It’s the highest spot in Fairfax County, and it may also be a fulcrum for Richmond Highway. The Beacon of Groveton, which is celebrating its grand opening this week, may signify a new direction for development in Mount Vernon. Instead of merely wishing for mixed-use urban development, the Route 1 corridor finally has its own gleaming example. And it’s the first of many to come, with a handful of new developments ready to take up where the Beacon led the way.

“It’s the phoenix rising up from the depths,” said Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerry Hyland. “The fact that it was done in a market that was certainly slow, I think it took courage and some guts for them to move forward.”

When the high-end residential units at the Heights at Groveton open this week, Richmond Highway will begin a new chapter in its long history. A corridor long known for big-box stores and vast parking lots will now feature a new landmark building, one that’s already dominating the skyline where Memorial Street crosses the highway. The building has 290 units that rent for $2.75 to $3 a square foot, with studio apartments starting at $1,600 a month. About 30 of the units are already occupied, and 30 more already have a contract. The building also has 10,000 square feet of retail space, none of which has been rented yet.

“That’s actually pretty common for these mixed-use developments,” said David Ben, marketing director for the Southeast Fairfax Development Corporation. “The way that things typically work is that the retail will follow the residential, and it didn’t used to be that way. This has changed in the last three or four years.”

A lot is riding on the Beacon of Groveton. As the first-of-its-kind urban development, developer Redbrick Partners is hoping that the market for high-end rental properties will emerge in suburban Groveton. The transformation from suburban sprawl to urban scale is one that many people hope will be a sign of things to come along the corridor. A number of projects are in the works, including several new mixed-use developments that will change the landscape of Mount Vernon in the coming years.

“We thought there was a definite need.” Tim Mulcahy, president of Redbrick Development. “We saw what was happening, and we felt that this was an excellent opportunity for us to take advantage of the benefits along the Richmond Highway corridor.”

ONE VISION OF THE FUTURE includes an expanded Yellow Line, moving south beyond Huntington along Richmond Highway through Mount Vernon. That may seem like a distant dream right now, considering the money and politics caught up in building the Silver Line to Dulles International Airport. But Del. Scott Surovell (D-44) has been pushing the issue for years. Although he acknowledges the discussion would take about 15 or 20 years, Surovell says Richmond Highway offers a realistic opportunity to expand the Metro line south.

“It’s not a pipe dream,” said Surovell. “This is prime real estate, and if it had proper infrastructure serving it we would have the same kind of development as Arlington and Alexandria and Tysons Corner.”

Surovell says that the Richmond Highway corridor offers a perfect storm for Metro expansion. Commercial real estate in Cameron Run leases for $5 more per square foot than in Tysons Corner, an indication that demand can support increased development. Whereas the Silver Line is 20 miles long, extending the Yellow Line to Fort Belvoir would only require about eight miles of track. And because of the recent expansion at the fort, more people work there than the Pentagon. There’s even a collapsible wall at the Huntington station.

“It makes much more sense to extend a Metro line [here] than it does to extend it way out into the suburbs like the Silver Line did,” said Surovell. “But we don’t have the infrastructure, and that’s why we need to extend it.”

THE DREAM OF CONVERTING Richmond Highway to a mixed-use urban corridor has been a goal for decades, although the economics have been elusive. Now, after many years of hopes and dreams, the vision is finally poised to become a reality. But some say progress has been too slow.

“Development and revitalization that has taken place on this corridor has lagged behind,” said businessman Kahan Dhillon. “Look at Tysons and Merrifield and Springfield. They’ve all been revitalizing while we’ve been writing studies.”