Meadowbrook Farm's Retail Plans: What Has Been Approved and What's Next
August 20, 2026
August 20, 2026
In 2012, plans for Meadowbrook Farm included a grocery store of roughly 53,000 square feet, comparable to a new Harris Teeter. The current approvals divide commercial uses between two parcels, and neither has broken ground.
For anyone comparing new-construction communities in south Leesburg, Meadowbrook Farm's site plan shows a future commercial center. The land at Route 15 and Evergreen Mill Road has a development history stretching back to 2004, including proposals and approvals that have changed over time.
Peter Kalaris, president of the company that owned the land before it became Traditional Land LLC, described the plan to a room of prospective homebuyers at Evergreen Mill Elementary School in January 2012. The grocery store would anchor the site at roughly 53,000 square feet, comparable to a typical new Harris Teeter. Retail shops and restaurants would branch out from it, likely including a Starbucks-type coffee shop. Kalaris said groundbreaking realistically wouldn't happen before 2014.
That timeline missed by a decade, and the retail concept changed shape almost every time it came back before the Town Council.
| Year | What Was Proposed | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | ~53,000 sq ft grocery anchor plus additional retail and restaurants | No formal application yet; groundbreaking targeted for 2014 |
| 2017 to 2018 | ~199,000 to 200,000 sq ft commercial center, including a 16-pump gas station and three drive-through restaurants | Planning Commission narrowly endorsed it 4-3; the Town Council denied it 4-1-2 |
| December 2022 | Scaled down to 65 townhomes plus 40,450 sq ft of retail, office, and dining space, with no gas station | Approved 5-2, with Mayor Kelly Burk and Councilwoman Kari Nacy opposed |
| June 2024 | The remaining 8.2-acre parcel, called Land Bay F, reallocated to a 175-unit continuing care facility, a 12,000 sq ft childcare center, 5,000 sq ft of retail, and 14,300 sq ft of office space | Approved, completing the concept plan for the whole property |
The current approvals include 5,000 square feet of retail in Land Bay F and 40,450 square feet of combined retail, office, and dining space in the original commercial parcel. Neither commercial phase has broken ground, and Land Bay F also includes a senior living facility rather than a supermarket.
At the 2018 vote, some residents who had bought homes based on the earlier vision said the revised plan differed from what they had expected. The Town Council voted the application down that June.
Here's the part that matters most if you're deciding whether to buy now. Even the reduced 2022 plan, the one that finally cleared the Town Council, has not started construction. The reason isn't zoning. It's traffic capacity.
Evergreen Mill Road between South King Street and the Heritage High School entrance has carried Meadowbrook Farm's daily traffic on two lanes since the neighborhood's first residents moved in. Widening it to four lanes, with a sidewalk on one side and a shared-use path on the other, has been treated as a prerequisite for any significant commercial activity at the intersection. That widening project has followed its own multi-year sequence:
So as of this month, the infrastructure that would eventually support a grocery store, retail shops, or the townhomes approved back in 2022 is moving from utility relocation toward a construction start expected early this fall. Van Metre, the homebuilder, finished its residential work back in 2023 and confirmed at the time that it was no longer involved in any additional development on the site. The landowner still hadn't selected a developer for the 65 approved townhomes as of that same update.
None of this makes Meadowbrook Farm a bad choice. The homes are well-built, the neighborhood amenities that exist today (the pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, trails, and community garden) are real and functioning, and the location just south of Historic Downtown Leesburg is genuinely convenient. What it does mean is that the commercial center shown on marketing materials and older listing descriptions is not a near-term amenity. It's a long-run possibility tied to a road project.
If a walkable retail corner is part of why you're considering this neighborhood over another in Loudoun County, treat the entitlement history as more reliable evidence than the site plan rendering. Compare current approvals with the commercial features shown in marketing materials. Ask whether the supporting infrastructure has broken ground or is still in utility relocation. The history here shows that proposals can change during review and that construction may follow an approval later.
This is the same lens worth applying to any new-construction community with a phased commercial component: the residential phase almost always finishes first, and the commercial phase is the one most exposed to funding gaps, changed ownership, and infrastructure dependencies that have nothing to do with the homes themselves.
Will Meadowbrook Farm ever get a grocery store? The current approvals include 5,000 square feet of retail in Land Bay F and 40,450 square feet of retail, office, and dining space in the original commercial parcel. Neither commercial phase has broken ground as of August 2026, and neither application specifically names a grocery tenant. The approvals do not specify how much of the 40,450-square-foot parcel would be retail, so whether a full-size grocery store could fit remains an open question.
When will the road widening be finished? The town's most recent update, from early August 2026, states that design is complete and construction is expected to start early this fall. No completion date has been published yet for the full 1.3-mile widening.
What happened to the 65 approved townhomes? As of a December 2023 update from the town, the landowner had not yet selected a developer to build them. Van Metre, which built the 400 single-family homes in Meadowbrook Farm, completed that work in 2023 and stated it was not involved in the townhome or commercial phases going forward. No public update since then has named a builder for the townhome portion.
If you're weighing Meadowbrook Farm against other Loudoun County communities and want a clear read on what's actually entitled, funded, and under construction versus what's still a concept plan, that's the kind of due diligence I do before you write an offer, not after. Let's Connect and I'll walk you through what's real on this site and what to watch for elsewhere.
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Jennifer Liwanag combines luxury real estate expertise with over a decade of home-building experience, offering clients valuable insight into construction, design, and long-term value. She helps buyers and sellers make confident decisions with a unique perspective on how a home looks, functions, and lives.