Aslin and the restaurants on Elden draw evening traffic, and the town’s other planning efforts continue. A townhouse two blocks off Elden Street trades on all of that. These five acres are the piece of it with no date attached.
If you own near downtown Herndon or you are weighing a purchase within walking distance of it, this case is a bigger variable in your five-year picture than anything currently on a planning commission agenda. Reach out if you want to talk through what it means for a specific address.
We will update this post when the final order and the opinion letter arrive, and again after the Town Council meets.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
