All In the Family
A family-owned developing company opens new luxury high-rises in Ballston
By David Schultz

IF THERE’S one thing Kelly Shooshan is good at, it’s familial relations. Shooshan is the vice president of the Shooshan Company, a real estate development firm based out of Arlington. Her brother, Kevin, works along side her as a manager. Their father/boss is John Shooshan, the founder and chairman of the company.

“It’s challenging,” Kelly Shooshan said. “The best part of my day is getting to work with my Dad and my brother and sometimes that’s the most challenging part of my day. That’s the best way I can say it.”

She added “I wouldn’t be working for them if I didn’t have a lot of respect and enjoy it.”

RIGHT NOW, the Shooshan clan’s business is thriving. Last week, the Shooshan Company held the opening ceremonies for a pair of new high-rise buildings that feature condos, apartments, office space and retail.

The buildings, known as the Liberty Center, took seven years to complete from their 2001 inception to last week’s opening ceremony. “These are long projects that take a lot of time and a lot of patience,” John Shooshan said.

The Shooshan Company was founded in 1986 and has operated only in Arlington since then. “That’s one of the things I admire about my Dad,” Kelly Shooshan said. “I’ve tried to get him to move into other areas to do development. But he really said that we’re small and we’re going to stick to our knitting.”
One of Shooshan’s first properties was just up the block from the Liberty Center on Quincy Street. “We really know this area,” Kelly Shooshan said. “We’re literally hop scotching down the block.”

THIS COMMITMENT to Arlington has made it easier for the Shooshan Company to navigate the process of getting real estate projects approved by County officials.

At the opening ceremony for the Liberty Center, County Board Vice-Chair Barbara Favola (D) praised the Shooshan Company for striving to comply with the Board’s “smart growth” philosophy towards land
use, which calls for dense, mixed-use development in areas close to public transit hubs.

Like many projects of this style, the Liberty Center features retail stores such as Marvelous Market and Bruegger’s Bagels on its first floor and residences on the upper stories.

“Our smart growth is the best way to grow a community,” she said. “Some would argue that it should be the only way to build a community.”

Favola also praised the Shooshan Company for including some below-market-rate apartments in the Liberty Center for those with lower incomes. “It’s good for our community in many ways,” she said.

HOWEVER, most of the Liberty Center’s condos and apartments are unabashedly luxury dwellings.

Shooshan Company representatives said that making their new units high end was a strategic decision. With the national real estate market plummeting, they said, one of the few sure sells left are luxury residences that offer their residents a bevy of amenities.

The Liberty Center definitely fits into this category. It features a fitness center with state-of-the-art equipment, a private parking garage, a front desk that is staffed 24-hours a day and a rooftop pool that features breathtaking panoramic views of the Washington area.

“We’ve really been thoughtful on what we’ve put in the building so it’s for the up-and-coming market rather than the market right now,” Kelly Shooshan said.

<< back to news articles