Another office-to-residential conversion project may be on the horizon in Arlington, this time at a nine-story Ballston building.

Rooney Properties acquired The Ellipse at Ballston, located at 4350 N. Fairfax Drive, last month. The firm considers the property “a candidate for future redevelopment” and residential conversion, vice president Greg Hoffman told ARLnow.

“We’re long-term owners, so anything that has future long-term potential for something else is attractive to us,” Hoffman said. “But in the meantime, it’s a pretty good office building, so we’re going to continue to lease it.”

He added that Rooney intends to “look at every option we can” regarding housing.

The office building was roughly half-leased when Rooney acquired it on April 1 for $20.2 million — about a quarter of the building’s $85 million sales tag in 2006.

Arlington County, meanwhile, assessed the property and building, constructed in 1989, at $44.3 million earlier this year.

The county’s assessment had declined gradually since 2019. James Cassidy, who brokered the sale with Newmark, told ARLnow the previous owner had renovated and was struggling to fill leases.

“Obviously, it had been a challenging time in the market, you know, in the post-covid environment,” Cassidy said.

Rising office vacancy rates coupled with high build-out costs for new tenants have led to “a significant reset in values across the DMV” as of late, Cassidy said.

He added, though, that the market seems to be “trending in the right direction” with return-to-office mandates in the federal government.

A number of office-to-apartment conversion proposals have sprang up since November, when the Arlington County Board adopted a new policy aiming to expedite these projects and alleviate vacancies.

Proposed sites include a six-story Virginia Square office and a 13-story Ballston tower.

Elsewhere in Arlington, Rooney Properties is preparing to redevelop a Walgreens on Langston Blvd with a 12-story residential building and ground floor retail.