If you’ve driven Burgess Road lately, you’ve seen the site work going on right beside LongHorn Steakhouse. I drove past it myself and had to look it up. Here’s what the city’s records say.
The site from the LongHorn parking lot, with the block walls and steel up.
It’s a Discount Tire
Harrisonburg’s development project tracker lists the project at 71 Burgess Road as Discount Tire. The city moved it from Plan Approved to Under Construction in May 2025, and that is still its status today.
One caveat: that name comes from the city’s filing, not from the company. I couldn’t find a public opening date from Discount Tire, so take any date you hear secondhand with a grain of salt.
So what is Discount Tire?
I’ll be honest: I was hoping for a new restaurant. If you were too, you’re not alone. But if you’re curious what’s actually coming, here’s the short version so you don’t have to go looking.
- What it is: a tire and wheel store. Tires, wheels, and the services that go with them (installation, rotation, balancing, flat repair, and tire pressure sensor work). It’s not a general repair garage.
- Who’s behind it: a private company founded in 1960 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, now based in Scottsdale, Arizona, with more than 1,200 stores in 39 states. In parts of the country it operates as America’s Tire.
- What it’s known for: free air pressure checks and free flat repairs, plus free rotation and balancing on tires you bought there. Policies can change, so confirm with the store before you count on it.
- Closest one today: Town Center Drive in Waynesboro, with another on Seminole Trail in Charlottesville. Once this one opens, Harrisonburg drivers won’t need to make that drive.
The site
- Parcel: tax map 014 P 1-A
- Size: about 1.80 acres
- Owner of record: Harman Properties LLC
- Zoning: B-2, general business
- Proffers or conditional zoning: none recorded
Why you never heard about it
The parcel was already zoned for general business, and nothing on the city’s record shows a rezoning or a special use permit. That means this project went through staff-level site plan review and a building permit, not a public hearing in front of City Council.
That’s how a lot of commercial construction happens. No council vote, no newspaper story, just a site plan, a permit, and one day an excavator. If you want to know what could go in on a lot you care about, the zoning map tells you more than the rumor mill does.
Why this matters if you own or are buying nearby
The first question buyers ask about a house near a commercial corridor is “what’s going in over there?” Knowing how to answer it from the public record, instead of guessing, is worth a lot. The same tools that showed me this project will show you what’s approved, what’s under review, and what’s already under construction anywhere in the city.
The bigger picture in Harrisonburg
Citywide, the tracker currently shows:
- 48 projects under construction (709 housing units)
- 30 projects with plans approved (919 housing units)
- 11 projects under site plan review (927 housing units)
Those stages are not equal. Units under construction are the ones reaching the market soon. Site plan review comes years earlier, and some of those projects never get built at all, so treat that last number as a ceiling, not a forecast.
Where this comes from
Everything above comes from the City of Harrisonburg’s published development project tracker, its real estate and ownership records, and its zoning and proffer map layers. Project names are the city’s labels, not announcements from the business or developer, and statuses can change.
See something going up and wondering what it is? Send me the cross streets and I’ll look it up in the public records for you.