Fairfax County officials on Wednesday unveiled a campaign to draw tourists to the county’s historically rich southeast, a portion that includes George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate and is set for a massive “Main Street” transformation.

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       The area, recently rebranded as “Potomac Banks,” is situated along the Richmond Highway corridor, which once endured decades of neglect and spotty economic development. It features a mix of palatial homes and low-income apartments.

       State transportation officials are working to expand about 1.5 miles of Richmond Highway, converting the often-clogged thoroughfare from four lanes to six. The county will also add rapid-transit bus lanes, plus bike lanes and walkways — part of a nearly $1 billion “Embark Richmond Highway” plan to create a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of restaurants, hotels and as many as 13,000 homes in what is now mostly a canyon of shopping plazas and fast food eateries.

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       With a 3.1-mile Metrorail Yellow Line extension also planned and several residential developments being built, county officials hope to raise the area’s profile by boosting tourism to the array of historic landmarks in southeast Fairfax, a challenge complicated by fresh coronavirus concerns.

       Supervisor Dan Storck (D-Mount Vernon) said the marketing blitz will add energy to a corridor that — while a short drive from the Mount Vernon estate — had long been associated with isolation: budget motels, old tire shops and scrap yards.

       “This area has long been known as ‘down there,’” Storck said Wednesday during a news conference at Mount Vernon. “Little by little, we’re making a difference. Little by little, we’re bringing folks together. Little by little, we are creating a true ‘South County.’”

       How a tired strip near Washington's estate could be a magnet for residents, tourists

       At the heart of the Potomac Banks campaign is a new tourism improvement district for the area where local businesses contribute to marketing and other programs meant to draw in more customers.

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       Through the campaign, Visit Fairfax — the county’s nonprofit tourism arm — will sell 90-day passes that offer a discount to the area’s historic sites and museums.

       Besides Mount Vernon, those include Washington’s River Farm, George Mason’s Gunston Hall and Woodlawn Estate, once owned by Washington’s nephew and step-granddaughter. The Woodlawn museum also hosts Pope-Leighey House, designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

       County officials said the tourism campaign is meant to draw people to other area attractions as well — such as the Workhouse Arts Center, once the site of a mid 20th-century prison, and the 80-acre National Museum of the U.S. Army that opened at Fort Belvoir in 2020.

       Threading together those sites under one campaign “is not just important for attracting tourism to Fairfax County,” said Jeffrey C. McKay (D), chair of the county’s board. “It’s important also to the people who live in Fairfax County and live in this region because, tragically, too many people who have these assets in their backyard don’t even realize that they have these.”

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       The revitalization effort has, for the most part, received broad support from local community organizations. But some residents have not been pleased by the development plans.

       In September, residents in the historically African American Gum Springs neighborhood protested state plans to add turning lanes on Richmond Highway that would have more than doubled the number of lanes in their neighborhood, to 13.

       Virginia is now revising down those plans after county officials agreed with the residents that the original plan would create a hazard to people who walk or bicycle to get around — upending the idea of building a walkable community.

       Affordable-housing advocates have also argued that too few of the new homes being built are geared toward lower-income families. With property values and rents rising across the region, some of those families are being displaced, said Mary Paden, a leader with the South County Task Force for Human Services.

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       And Paden said the scarcity of homes affordable to families earning 60 percent or less of the area median income — about $77,400 for a family of four — means long waitlists for the less-expensive units.

       “Whenever they put up new affordable housing, they’ve got way too many people applying for it,” she said. “If you have less than 40 percent of the AMI, there is really nothing you can afford.”

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       Visit Fairfax President Barry Biggar said the Potomac Banks campaign will help bring in extra tourism dollars to the county after two years of stunted sales because of the pandemic.

       Biggar noted that in 2019, tourism to Fairfax County generated more than $3 billion annually in economic activity before those numbers began to drop during the pandemic. With worries about the virus abating, the county hopes to draw $4.5 billion annually in tourism dollars by 2027, Biggar said.

       “What we launched today is the beginning of that,” he said.